Samsung Display and LG Display will both take part in the 26th International Meeting on Information Display (IMID 2026), held at the Busan Exhibition & Convention Center (BEXCO) in Busan. The two companies will unveil new organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technologies needed in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). IMID is Korea's largest display conference, co-hosted by the Korean Information Display Society (KIDS) and the Society for Information Display (SID), and this year's event runs from the 18th to the 21st.
At this year's event, Samsung Display will showcase technology that improves brightness at the fold area of foldable screens and scales up stretchable displays. LG Display will unveil for the first time a new pixel formation process that eliminates the metal mask used in OLED production.
◇ Samsung D improves foldable fold-area brightness… unveils 20-inch stretchable for the first time
Samsung Display will unveil for the first time a 7.6-inch "Wide View display." It is a wide-viewing-angle technology that addresses the issue of reduced brightness on the curved sides of the fold when viewing a foldable OLED head-on.
Currently commercialized foldable displays appear to have about 40% of the head-on brightness on the curved areas on both sides of the fold. This is due to the structural characteristics of flexible displays, in which luminance decreases depending on the viewing angle as the screen bends.
Samsung Display completely redesigned the materials and structure of the emissive layers in the Wide View display. It said this delivers a bright, uniform image even in bent areas without luminance loss. The technology can be applied not only to foldables but also to next-generation form factors such as slidable and rollable.
It will also debut the world's largest 20-inch Wide Stretchable display. A stretchable is a display that can be extended or have its shape altered. Samsung Display applied tiling technology that connects two stretchable panels as if they were a single screen, more than doubling the screen size compared with existing products.
By applying ultra-precise panel design and module lamination technology, it also minimized the boundary between the two panels. Samsung Display sees potential uses in areas that require curved displays, such as in-vehicle digital cockpits, humanoids, and digital signage.
It will also exhibit OLED concept products that can be applied to AI devices. These include a display for humanoids that tracks eye movements, a necklace-style "AI OLED pendant," and an OLED turntable.
For automotive use, it will display a 6.4-inch "Big Hole display" and a vertical slidable center information display (CID) that expands up to 15.5 inches. For information technology (IT) products, it will unveil a 31.5-inch quantum dot (QD)-OLED that delivers both 4K resolution and a 360-hertz (Hz) refresh rate, a 34-inch 360 Hz QD-OLED, and a 16-inch 2.5K·300 Hz OLED for laptops.
At this IMID, Samsung Display will also present 57 technical papers, the most among participating companies. The OLED used in the Galaxy S26 Ultra won the "IMID Display of the Year Grand Prize." This product features the world's first privacy display.
Cho Seong-chan, head of Samsung Display's Display Research Center (executive vice president), will deliver a keynote speech titled "The next leap of AI, why displays matter more than ever" on the day. He is set to present three key directions for displays in the AI era: ▲ "Every Space," expanding applications to robots, Extended Reality (XR), and mobility ▲ "Ultra Low Power," addressing AI data processing ▲ "Context Awareness," combining sensors and AI.
◇ LGD removes metal mask from OLED process… boosts luminance by 1.6 times
LG Display will unveil for the first time in the world its next-generation OLED patterning technology, "FLiPP (FMM-Less innovative Pixel Patterning)." It forms red, green, and blue (R, G, B) pixels without the fine metal mask (FMM) used in conventional OLED manufacturing. FMM is a metal mesh with microscopic holes. After placing the FMM in close contact with the substrate, red, green, and blue organic materials are deposited in sequence through the holes to form pixels.
With this method, an expensive FMM must be newly manufactured whenever the screen size or resolution changes. As the mask becomes larger, the center can sag due to the nature of metal, causing positional errors in the holes and potentially leading to color mixing defects.
FLiPP coats and fixes materials for red, green, and blue pixels across the entire substrate in sequence, then removes unnecessary portions using ultraviolet (UV) light. The method reduces defects that occur with FMM and eliminates the empty spaces that FMM used to occupy between pixels.
According to LG Display, applying FLiPP increases the aperture ratio—the percentage of the display area that actually emits light—by about 55% compared with the conventional FMM method. Under the same conditions, it can raise luminance by 1.6 times or extend lifespan by 2.4 times. Power consumption can be reduced by 13%.
LG Display will organize its exhibition booth around two themes: "Tandem Technology" and "Next-Era Technology." It will showcase a lineup of OLED products spanning large, medium-small, and automotive.
The next-generation OLED TV panel driving technology "HDS (Hyper Double Scanning)" won the "IMID Display of the Year Grand Prize" alongside Samsung Display's OLED for the Galaxy S26 Ultra. HDS doubles data transmission speed, raising the OLED TV panel refresh rate by about 15%, from the previous 144 Hz to 165 Hz. LG Display is mass-producing and applying HDS across all OLED TV panel products.
Choi Young-seok, chief technology officer (CTO) of LG Display, said, "By consolidating our proprietary WOLED technologies and know-how, we were able to realize 'FLiPP,' the next-generation OLED patterning known as a 'dream technology.'" She added, "With our participation in this IMID, we will lead next-generation OLED technologies and accelerate market differentiation."