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Flexlugo Puts The True Test Of Foldable Display At 400,000 To 1,000,000 Cycles
Flexlugo, a South Korean company sells the ‘Foldy’ and soon will sell the ‘Rolly’ to foldable panel producers. These devices test foldable and bendable devices by repeated opening and closing them to detect any change in characteristics, without adding additional ‘stress’ to the device. The data is then used by manufacturers to evaluate the areas where they can improve device characteristics.
Flexlugo has supplied units since 2018, with customers such as Samsung Display, BOE and Apple and while small (~$4m - $5m in sales this year, doubling by 2022) expects to go public by 2023 as the foldable market expands. The company’s founder worked for both Samsung Display and Samsung SDI and has received early funding from the venture arm of Wonik.
The reliability of a foldable product is not indicated by folding it 200,000 times as the industry advertises. According to Flexlugo, the true test is 400,000 to 1,000,000 cycles. In order to sustain folding 200,000 to 300,000 times, the thickness of the entire module must be less than 200um (the thickness of a piece of paper). A folding radius of 3mm will limit the device to 200,000 folds. The original Galaxy Fold test opened and closed the device every two seconds, with results indicating that the device worked normally through 265,741 folds, but the flexible Printed Circuit Board and the associated chips were the components first to develop problems, not the display. Components closest to the hinge were the most affected. While the Fold was successfully folded over 260,000 times, brightness abnormalities began to show at 160,000 folds, which were related to the active matrix, and while the curvature of the screen began to change at ~200,000 folds, there were no defects in the display itself.
Flexigo is at the current testing cycle, it takes 4.6 days to open and close such a device 200,000 times, which implies random checking. Manufacturing consistency is expected to be sufficient to satisfy the usability criteria. Surveys on smartphone usage vary by age group ranging from 18x/day for the ‘silent’ generation to 63x/day for millennials, to 79x/day for Gen X, but Asurion (a smartphone damage insurance provider) said that the average American checked their phone (11/2019) 96 times/day, up 20% from the same survey done two years before. A foldable phone with 200,000 fold capability would last 5.7 years, which is more than twice the average life of a smartphone (2.5 yrs.).
Flexlugo, a South Korean company sells the ‘Foldy’ and soon will sell the ‘Rolly’ to foldable panel producers. These devices test foldable and bendable devices by repeated opening and closing them to detect any change in characteristics, without adding additional ‘stress’ to the device. The data is then used by manufacturers to evaluate the areas where they can improve device characteristics.
Flexlugo has supplied units since 2018, with customers such as Samsung Display, BOE and Apple and while small (~$4m - $5m in sales this year, doubling by 2022) expects to go public by 2023 as the foldable market expands. The company’s founder worked for both Samsung Display and Samsung SDI and has received early funding from the venture arm of Wonik.
The reliability of a foldable product is not indicated by folding it 200,000 times as the industry advertises. According to Flexlugo, the true test is 400,000 to 1,000,000 cycles. In order to sustain folding 200,000 to 300,000 times, the thickness of the entire module must be less than 200um (the thickness of a piece of paper). A folding radius of 3mm will limit the device to 200,000 folds. The original Galaxy Fold test opened and closed the device every two seconds, with results indicating that the device worked normally through 265,741 folds, but the flexible Printed Circuit Board and the associated chips were the components first to develop problems, not the display. Components closest to the hinge were the most affected. While the Fold was successfully folded over 260,000 times, brightness abnormalities began to show at 160,000 folds, which were related to the active matrix, and while the curvature of the screen began to change at ~200,000 folds, there were no defects in the display itself.
Flexigo is at the current testing cycle, it takes 4.6 days to open and close such a device 200,000 times, which implies random checking. Manufacturing consistency is expected to be sufficient to satisfy the usability criteria. Surveys on smartphone usage vary by age group ranging from 18x/day for the ‘silent’ generation to 63x/day for millennials, to 79x/day for Gen X, but Asurion (a smartphone damage insurance provider) said that the average American checked their phone (11/2019) 96 times/day, up 20% from the same survey done two years before. A foldable phone with 200,000 fold capability would last 5.7 years, which is more than twice the average life of a smartphone (2.5 yrs.).
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