Using plastic instead of glass substrates enables panel manufacturers to create bendable, flexible LCDs for mobile and consumer electronics applications. Samsung claims it has created the largest flexible display to date: The 7-inch prototype achieves VGA resolution.
On the performance side, the display 640 x 480 pixel resolution (VGA) at 114 ppi, which is in line with other types of bendable displays. The aperture ratio of the device is rated at 40 percent, the brightness at 100 nits and the color saturation at 60 percent. Samsung claims that the specs are sufficient to make plastic substrates a viable alternative to glass substrates even for digital TVs.
Flexibility is considered to be the next major step for LCD technology. Used already in Japan in the advertising industry, bendable screens are typically based on OLED variants. For example, Fujitsu recently announced an OLED-based "electronic paper," that includes non-volatile image memory, which can store and display a static color image without power supply.
