Alongside high resolution and energy efficiency, design freedom, immersiveness and interactivity are key market trends and needs in the display industry. Flexible solutions for new OLED display designs are serving the free-form trend by providing clear user benefits and supporting the highest growth rates in the OLED display industry.
Contrary to the flat, rectangular shape of standard displays, free-form OLED displays offer custom shapes and novel design features with surfaces that can be bent, folded, stretched, or rolled. To enable these properties, the display materials in these devices must be thin yet robust to prevent display stress caused by continuous folding and rolling. Compared to standard displays, free-form OLED screens require the display module to be about 60% thinner.
*Thickness requirement from rigid OLED to foldable OLED display (OLED & Flexible Display Tech Tracker 4Q 2020, OMDIA)
To address the key design trend of foldable, rollable and stretchable displays as well as to drive the innovative solutions required, we have developed a new portfolio of products: liviFlex™ – our flexible platform.
Display layouts need to be thinner yet robust under deformation without impacting performance in order to enable the free-form factor. With these parameters in mind, the liviFlex™ portfolio has been created to offer a set of new solutions that operate in unison in the device.
In introducing the liviFlex™ portfolio of products, we are maintaining our leadership in display materials and striving to serve key trends in the display industry.
liviFlex™ is a curious technology platform in constant search for new ideas and products to enable next generation of display devices.
Cover film layout is a complex multilayered system with a delicate function-based balance between the layers. liviFlex™-H can be introduced to layouts containing either plastic substrates or ultrathin glass, applied by a roll-to-roll coating process.
Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany offers certified OLED materials for commercial products and strives to help advance such devices through new market solutions. liviFlex™ aims to cover market solutions that require highly innovative and engineered solutions to enable free-form displays. liviFlex™ focuses on key functional layers in the display layout, including, but not limited to, cover films, ultrathin polarizers and organic encapsulation layers.
