Samsung: Quantum-Dot OLED Displays Thin Enough for Future Scrollable Devices

Our other IP site Patently Mobile has been following Samsung’s work on display technology for years and scrollable displays since at least 2015 (01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08 and 09).  This week the U.S. Patent Office published a new Samsung patent application (20220113764) relating to a future smartphone with a scroll-out display to enlarge the display as shown in our cover graphic. The images below are from this week’s patent filing. More importantly, this week Samsung revealed that their latest project is to produce a Quantum-Dot OLED panel that could be used in rollable/scrollable display devices. This news could be positive for Apple too, as they have several patents supporting future devices with scrollable displays.

In November 2020, Chinese smartphone vendor OPPO announced the industry’s first scrollable smartphone that would debut in Q4 2021. Instead, they introduced the “OPPO Find N” folding smartphone to compete with Samsung.

While it’s unknown why OPPO dropped the ball debuting the World’s first viable scrollable display based smartphone, this week it was revealed that Samsung is now working on the development of flexible, scrollable displays. Samsung Display is a leader in display technology and the leading supplier for high-end iPhone displays. In fact, just yesterday we posted a report titled “Samsung will be the Exclusive supplier of OLED Displays for the iPhone 14 Pro Model…”

Did OPPO’s scrollable display fail in testing? Did Samsung make a deal with OPPO for future scrollable displays? While that remains a mystery, this week Samsung revealed they’ve begun to develop a thinner Quantum-Dot OLED (QD-OLED) panel for future rollable/scrollable devices.

According to The Elec, The aim is to reduce the use of glass substrates from the current two to one, sources said. More importantly, if the Samsung Display panel succeeds, then the new version of QD-OLED will also be rollable.

This could be good news for industry players like Apple too, as they have a series of scrollable device patents on record (01, 02, 03, 04 and more). No doubt Samsung  want’s to be the number one supplier for this new scrollable display market and especially for Apple in the future.  Below is one Apple patent figure of a scrollable display. 

Samsung Display’s new project is aiming to remove the QD color conversion layer glass substrate at the top so that it’s thin enough to become viable for future rollable displays.

Prior to producing QD-OLED in a rollable format, Samsung and Sony will be introducing the thinner next-gen QD-OLED TVs this year along with a new computer display for Dell. For more on this, read the full report from The Elec.

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