Samsung Mobile Display hints at tough OLED plans

Samsung Mobile Display has struck a deal with Corning to use its Lotus Glass for OLED screens. The joint venture will operate out of Korea. Although Samsung will be a core customer, the two will supply glass substrates for many companies using OLEDs.

The deal also won't be limited to smartphones or tablets, and it should ultimately scale to fuller computing devices and TVs.

Lotus Glass may be critical to OLED in the long run. The follow-up to Gorilla Glass is designed to hold up to higher-temperature displays and to be strong enough to protect newer, thinner display technology underneath. Corning's technique is also more tolerant of bending and could help with further curved displays like that on the Galaxy Nexus as well as for impact resistance, since it could sometimes bend rather than shatter.

A large part of the industry uses Gorilla Glass with LCDs and OLEDs today, including Apple, although only some use OLEDs. Increased production at Samsung as well as improvements that clear up past visual artifacts have made OLED more realistic than it has been in the past, however, and it may be key to slimming down future smartphones and tablets.

By Electronista Staff