Foldable smartphones are expected to become widely available, providing an all-new user experience. Smartphone makers will be able to differentiate their products and are expected to bring first products to the market by 2019 or shortly thereafter (Figure 1).
Wanted: flexibility and durability
Foldable and rollable touch displays will require all components to be mechanically fully flexible, durable, and robust to guarantee a long product lifetime. For example, materials need to withstand folding tests with more than 300k bendings at a radius of 1 mm. Traditional materials such as ITO have severe drawbacks and are not suitable.