Samsung Display will be the first company in the mobile industry to commercialise its foldable display tech, Samsung announced last week.
The company will be the first phone maker to sell the ultra-thin glass (UTG) used in its foldable devices to other manufacturers.
Samsung expects that the glass – which was first introduced on the new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip phone this month – will be adopted by other foldable devices when the demand for the new trend rises.
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Samsung’s “Tough, yet Tender” UTG is made flexible and durable through an intensifying process, while remaining incredibly thin at just 30㎛ (or 0.03mm). The glass is then injected with a “special material up to an undisclosed depth” to harden the display.
“With our existing polyimide cover window, development of the new extremely flexible UTG cover window ‘Samsung UTG’ now enables us to meet more demanding customer needs,” said Samsung Display vice president of mobile display marketing team Dennis Choi.
“Clearly, Samsung UTG is a highly enticing manufacturing alternative which serves as another important example of our dedication to technology advancement and manufacturing excellence”.
French international certification agency Bureau Veritas has successfully put the UTG through 200,000 fold tests to check the display’s durability, while Samsung Display has filed to trademark “Samsung Ultra-thin Glass” in 38 countries, including the US, China and much of the EU.
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The company has been liaising with another Korean company to commercialise the foldable display tech since 2013.
While Samsung has not revealed who might purchase the new display tech, it could provide a route for a higher number of phone companies to introduce their own foldable devices to the market.
So far, only Samsung, Huawei, Motorola and Royole have released phones with foldable displays, though Oppo, LG and Xiaomi have also offered hints that they could have a foldable device in the works. We’ll have to wait and see if more companies decide to hop on the foldable bandwagon with the help of Samsung’s UTG.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.