Royole shows off a stretchable micro-LED display for next-gen wearables

Royole claims its micro-LED based stretchable display can stretch by 130%.

What you need to know

• Royole has announced the world’s first micro-LED based stretchable display.
• The 2.7-inch panel demonstrated by Royole is not just foldable and rollable, but is also claimed to be capable of 3D free form shaping.
• Royole says its stretchable micro-LED displays are highly applicable for wearables and smart car windshields.

Royole, which launched the world’s first foldable phone in late 2018, has now announced the first micro-LED based stretchable display technology (via Android Authority). The company claims the technology is “compatible with industrial manufacturing process,” so it may not take very long for the first devices with Royole’s stretchable micro-LED displays to hit the market.

Royole demonstrated a 2.7-inch 96 x 60 resolution stretchable panel at the 2021 Display Week Symposium, offering 130% stretchability and up to 40-degree convex bending. The micro-LED stretchable display technology is also said to reach a resolution of up to 120 pixels per inch (PPI) and allow much higher transmittance than current flexible OLED display technologies. The high transmittance of up to 70% makes Royole’s solution “highly applicable” for smart car windshields and sunglasses.

Aside from vehicle design and biomedical applications, Royole believes its micro-LED stretchable display technology could also enable new wearable devices with improved durability. Except for ZTE, which unveiled the Nubia Alpha with a flexible display to take on the best Android smartwatches, other tech companies are yet to experiment with next-gen display technologies for wearables.

Dr. Bill Liu, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Royole, said in a statement:

Royole continues to lead in flexible innovation, with stretchable technologies marking the next frontier in technical progress that will enable unprecedented applications and form factors across augmented and virtual reality, wearable electronics, biomedical applications, vehicle design and beyond.

Even though Royole says its new stretchable display technology can be mass-produced, it has not given a timeframe on when it aims to start production.