Flexible displays: Three ways FlexEnable can help you with your product concept
Desi Aleksandrova, Marketing Communications Manager
May 08, 2017
Product companies often contact us because they need a solution for a new product design that incorporates an active display. While glass-based LCDs - the most popular display technology today - are available off-the-shelf in different sizes, they are flat and rigid so they cannot meet designers’ evolving requirements for next generation product designs.
There is an increased demand for thin and light displays that can be wrapped around surfaces while still providing perfect image and video quality. Flexible AMOLED displays exist, but they have a much higher price tag, and are only manufacturable in small sizes, and have shorter lifetimes than LCD.
Unlocking product innovation with flexible displays
For certain products, such as cars, it is becoming increasingly difficult to accommodate large and flat displays in an ergonomically optimised interior design where every other surface is curved. Conformed and shaped displays will be increasingly featured in future car models, where they will be curved around the A-pillar of the car to eliminate the blind spot, or around the dashboard and other surfaces.
Digital signage has multiple applications across industries including retail and transportation where displays are widely used for advertising, branding and promotion. Glass-based displays (typically LCDs) limit where and how they can be used as they are rigid and heavy. Flexible displays are not only thin and light, but they can also be conformed to the shape of buildings, around pillars and curved walls and other surfaces.
Consumer electronics is another sector, for which flexible displays will open up new applications and use cases. Thanks to their unique properties, flexible displays can be bent and conformed to the product shape without compromising comfort and aesthetics. Home appliances, digital assistants and wearables are only some of the products that can benefit from the increased utility and functionality flexible displays offer.
Sourcing flexible displays for your product concept
A few years ago, designing a product that features a curved, full colour and video-rate display may have seemed like a far-fetched idea, but times have changed. LCD technology is evolving, and conformable organic LCDs (OLCDs) are already a real option for product designers. FlexEnable’s OLCD platform provides the same optical performance as glass LCD technology with the added benefits of being thin, light-weight, robust and conformable.
Here are three ways FlexEnable can help you with your product innovation project:
Depending on your requirements and specific application, we may suggest different options. We can provide OLCD evaluation kits to facilitate your design process and take your idea to the next level. For applications where our standard evaluation kits are not a perfect fit for the application, we can make displays in custom sizes and shapes.
- Support and advice during the design phase
We want your product concept to succeed as much as you do. Therefore, we will assist you with the integration of the display in your product and support you with field tests. Through our prototyping lab we have a lot of experience in designing and integrating curved, conformed displays onto curved surfaces.
- Design of high volume production process
One of the biggest benefits of FlexEnable’s OLCD platform is that the manufacturing processes are compatible with existing LCD production lines minimising the time-to-market as well as the costs and risk of adoption. For many applications such as automotive and digital signage, a qualified supply chain for LCD already exists, which facilitates adoption. We will work with you to plan the volume production solution calling on FlexEnable’s manufacturing partners.
With its leading OLCD technology, FlexEnable gives partners access to groundbreaking technology that is ready for production and can be incorporated and tested in products immediately. If you are looking for flexible displays for your product innovation, get in touch with us at info@flexenable.com.
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