• Has just supplied its low-power OLED panel featuring ‘Adaptive Frequency’ technology to Oneplus and OPPO
  • Low-power OLED display technology key to accommodating increased smartphone usage from pandemic-triggered hikes in virtual interaction and steady 5G network expansion

After premiering ‘Adaptive Frequency’ low-power OLED display technology on the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 smartphone late last year, Samsung Display said it is seeing increasing interest from other global manufacturers for these power-saving display panels, which are well-suited to 5G phones.

OPPO, the largest smartphone manufacturer in China, is the first Chinese smartphone maker to adopt the Adaptive Frequency technology. OPPO’s new flagship lineup, the ‘Find X3’, features the Samsung Display’s OLED panel with a refresh rate* that varies depending upon the application in use. OPPO said that it is seeing its premium phone’s total power consumption cut as much as 46 percent.

Samsung Display’s Adaptive Frequency technology minimizes power consumption by automatically adjusting a display’s refresh rate for the application being used at any given moment. For instance, the adaptive refresh rate enables the OLED panel to reach 120Hz when playing a fast-moving mobile game, 60Hz while streaming a movie, and 30Hz or less when viewing e-mail or texting. Moreover, it can allow a refresh rate below 10Hz when the smartphone user is looking at photographs and other still images. This remarkable flexibility can sharply reduce the total amount of power consumed each day.

As telecommuting, phone-connected family interaction and 5G smartphone usage continue to grow, more smartphone producers are considering Samsung Display’s low-power OLED display technology to meet surging demand for power-hungry flagship phones.

Besides OPPO’s use of Adaptive Frequency technology, Samsung Display also has supplied a 6.7-inch panel featuring the technology to Oneplus for its new ‘Oneplus 9 Pro’ flagship phone. Smartphones of Oneplus are attracting enormous attention in the U.S. and in key emerging markets, for delivering power-saving, differentiated performance.

“Samsung Display’s innovative low-power OLED technology is expected to enable the Oneplus 9 Pro to provide consumers with a number of reasonable battery-saving choices and a more environmentally-conscious user experience in the process,” said Oliver Zhang, vice president of Product Team at Oneplus.

In addition to OPPO and Oneplus, Samsung Display is in discussions with other major global smartphone producers to further advance its low-power OLED displays. This includes developing low-power materials and optimizing more power-efficient technologies such as when minimizing display circuits.

A Samsung Display spokesperson said, “Over the past several years, our priority has been bringing the best image quality and most innovative designs to our OLED display panels. But moving forward, we also will lead the low-power OLED technology space, as we modernize other aspects of the panels, in dedicating ourselves to delivering the most user-friendly displays worldwide.”

Footnotes
* Refresh (or Scan) Rate: The number of frames that a display panel delivers in one second. For example, a 120Hz refresh rate accounts for 120 frame changes per second. The higher the scan rate, the more lively and natural-appearing are the images viewed.