On January 8 (local time), Samsung Display unveiled an array of innovative products at CES 2024, which was held in Las Vegas, USA. Guided by the theme All-in Innovative Tech: Paving the New Journey, Samsung Display prepared an exhibition to showcase its dynamic next-generation display products for both its partners and media. Join us as we dive into Samsung Display's new journey, positioning itself at the forefront of the fast evolving display industry.
Samsung OLED: The Epicenter of Display Innovation
At CES 2024, Samsung Display strategically organized its exhibition space into two major categories: large QD-OLED and small and medium-sized OLED, offering a diverse range of future display experiences. Within the small and medium-sized OLED exhibition area, which was divided into four distinct zones (Smartphone, IT, Automotive, and XR), visitors can immerse themselves in unique display technologies and ultra-high-resolution products designed for specific applications. Meanwhile, the expansive QD-OLED exhibition space, segmented into three zones (Technology Evolution, TV, and Monitor), provides an insightful look into Samsung Display's technological advancements and products that have continuously evolved. Now, let's explore some of the groundbreaking products that defined the innovation at CES 2024.
Elevating Flexibility with Enhanced Foldable Phones
Embracing the theme of Easy to Flex, Tough to Break - OLED for Smartphone, the OLED for Smartphone Zone showcases Samsung Display's inventive technologies and products designed for optimal smartphone experiences. The Flex In & Out™ Flip, a standout product, employs In & Out Foldable technology in the recently popular flip phone-type foldable, enabling a 360-degree fold. Unlike traditional in-folding form factors that require a second panel on the outside for information viewing when folded, the Flex In & Out™ Flip boasts a streamlined design with a single display for viewing information while folded, offering a lighter and thinner profile. What sets the Flex In & Out™ Flip apart is its versatility. It is designed to accommodate various devices, including smartphones and tablets, depending on the folding configuration. Additionally, the screen can be folded inward for convenient storage, providing added protection against external shocks.
The Flex Liple: Lightweight and Simple
The Flex Liple stood out among the showcased Flex line-up products, generating the most enthusiastic response from visitors. The design concept, which combines the words “light” for lightweight and “simple” for easy access to existing Flex features, captured the attention of both the media and visitors. This innovative display serves multiple purposes, allowing users to check the time, make payments, and receive message notifications, even when folded.
Flex Hybrid™: Where Fold Meets Slide
Samsung Display introduced Flex Hybrid™ at CES 2023, a dual tech marvel that seamlessly integrates foldable and slidable features. When the foldable display is folded, information remains accessible by unfolding the slidable display. Furthermore, unfolding both displays provides an immersive video experience on a wider screen.
Indomitable Durability, Defying the Harshness of Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and Ice! Basketball-Proof Resilience
This year’s exhibition included rigorous durability tests to show the strength of Samsung Display's foldable technology. Demonstrating its capacity to endure some of the harshest conditions, Samsung’s foldable technology was tested by folding panels in temperatures ranging from 60-degrees and minus 20-degrees, bouncing basketballs off foldable panels, rubbing smartphones in sand, immersing them in water. Testing Samsung's foldable technology against the five elements demonstrated its ability to withstand even the most challenging environments.
OLEDs Redefine the IT landscape with Sheer Scale and Sleek Design
Embracing the More Enormous, More Efficient theme, the OLED display in the IT Zone presented Samsung Display's impressive range of large-scale and sleek OLED products. It showcased Samsung Display's competitive edge in the IT sector, especially amid the ongoing shift from liquid crystal displays (LCDs) to OLEDs.
Ultra Thin (UT) OLED panels features an impressive 0.6 mm thickness, similar to a standard business card. The UT design surpasses the capabilities of traditional LCDs and regular OLEDs. Achieving such a slim profile is made possible by eliminating one sheet of glass from the conventional OLED structure, which typically requires two sheets. Eliminating one sheet of glass enables the reduction in thickness and weight by over 60%, making it possible to produce thinner and lighter laptops. Furthermore, the implementation of a full oxide TFT substrate contributes to a remarkable screen refresh rate reduction to 1Hz. Such a substantial drop in refresh rate plays a key role in significantly reducing power consumption.
Samsung Display also introduced its pioneering 8.6-generation IT OLED line, establishing an industry-first with the world's largest IT OLED production process. This innovative production line features a glass ledger (mother glass) measuring an impressive 2,290mm x 2,620 mm. To help the audience grasp the immense scale of the 8.6-generation glass, Samsung Display installed a full-scale model, or nearly 3-meters high, in the exhibition booth. The size of the 8.6-generation glass ledger is more than twice as large as the previous Gen 6 glass ledger. Such a significant size increase not only significantly improves production efficiency but also facilitates the production of up to 88 panels for 14-inch laptops at a time, resulting in a highly cost-effective process.
Innovation on Wheels: Driving into the Future with OLED-powered cars
How often do we find ourselves inside our cars? Cars have evolved from mere transportation into living spaces. In the OLED for Auto Zone, themed Innovation Takes the Wheel, Samsung Display presented its OLED products that are poised to transform vehicle interiors. In particular, the Flex Note Extendable™ and Rollable Flex™ products drew the attention of captivated visitors.
Debuting at CES 2024, the Flex Note Extendable™ introduces a fusion of foldable and slidable technology, adding the slidability to the Flex Note family. This innovative device features a foldable panel that unfolds and slides to extend the screen further. Initially measuring 12" when fully folded, the Flex Note Extendable™ expands to 14.8" (1:1 aspect ratio) on one side and 17.3" (4:3 aspect ratio) on the other, offering users a versatile UX by adjusting the aspect ratio to suit different purposes. Whether utilized as a CID for navigation, a makeshift car office, or an extended screen for entertainment, the product adapts to various in-car scenarios. When not in use, the screen size can be minimized, seamlessly integrating with the car's interior.
Rollable Flex™ Expands Over 5x
The Rollable Flex™ is a panel that rolls up and unrolls like a scroll. It provides impressive scalability, extending over five times, with a range from 49mm to 254.4mm. Unlike traditional foldable and slidable form factors, which typically scale up to two to three times, Rollable Flex™ surpasses these limitations. This is achieved by enabling the display to roll and unroll on an axis shaped like the letter “O,” introducing a new dimension of flexibility and scalability.
Driving Convenience with Seamless Displays
Premium vehicles today are embracing larger displays, including clusters and CIDs. Samsung Display's Seamless Display offers versatility from flat to curved, with a curvature range of 800- 1000R. Seamless Displays functionality shines during autonomous driving mode, providing access to diverse entertainment features on the dashboard. In driving mode, the display tilts left and right, directing its focus towards the driver's seat to help the driver focus on driving.
XR Core Technology OLEDoS Unveiled!
Let’s now enter the OLED for XR Zone, which was themed New Visions, More Realistic. Here, we showcased microdisplay products designed for the extended reality (XR) market with ultra-high resolution. We unveiled an RGB ultra-high-definition OLEDoS (OLED on Silicon) display, featuring a pixel size in the tens of micrometers (㎛). This breakthrough technology involves depositing organic materials on a silicon wafer, a key advancement for the emerging XR headsets. The RGB OLED is a technology that deposits red, green, and blue OLEDs individually on a wafer to produce colors without the need for a secondary light source. It has the highest resolution in the industry. At just 1.03 inches, it's as small as a KRW 500 coin, but with a pixel density of 3500 PPI (pixels per inch), it's as sharp as a 4K TV.
Samsung Display set up a dedicated VR/AR zone, offering a vibrant experience with retro-inspired content through ultra-high-definition RGB OLED technology. The XR zone also showcases an array of military and defense products, including military helmets and night vision goggles from eMagin, a company specializing in OLED technology.
Displays Backed by Nobel Prize-Winning Science
Step into the next frontier of displays as we enter the expansive QD-OLED exhibition booth, promising to ignite your visual senses. Did you know that Samsung Display is harnessing the Nobel Prize-winning quantum dot (QD) technology? This groundbreaking innovation, honored with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2023, is now elevating QD-OLED, unlocking the potential for richer and more vibrant colors in real-world displays. QDs are nano-sized semiconductor particles that absorb energy independently, producing pure and vivid colors. Samsung Display’s QD-OLED is a testament to inventive technology, merging QDs — a Nobel Prize-winning display core technology — with OLED, a self-luminous technology. Pioneered by Samsung Display, QD-OLED is the world's first commercial realization of this transformative integration. Let's take a deep dive into this innovation.
Third-Generation QD-OLEDs boast 3,000-nit brightness
Remember the 2000nit QD-OLED that Samsung Display unveiled in 2023? At CES 2024, Samsung Display surprised visitors by introducing an even brighter Gen 3 QD-OLED. This latest iteration features an evolved luminance-boosting drive technology and a Quantum Enhancer with upgraded AI algorithms, pushing the brightness up to 3000nits. This enhancement allows users to enjoy vivid and bright picture quality in any environment. With a broader range of brightness, watching videos becomes a captivating experience – not only do sunlit landscapes dazzle with brightness, but HDR videos that require highlights, such as dark night scenes, come to life as if they were real.
Unrivalled Picture Quality like No Other!
In the TV Zone, visitors are able to explore QD-OLED products showcasing vividly colorful screens under the theme of Unrivalled Picture Quality. Samsung Display has arranged products in various sections, allowing visitors to compare first-hand the performance and picture stability of the enhanced display technology in 2024.
Image quality serves as a one of the key performance metrics for displays, with brightness (luminance) being a crucial factor in achieving high-quality visuals. The human eye and brain perceive brightness by considering factors like color purity, contrast ratio, and ambient illumination. Until now, brightness standards have been limited, unable to account for these surrounding factors. Samsung Display addresses this with the introduction of eXperienced Colour Range (XCR)—a novel brightness measurement method that aligns with human cognitive characteristics. Recognized as a benchmark standard and adopted internationally by the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials Institute (SEMI), XCR is a breakthrough. At the exhibition, we've prepared a dedicated corner where visitors can directly compare the picture quality difference between QD-OLED products featuring superior XCR and other commercial products.
A step to the side reveals a partnership with the renowned global authority in color standards, PANTONE. As the provider of the globally accepted Pantone Matching System (PMS), PANTONE certified Samsung Display QD-OLEDs as the first in the display industry to meet its standards, recognizing their absolute superiority in picture quality. At the exhibition, visitors are able to compare Pantone color chips from famous paintings with the colors displayed on QD-OLEDs, providing a firsthand look at how closely QD-OLEDs mirror the original colors.
QD-OLEDs, the All-Around Player in the Monitor World
We now explore the final frontier in the monitor technology. Themed Let There Be STAR, this zone introduces the versatility of QD-OLED monitors. These monitors represent a promising leap into the future, venturing beyond the gaming and entertainment domains. QD-OLED technology is set to transform specialized fields, including imaging and medical industries, broadening its applications across diverse sectors.
Pixels of Passion, Gamers Revel in Ultra-High-Definition Monitors
Introducing the gaming marvel, the 27-inch QHD QD-OLED. Featuring an ultra-high refresh rate of 360Hz, this monitor is perfect for shooting and racing games enthusiasts, delivering seamless screen transitions and precise control. In the world of third-generation QD-OLEDs, the 31.5-inch QD-OLED steals the show with the highest pixel density ever achieved (140 PPI) and UHD resolution in a self-luminous monitor. This breakthrough is accomplished through the innovative Pico Inkjet process. With the introduction of 31.5-inch QD-OLED, Samsung Display reaffirms its leadership in spontaneous light displays. Leveraging pixel-by-pixel dimming of OLED and the impeccable color rendition of QDs, the 31.5-inch QD-OLED monitor achieves an infinite contrast ratio. The result is a flawless 4K images, providing maximum immersion in high-speed games and optimal viewing for premium entertainment content such as 4K movies and OTT.
Beyond Gaming, QD-OLED Monitors Offers Possibilities to Professionals
At CES 2024, Samsung Display showcased the versatility of QD-OLED monitors beyond the gaming world. The unmatched picture quality and color accuracy of QD-OLEDs make them perfect for intricate design tasks, medical monitors, and precise color reproduction in illustration and content creation at Hollywood studios. Color accuracy allows for efficient color correction work, making the technology highly suitable for professionals.
Meanwhile, overseas media such as CNET have also shown a lot of curiosity and excitement about Samsung Display's advanced display technology, including the new foldable. What are your thoughts on Samsung Display’s pioneering technologies and its vision for the future presented at CES 2024? As Samsung Display reflects on the advancements showcased at CES 2024, we invite you to join us in our ongoing pursuit of display innovation. With unrivaled technology and a commitment to tackle some of the toughest technological challenges, Samsung Display is excited to shape the future of visual experiences.
