Aju Business Daily

SEOUL -- A state metrology institute has developed a defect detection technology for free curved surface displays, including flexible displays, which would help display makers to detect defects with a single image taken during a manufacturing process.

Flexible displays are now widely used in foldable smartphones, virtual reality headsets, airplanes and spaceships because they can be freely applied onto any curved surface. However, the free curved surface display, which is normally about 0.01 millimeter thick, is easy to break because of defects.

The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) said in a statement on Thursday that its research team has developed an automated real-time three-dimensional detection technology capable of automatically detecting defects in displays during the manufacturing process.

"We have upgraded the technology to materialize it to an automated and modulated device," KRISS' senior researcher Kim Yong-sik was quoted as saying. He said the modulated defect detecting device can be utilized as a key test device in industrial sectors.

Conventional defect detection methods required bulky machines and a long time to find defects. It was almost impossible to detect defects in displays which are too thin or curved. KRISS' technology made the defect detecting process simple by using a special algorithm that decides whether a display panel has defects by looking for tiny dents and scratches and analyzing the image of a display laid over a lattice pattern.

The detecting device can carry out tests on display panels regardless of size and shape, KRISS said. The global flexible display market is growing an annual average of about 34 percent and it is expected to reach $15.6 billion, according to global market research company Statistica.