What you need to know about flexible display technology

Overview

Now, the demands of the consumer market from the technological devices is not only limited to the aspects like performance, quality, efficiency, etc. People want more. It is because of this the electronic equipments like the computer screens are getting thinner, slimmer but wider. But the demand of the consumer market can never be fulfilled completely. They need more. They would be happy, if the screens can be folded and inserted into the pocket when not in use and opened up to become a fully functioning screen when needed. This gave to the rise to the emergence of flexible technology.

Flexible display

Recently, at the Flexible Display Center in Arizona State University, the HP lab and the E Ink, a concern of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, made flexible displays on sheets of specially created plastics manufactured by DuPoint. Since the project is sponsored by the American army, so its initial users are supposed to be them, who are expected to use it for information exchanges and electronic mapping. If it works, it is sure to hit the retail market soon due to its lighter weight and cost-effectiveness as compared to bulky LCD screens.

What’s Great?

Flexible display technology is sure to be top favorite due to certain advantages.

1. The most important advantages of these “electrophoretic” flexible displays are that they have much lighter weight in a convenient foldable look and consume just fractions of power in comparison to greater consumptions in LCD displays.

2. What makes it more advantageous is that they are easier to make than the difficult and costly processes involved in LCD screens. The manufacturing of these flexible displays is supposed to be carried on by means of the batch process method, in the sites that produce silicon chips. This batch process of manufacturing will also be beneficial in identifying minutest of defects in the materials or the lack of alignment of the layers that need to be set together to form the screens. As a consequence, 20% or more of the batches can be scrapped immediately, without much hassle or wastage of huge money.

3. The simple structure and the use of the existing manufacturing process and color dyes makes the production cost much cheaper too.

4. Another great thing about these screens is that they do not need to use any back light for making clear visibility of the things shown on the display screen as that required by the LCDs. The technology used here is totally different. It is based on AMOLED (active matrix organic light emitting diode) emission display technology, which is quite popular by now in cell phones and other such mobile devices. Thus, it works using electronic ink and have been provided with small capsules, arranged as pixels, behind the layer of the display screen. These capsules contain white particles, which are positively charged and black particles, which are negatively charged. Thus, when the electricity flows through them, either the black comes to the top of each of these capsules, making the white ones remain at bottom or vice versa. Once the images are formed on the screen, they do not draw any further power. The screen only draws further electricity when the images change. The screen also modulates the mode of display according to the reflected light, just as you will do when reading a sheet of paper in a bright light or a dark ambiance.

5. The screen offers minimum glare as it is non-reflective due to total absence of back light. This characteristic feature also makes convenient for the users to stay glued on to a particular thing rather than being disturbed by constant refreshments. This makes it extremely user friendly for E-book applications, shelf labeling of retail and supermarkets, making ID badges, etc.

What’s not so Great?

Together with the great aspects of the technology, there are not so great ones too.

1. Although the concept of drawing light to illuminate the images displayed on the touch screens appear to be a smarter method, but it has something which is not so great.The signals used have chances of getting distorted. As a consequence, the image quality becomes inferior.

2. The delay in the time of refreshment also deprive the users from viewing moving pictures. Again, the black and white capsules, which act as pixels for image are not equipped to display colored images.

Verdict

Although the touch screen flexible suffers from few obvious drawbacks, but the experiments are being carried on at the Flexible Display Center and other such institutions to resolve these limitations. The next goal is to achieve flexible EWD (elector-wetting displays) for getting colorful and moving pictures. This suggests that it will soon replace the LCD screens that are great power consumers, almost 60% heavier in weight.