Corning - we won't see flexible glass based displays for at least 3 years

Corning says that it will take at least 3 years before we'll start seeing flexible displays based on its Willow glass. Corning sent samples of this glass to companies back in June 2012 hoping that products will arrive in 2013, but it seems that manufacturers find it hard to adopt their processes for the flexible glass.

Willow glass (announced during SID 2012) is an ultra-slim (50 um and 100 um) flexible glass that can support backplanes and color filters in both LCD and OLED panels. Willow glass can withstand temperatures up to 500 degrees Celsius, and can be used in R2R production processes (ITRI developed a full R2R process with Corning).

Corning does see "simple" products that use Willow glass in 2013, such as solar panel barrier or touch panel films. Perhaps one example is LG Chem's flexible OLEDs that will launch in July - and we know that LG are using glass in those panels. Interestingly, Nanomarkets seems more optimistic about the prospects of flexible glass - they estimate that the OLED market will start adopting this new technology in 2013.

Source: 
Bloomberg
Tags: 
Corning
ITRI
Flexible OLED
Glass
Posted: Mar 01,2013 by Ron Mertens

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 18:52
The problem with all of those flexible glass products is that while they are flexible in some directions, they will shatter into literally thousands of pieces extremely quickly if you tap them on the edges. This of course makes it difficult to use them in a production line and also in a finished product. Plus this is not exactly cheap stuff, so you need to make sure that this adds real benefit to your product.