Electronics Weekly
The display can be stretched, folded and twisted opening up design applications for unusual form factors that can accommodate unusual places or space restrictions. Stretchable displays are thin and lightweight and can adhere to curved surfaces, including clothing and skin, for potential applications in wearable and mobility devices as well as fashion pieces.
The prototype featured a 12-inch screen that can be stretched up to 18 inches without disrupting the resolution of 100ppi (pixels per inch) or the full red, green, and blue (RGB) colour.
The display improves the earlier development work which saw a stretchable panel extend by 20%. This gain has been achieved through improving the properties in the silicon material substrate and developing a new wiring design structure and using a micro-LED light source of up to 40μm. LG Display reported that durability had also been improved and that the display can be repeatedly stretched over 10,000 times, while “maintaining clear image quality even in extreme environments such as exposure to low or high temperatures and external shocks”.
LG Display is the lead company in a national project to develop stretchable display, working with South Korean industry and research institutes. At the LG Science Park demonstration, the company exhibited examples of applications which including a convex automotive panel and a wearable display attached to a firefighter’s uniform showing real-time information. The project is part of wider project to develop core display technologies, promoted by South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and the Korea Planning & Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology.
