Samsung does amazing things with impossibly thin AMOLED prototype

The bendy AMOLED display in this prototype media player hasn't made it that far outside of Samsung's secret development lair, but it's a glimpse of what our mobile future could will be.

The 4.5 inch AMOLED display behind that prototype above is made out of a plastic substrate that's been fused to a steel foil. It has a respectable WVGA resolution (840 x 480), it's nice and bright, plays full motion video, and it bends. A lot. You can supposedly roll it up into a little cigar with a radius of one single centimeter, although I couldn't convince the Samsung guy to do it for me.


All the flexibility comes from fact that the display is very, very, very thin. At about 0.3mm in cross-section, it's so thin that it basically disappears when you view it edge-on:


You can click on the picture to enlarge it but it won't help; the display just vanishes in profile.

Samsung says that the prototype will eventually show up in smart phone and tablet PC displays, and they're already working on mass production. They did have a working media player (check out the gallery for a few extra pics) that encased the display in protective plastic, but I'm looking forward to the day when I can just roll up my entire phone and stick it behind my ear when I'm not using it.

Via Samsung SMD
