Samsung Reportedly Acquires OLED Display Specialist Cynora

pcmag.com:

Samsung's expertise in OLED technology and flexible displays just received a major boost through the acquisition of German company Cynora.

Although neither company is confirming the acquisition yet, Bloomberg(Opens in a new window) has been told Samsung paid $300 million for Cynora. The deal included all of its Cynora's technology and intellectual property, but not its workforce. The company apparently laid off most of its employees in the weeks leading up to the acquisition.

So why is Cynora important? Two reasons. The first is the company's focus on producing the next generation of foldable, flexible, and transparent OLED displays, which Samsung can take advantage of in a number of devices—the most prominent of which is its smartphones.

The second, and arguably more important reason, is Cynora's work on novel "TADF-based blue and green emitter systems." As the Cynora website explains(Opens in a new window), currently blue OLED pixels consume much more power than the red and green ones, but Cynora believes it has solved that problem with its thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF).

If Cynora has perfected high efficiency blue OLED pixels, it will mean the power consumption of OLED panels can be significantly reduced and therefore have a positive impact on battery life in devices including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and smartwatches. Samsung can take advantage of that in its own devices, but also for OLED panels sold to other companies such as Apple.

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