Flexible Window Laminate for Foldable Display Durability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing flexible displays and windows lack structural design that allows for seamless deformation and protection during folding or rolling, leading to potential damage and reduced durability.
Innovation Solution
A flexible window design featuring a glass layer with curved-surface portions and polymer layers with uneven structures, aligned to facilitate deformation and enhance durability, while maintaining optical properties.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a flexible window is designed to be foldable together with the flexible display panel, then the portability and flexibility of the electronic device are improved, but the durability and resistance to physical/chemical impacts are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a flexible glass layer as the window component that can be bent and folded without breaking. This flexible glass maintains the protective function while adapting to the folding motion of the display panel, resolving the contradiction between flexibility and durability by using a material that combines both properties.
Solution Approach 2:
The flexible window is constructed as a composite structure including the flexible glass layer, adhesive layer, and optional polymer layers. This composite design combines materials with different properties to achieve both flexibility for folding and durability for protection, with the adhesive layer providing strong bonding and the polymer layers adding mechanical strength and chemical resistance.
2Ease of operation
If curved-surface portions are formed on the glass layer to facilitate deformation, then the ease of folding is improved, but the manufacturing precision and structural complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces curved-surface portions on both surfaces of the flexible glass layer at the folding region. These curved portions reduce stress concentration during folding by distributing the mechanical stress across a larger area, making the folding process easier and smoother while maintaining manufacturing feasibility through standardized curvature radii.
Solution Approach 2:
The curved-surface portions are applied locally only at the folding region of the glass layer, not across the entire surface. This localized approach facilitates folding where needed while maintaining flat, optically clear surfaces in the display areas, thus balancing ease of folding with manufacturing precision and optical performance.
3Strength
If uneven structures are formed on the adhesive layer to enhance bonding, then the strength of attachment is improved, but the device complexity and manufacturing difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The uneven structures are pre-formed on the adhesive layer before the assembly process. These pre-formed structures, such as protrusions or patterns, increase the bonding surface area and mechanical interlocking with the flexible glass and display panel, thereby enhancing attachment strength without adding complex assembly steps or device components.
Data Source
AI summary
An electronic device includes a flexible display panel connected to a first housing and a second housing; and a flexible window that is coupled to one surface of the flexible display panel. The flexible window includes a deformation area that is deformable together with the flexible display panel around at least one folding axis. The flexible window includes a glass layer. A first polymer layer is disposed between the glass layer and the flexible display panel. An adhesive layer is laminated on the second surface of the glass layer. The adhesive layer includes at least one uneven structure formed on one surface that faces an opposite direction to the second surface of the glass layer and is at least partially overlapped with the at least one first curved-surface portion or the at least one second curved-surface portion. A second polymer layer is laminated on the adhesive layer.