The age of flexible and deformable displays is drawing nearer. Sony recently debuted its latest in OLED technology: a 4.1 inch screen that's only 80 microns thick. The super flexible display can roll up into a cylinder just 4 mm in diameter while still showing moving images at 432°--240 resolution! Instead of brittle integrated circuit chips, the flexible screen has an on-panel gate driven circuit – a world first according to Sony. That innovation would allow everything but the power supply to roll and flex in applications. Check out the amazing screen in action in the video below:
Sony's unnamed prototype is far from the first flexible display we've seen. Samsung has a folding OLED screen that is creeping towards market, and HP has a thin flexible display that is getting ready for mass production. However, Samsung doesn't have their control circuits flexing with the screen, and HP's displays break after rolling it up a half dozen times (they are meant to hold a contoured shape, not flex repeatedly). The Sony screen has been rolled and unrolled more than a 1000 times while still working, and it displays an image the entire time!
