With the rise of the wearable smart devices, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) showcases many futuristic, wearable devices with interactive touch control functions at Touch Taiwan 2014 with the theme of "Smart Living, Keep in Touch". Such devices include a wearable and foldable AMOLED wrist band with interactive touch control and display functions. Another highlight of the showcased product is a gesture-controllable Smart Glass which can be used as a smart phone and camera. In addition, 30 items in materials, display panels, and manufacturing processes for display and touch control devices will be displayed, aiming to create a smarter living supported by instinct-driven devices.
According to Janglin Chen, Vice President and General Director of ITRI’s Display Technology Center, because the wearable devices require the characteristics of light weight, slimness, small size, and flexibility, the ultra-slimness and flexibility of AMOLED are ideal properties for making wearable devices. In order to build up the supply chain of AMOLED of Taiwan and enable Taiwan's manufacturers to cater for the international market, ITRI developed Foldable AMOLED with On-Cell Touch which can be folded 10,000 times over a curve formed with a 7.5 mm radius. The thickness of the module is less than 0.1 mm. The module is developed with the FlexUp™ technology which makes the display module flexible, difficult to break, water and oxygen-resistant, super light and thin.
The display module can bring more applications which are beyond our imagination. ITRI integrates touch control panel with display panels, and plans to apply "the active foldable organic light emitting display modules" for making innovative hand-held devices to realize the product concept -- "when unfolded it is a tablet, and when folded it is a smart phone". The innovative product will create next generation business opportunities for AMOLEDs. According to the IEK of ITRI, world sales of touch control display hit US$31.4 billion, and will reach US$43.7 billion. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2013 through 2017 is expected to reach 12.5%. Over the past few years, the touch control display products have been growing tremendously. The use of touch control displays has been spread from smart hand-held devices to a wide range of terminal devices.
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Taiwan announces foldable AMOLED with on-cell touch for the first time. ( All Photos Courtesy of ITRI)
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The Foldable AMOLED With On-cell Touch
The 6-inch foldable smart phone display ITRI announces is: "a tablet when unfolded, a smart phone when folded". It integrates active organic LED modules and touch control software. When the display is unfolded, a user can select video play list and watch the video. Even when the display is folded, the device will keep on playing the video. Even after the display has been folded 10,000 times, its touch control functions the same way. The device is a breakthrough of the traditional display panel which cannot be folded. ITRI integrates touch control panel and display panel to make semi-finished elements which can be used by whole-system smart phone makers. ITRI’s Foldable Touch AMOLED module will be employed in the next generation handheld devices due to its foldable characteristics.
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Wearable AMOLED with Touch.
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Wearable AMOLED with Touch
ITRI developed a 6-inch lightweight conformal, at a radius of 50mm, impact-resistant interactive flexible AMOLED integrated with projective capacitive touch and user interface technology. As opposed to traditional glass display device, its conformal and unbreakable properties made it ideal for wearable and next generation applications such as law enforcement and military applications.
Tri-fold AMOLED which can be bended inward and outward
This technology integrated ITRI’s unique PI barrier technology with low-stress thin film transistor technology and high-reliability Flexible OLED encapsulation technology to develop a Flexible AMOLED that can be bent both in-wards and out-wards at a bending radius of 5mm. This feature will enable a novel killer application for handheld device, which is a smart phone when folded and a tablet when unfolded.
ITRI also showcases the following key technologies of display and touch at Touch Taiwan 2014 demonstrating ITRI’s abundant R&D capacity, include: Flexible OLED film, Cover Glass Hydrophobic Surface Treatment, Fine-line Printing Technology for Touch Modules, AMOLED Fine Metal Mask, 300℃ Colorless PI Hybrid Substrate, Silver Nanowire-based Transparent Conductive Materials, Flexible Transparent Thin-film Encapsulation Adhesive, Ultra-Thin Circular Polarizer, Anti-scratch Layer Material for Foldable Display, Touchscreen Test for User Experience, Non-contact Resistance Measurement Module, The Multilayer Film Delamination Defect Detection System.
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