LG has been in an arms race with Samsung over bendable and curved mobile devices. While Samsung has won most of the skirmishes (it came out with the Galaxy Round before LG released the G Flex), LG may start a winning streak with larger devices.
The company announced that it has come up with a flexible 18-inch OLED display panel that can be rolled into a cylinder that's just three centimeters across. The prototype high-definition TV, which has a resolution of 1200 pixels by 810 pixels with almost 1 million megapixels, can be rolled up without causing any damage to the display. This means that the TV can be stored like a yoga mat when it's not in use.
"LG Display pioneered the OLED TV market and is now leading the next-generation applied OLED technology," LG Display Senior Vice President and Head of R&D Center In-Byung Kang said in a press release.
The bendable TV was just half of LG's revelations in the home entertainment front. The company also revealed a transparent, semi-opaque display, which, as it claims, has 30% transmittance. This is significantly higher than the 10% transmittance on previous iterations of transparent LCD screens. The higher transmittance, which is due to what LG calls its "pixel design technology," means that objects behind the TV screen can be seen more clearly.
With the new prototype, LG claims that it has proven that rollable TVs that are bigger than 50 inches can be mass produced in the near future. The company was able to enhance the flexibility of the OLED displays and decrease its thickness by using polyimide film the backplane for the panels. According to LG, polyimide film allowed the screens to reach its maximum curvature radius, something which normal plastic could not.
LG did not provide a release date for the bendable panels, however, it will be at least a few years before it comes up with a rollable TV thats ready for people's living rooms. "We are confident that by 2017, we will successfully develop an Ultra HD flexible and transparent OLED panel of more than 60 inches, which will have transmittance of more than 40 percent and a curvature radius of 100R, thereby leading the future display market," In-Byung Kang said.
