Shattered screens on mobile devices are extremely common. Even with the latest advances in industrial design and products like Corning’s durable Gorilla Glass, a short drop is often enough to turn a silky-smooth smartphone or tablet screen into a spider web of jagged edges. If you’re lucky, it’ll only be the external glass that shatters and the underlying panel itself will remain intact and functional. But often, especially when devices are dropped from “ear height”, the entire screen assembly is a goner.
Samsung may have a solution. The company has been working to create unbreakable panels for its mobile devices for a number of years. Its most recent announcement, however, brings the technology much closer to market. A couple of days ago, Samsung announced that it had created an OLED display panel that is not only flexible, but unbreakable as well. And it isn’t only Samsung’s marketing team making the lofty claim; the panel has been evaluated by UL (Underwriters Laboratories) which certified the panel as “unbreakable”.
“The fortified plastic window is especially suitable for portable electronic devices not only because of its unbreakable characteristics, but also because of its lightweight, transmissivity and hardness, which are all very similar to glass,” said Hojung Kim, general manager of the Communication Team, Samsung Display Company.
Samsung achieved this feat by bonding an unbreakable substrate and a highly durable overlay to the flexible OLED panel. Fortifying the panel from both sides is what gives it its strength.
UL tested the panel by dropping it 26 time from a height of 4 feet and exposing it to temperatures ranging from a balmy 71 degrees to an ultra-cold -32, as outlined by the military standards of the U.S. Department of Defense. UL didn’t stop there, though. Samsung’s panel was also dropped from a height of 6 feet, which exceeds the mil-spec, but the panel continued to operate with no visible signs of damage.
Samsung hasn’t announced specifically where it plans to use this panel, but expects it’ll be a good fit for the automobile, military, portable game console, and educational tablet market, among others.
