The active area of a display panel is used for showing images on the screen. The majority of the front part of the display panel (the visible side of the display) is taken up by the active area, which largely consists of pixels, while the rest of the front of the display panel is called the dead space (also often referred to as bezel), reserved for the electrical wiring required to operate the pixels and bonding on the side.

The display industry has been continuously working towards maximizing the active area and minimizing dead space in order to enhance the immersive experience with a large active area for the users and to improve the design of the final product. Minimization of the dead space by placing all the sensors at the bottom of the display panel was one of the efforts to have as large an active area as possible. Recently, a punch-hole display that has a hole-shaped cutout on the active area has been adopted to provide an ultimate full screen.