Flexible LED displays delayed

Over the past few years, there has been much talk about the future of the display market and the types of products that we can expect to see arriving, with many predicting that flexible screens will be the next big thing.

The emergence of organic LED displays has made it possible for companies like Samsung to start experimenting with the addition of flexible properties to screens that would otherwise be rigid. Earlier in 2013, it was reported that we might be seeing the first few products with this kind of capability hitting the market.

However, a report from South Korean site, Etnews, suggests that Samsung has encountered some issues with the production of flexible screens, which might lead to the delay of such an arrival.

The problem apparently boils down to something called encapsulation technology, which basically provides the display with protection against the elements.

Although Samsung can achieve acceptable levels of encapsulation on the production line, the process apparently takes too long to complete, which makes the creation of flexible LED displays a little too expensive and time-consuming to be practical.

Samsung has been able to sort out previous issues encountered in the production of flexible LED displays, such as the availability of a suitably malleable plastic substrate, although this new issue is apparently something that had not been foreseen.

With flexible LED displays on the way, we could soon see flexible smartphones and tablets, as well as screens produced for commercial signage and information.

Flexibility obviously endows a screen with far more resilience than is available to rigid displays, because it will be able to bend and take pressure, which would otherwise result in damage if it was brittle. Hopefully, the production problems will be overcome and flexible displays will enter the markets before the end of 2013.