Samsung has been promising flexible OLED displays in 2012, but a new report suggests that the company had to delay mass production of flexible OLEDs due to technical issues. Specifically, it seems that Samsung is struggling with the low yields in their LITI process. According to the report, they are attempting a hybrid patterning process - FMM for blue sub-pixels and LITI for the red and green ones.
On a positive note, the report says that it's possible that Samsung will overcome the technical issues fast enough to introduce a first device (smartphone?) in the first half of 2013. Back in April Samsung announced that it will brand its flexible OLEDs as YOUM displays. As we said before, the plan was to release these OLEDs in 2012.
Samsung's flexible AMOLEDs will be fabricated on a plastic (Polyimide) substrate and will be able to withstand high temperature (up to 350-400 degrees). The displays can be bendable - but we assume that the first products will use them inside rigid glass cases - so it'll actually be "curved" displays and not flexible ones. A plastic based AMOLED will be shatterproof, and will also be lighter and thinner compared to glass based OLEDs.
This is good news for LG Display, who plans to to start mass producing flexible OLED panels in the second half of 2013. LG Display's flexible OLEDs will use the same technology as Samsung's flexible prototypes - a polyimide coated substrate and direct-emission RGB sub-pixels (as opposed to LG's OLED TV which use WOLED with color filters).
