Samsung Confirms Flexible AMOLED Panels Arrive in 2012

South Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung is getting ready to ramp up production at its new 5.5Gen plant opened in the second quarter.

The new panels are expected to offer the same WVGA resolution as the 4.5-inch panel that Samsung showed to the world last year.

These panels can be bent just as paper, and open the door to a wide range of new applications in the industry.

However, it seems that Samsung is readying them mainly for smartphones, and that it expects mass production to start next year.

The first handsets with the new display packed on them should arrive on the market next year as well.

The South Korean company is also reportedly planning the introduction of these panels in a wider range of products, including smaller devices like watches, or larger ones, such as MIDs, and even tablet PCs.

Moreover, chances are that the new panels would prove a great option for other applications aimed both at homes and offices.

The new screens come with a polyimide plastic substrate that replaces the traditional glass substrate, thus offering the possibility to be even furled on a cylinder measuring 2cm in diameter.

The use of AMOLED technology with these panels enables a low power consumption, and eliminate the need of backlight.

According to Samsung, the new display can be seen as unbreakable, though there is no guarantee that this would actually turn out this way in the end.

Samsung is working with other flexible panel technologies as well, including a foldable AMOLED display, and it even showcased a device that included it.

It was a prototype tablet PC that could be folded into a smaller mobile phone, thus offering increased usability to users.

However, while the flexible AMOLED is set to become reality as soon as next year, there's no telling on whether the foldable display would actually be launched, or when that might happen.