A strong technological nation starts with repairing mobile phones

Chapter 85 Folding glass is developed successfully!

It turned out that the Pengcheng officials and Li Dongsheng were not joking. After leaving Tiansheng Optics, both parties soon contacted the Rice Group.

During this period, it is not known how Li Dongsheng and the Pengcheng officials talked to the people from the Rice Group, or what means they used to persuade Lei Jun to make the Rice Group change its mind and change the screen supplier for the Mi 10 model from the Sixing Group to Pengcheng Huaxing Optoelectronics, and as for the glass cover, it was naturally replaced with Tiansheng Optics.

The recovered order boosted the morale of Tiansheng Optics, and Cheng Ting was more confident when negotiating business with customers.

When Chen Jinghong returned to the company with his wife and daughter on the weekend, good news came from the laboratory that afternoon.

As for the good news, it was naturally that folding glass had finally been developed. Upon hearing the news, Chen Jinghong immediately put down everything he was doing and even ignored the latest purchase order from the Rice Group.

"Where? Where is the finished product?" Chen Jinghong came to the laboratory and shouted to Liu Renshan as soon as he entered the door.

Although he already had a piece of folding glass in his hand that was upgraded through the system, that thing could not be seen in the light and had a completely different significance from that developed in his own company's laboratory.

It was the first time that Liu Renshan saw his boss so excited. In the previous times, no matter what progress was made in the laboratory, Chen Jinghong behaved very calmly, as if he didn't care from beginning to end.

He thought that even if the screen was completed this time, Chen Jinghong would still do as he did last time, come over to take a look, ask for the research progress and technology, give him a bonus, and then leave.

He didn't expect Chen Jinghong to be so excited. He was very surprised at Chen Jinghong's attitude. Liu Renshan quickly put on gloves and took out the finished folding glass from the dust-free box.

What was taken out of the dust-free box was a piece of glass about ten inches in size. At a cursory glance, one could not tell that this glass panel was no different from ordinary glass except that its thickness was controlled at one millimeter.

"Mr. Chen, we added ultra-fine polyethylene molecules in the middle. After these molecules are specially arranged, if no external force is applied, this glass panel will be as flat as normal glass without any bumps or depressions. However, as long as we apply external force, it can be folded 180 degrees very easily."

Liu Renshan handed the glass in his hand over and kept explaining to Chen Jinghong.

Chen Jinghong didn't dare to talk about other technologies, and he didn't know how far ahead of the others he was in the folding glass technology, so he didn't pay any attention to Liu Renshan's explanation.

After taking the glass, Chen Jinghong first gently applied external force. Sure enough, the glass was bent in the middle and the entire screen was immediately folded together on both sides.

Perhaps it's due to the material or the thickness, but there's still a gap of less than ten microns left at the fold in the middle of the glass, so small that not even a hair can fit in.

As an expert in this field, Chen Jinghong knew that this was due to the thickness. After all, even if the plastic or paper sheet was one millimeter thick, the performance would not be so good.

"Have you tested it? How many times can this glass be folded in perfect condition?"

After opening and closing the glass in his hand several times and making sure there was no problem, Chen Jinghong looked at Liu Renshan and asked.

"We have tested it. The piece in your hand has been folded more than 50,000 times. The most folded times tested so far is more than 100,000 times. There are no visible scratches on the surface of the glass, but we can see under an electron microscope that the molecules inside have begun to separate from the molecules of the raw materials, resulting in many very tiny cracks. However, it should not affect the use.

According to these tests, the glass we currently produce can withstand at least 200,000 folds before affecting the user experience! "

The more Liu Renshan spoke, the higher the corners of his mouth turned up, and the expression on his face could not hide his smug look, as if he was constantly telling Chen Jinghong to praise him, praise him.

The glass panel can remain in perfect condition after folding 50,000 times, suffer slight damage at the molecular level after 100,000 times, and will not affect the experience within 200,000 times.

What an excellent number. You have to know that this is the first foldable screen mobile phone launched by Sixin Group. Users have used it 50,000 times. Just take a close look at the new phone you just got and you can see the very obvious crease and unevenness in the middle. It's like a piece of paper hanging in the air with no stress points. It is impossible for it to be as smooth as glass.

This is the drawback of the current flexible screen. The word "flexible" explains everything. When it comes to flexibility, the lack of hardness becomes its fatal flaw.

But now that Tiansheng Optics has developed a folding glass panel with a thickness of one millimeter, these shortcomings are finally just shortcomings.

As long as those flexible screens are attached to this piece of glass, they will have a hard fulcrum and will no longer be uneven.

For example, most mobile phones on the market now use AMOLED screens, which are flexible screens. If you remove the glass cover, you will find that it can indeed be easily bent at a small angle. Only by attaching a glass panel can it be hardened and protected.

Otherwise, the AMOLED screen will leak liquid with just a slight tap. As an expert in replacing glass panels, Chen Jinghong should be able to convince you of this!
At this moment, Chen Jinghong didn't care at all whether Liu Renshan was lying or not. After all, the technology came from him. If it weren't for him, Liu Renshan would not be able to figure it out even if he studied it for a hundred years. After all, the most important part of this technology was the arrangement machine, and Liu Renshan probably didn't even know the principle behind it at this moment.

This is what it means to truly know the facts but not the reasons behind them.

"Very good," Chen Jinghong looked at the folded part with his naked eyes. There was indeed no problem and it would not affect his subsequent plans. He nodded and praised Liu Renshan who had been waiting for a long time. Then he asked: "What is the minimum thickness? Has it been produced?"

"0.03 millimeters, but glass of this thickness is already very soft. After we add these molecules, we can only fold it a few times, and we can't make it flat."

Even something as hard as glass can only be as smooth as a piece of paper at this thickness. As long as it is suspended in the air without external support, it cannot remain flat. This is a law of physics that Chen Jinghong cannot break at all.

Of course, if the thickness reaches more than 0.1 mm and the size is made smaller, within the range of ten inches, it can remain flat, but at present it is best to control the thickness of the glass panel to about one millimeter.

Chen Jinghong opened the research progress record on the computer and read it carefully. As expected, Liu Renshan studied it over and over again in the order he suggested and only then did he figure it out in such a short time.

The laboratory does not only have researchers like Liu Renshan, there are also some people in charge of other things. As soon as these patents came out, they applied for all the technical points.

"Project team, this month's bonus will be tripled!" After verifying everything, Chen Jinghong left the laboratory with a dozen samples after leaving these words.

Driving a car with a box of folding glass samples, Chen Jinghong knew that Tiansheng Optics finally had a super product. The moat of this product was so large that it would probably not be broken in the world within ten years.

This means that Tiansheng Optics is finally about to have its moment of glory. As for anti-reflection, Chen Jinghong never paid much attention to it. After all, it is not necessary and in many cases, it is not up to him to decide. Back in the office, Chen Jinghong immediately began to think about how to launch this epoch-making product to the market.

After thinking for a moment, he picked up his phone, found Li Dongsheng's number and called him directly.

Li Dongsheng was not too surprised when he received Chen Jinghong's call, as he thought Chen Jinghong was interested in the large-size glass panels.

So after answering the phone, without waiting for Chen Jinghong to speak, he immediately said that their engineers were already verifying it and would notify Chen Jinghong as long as there were no problems.
What he could not have imagined was that Chen Jinghong's goals were not those at all. Although it seemed that large-size glass panels had great potential to become Tiansheng Optics' next flagship product, given the limited shipment volume of televisions, the annual profit was destined not to be too high.

"Mr. Li, do you know about foldable phones?" Chen Jinghong asked after Li Dongsheng finished speaking.

“Folding phone?” Li Dongsheng paused for two or three seconds before answering: “Isn’t this a new product line that major mobile phone manufacturers want to expand in recent years? I remember Xiaomi launched a concept phone in 18, but it was not mass-produced. Last summer, it should be the first consumer phone officially launched in China!

However, Xia Wei's machine was obviously not mature enough and the price was too high, so it was discontinued after not many were sold.

The most successful one at present should be the Six Star Group. The inward-folding screen folding phone they launched last year was really amazing.

A phone that costs just over 10,000 yuan doesn’t scare away consumers, and even though there are some minor problems, sales have never dropped.”

It seems that Li Dongsheng is worthy of being an insider, and he always pays attention to important things in the industry.

Chen Jinghong didn't keep the secret any longer and asked with a smile, "Mr. Li, are you interested in producing flexible folding screens?"

OLED screen, currently the global technology is divided into two major parts, one is the rigid OLED screen, the other is the flexible OLED screen.

The technical implementation principles of these two types are almost the same. The entire screen is composed of pixels one by one through light-emitting diodes. Each pixel contains three points, and each color is realized by red, green and blue in different proportions.

The difference between the two lies in the internal materials and production processes, among which the most important are the substrate and electric shock materials.

Normally, the substrate material is glass, but if you want to make a flexible screen, most of the current processes will be changed to compatible materials, especially for screens prepared for foldable mobile phones. They have high folding requirements, and the current glass material cannot meet the screen requirements at all.

"Flexible folding screen?" Although Li Dongsheng didn't know why Chen Jinghong asked this, he still answered him: "This kind of folding screen technology is not mature enough, and the market scale is too small. We at Huaxing have not considered this aspect at present."

"Is the technology Mr. Li mentioned not being mature enough referring to the substrate material?"

"This is probably the main reason. Our technology for small-angle flexible screens is relatively mature, and we have produced them for many mobile phone customers. However, the substrate material of this foldable flexible screen will separate from the light-emitting layer after a long time of use, and the uneven feeling of the folding part in the middle cannot be eliminated. According to our R&D department, we think it will not be solved within at least five years."

These things were not confidential, and Li Dongsheng had no intention of keeping them secret. He directly told Chen Jinghong all the technical difficulties.

To be honest, the problem of separation of the substrate and the light-emitting layer is mainly caused by the constant folding of these two points. After all, the two are not integrated and will definitely separate after folding for a long time, especially since there are currently no good packaging materials.

"Mr. Li, our laboratory has just developed high-strength folding glass with a thickness ranging from 0.03 mm to mm. I think this product is very suitable for flexible folding screens. The thin ones can be used as screen substrates, and the thick ones can be used as protective glass panels for folding screen mobile phones.

With these two products, I believe that the foldable phone market will be changed by us. I think you should make plans early!"

"Flexible glass? Can it be made with a thickness range of 0.03 to 1 mm?" Li Dongsheng almost shouted this out, and then asked Chen Jinghong directly without confirmation: "How much does it cost? How many times can it be folded? Five thousand? Ten thousand? How about the flatness? How about the hardness? How about the flexibility?"

It can be seen that Li Dongsheng was very shocked by the news about Chen Jinghong, and he was also very impatient.

"The cost is basically controllable. The price is only about 80% higher than the anti-reflective panel of the same size!" Chen Jinghong was talking about the selling price. He naturally would not tell the cost. Of course, once it becomes popular in the future, it will be impossible to hide it from these old hands.

Hearing that the price was so low, Li Dongsheng asked about other parameters again. The price alone made him want to buy it immediately.

"The maximum number of foldings we have verified in our laboratory is 100,000. There is no change within 50,000 times, the molecular level begins to separate and break within 100,000 times, and it will not affect consumers' use within 200,000 times.

As for other parameters, we produce them according to the current anti-reflective panels, and there is almost no difference between the two!"

After hearing this, Li Dongsheng couldn't wait to ask: "Do you have any samples? Do you have any samples?"

His current idea is to get the sample as soon as possible and then let his own engineers confirm whether what Chen Jinghong said is true.

As long as it was true, combined with Chen Jinghong's purpose of finding him, he knew that their Huaxing's profit this year would increase by at least 50% year-on-year.

The foldable screen mobile phone launched by the Sixin Group last year has proven that there is indeed a market for foldable screen mobile phones, and many consumers are indeed interested in buying a foldable screen mobile phone.

This is still under the premise that the screen is not perfect. If the screen can be made the same as that of a normal mobile phone, he can hardly imagine what kind of changes the foldable screen mobile phone market will usher in.

Looking at the box at his feet, Chen Jinghong said without hesitation: "Yes!"

"I'll have someone go get them. You can arrange to give them to him later!" After Li Dongsheng finished speaking, he suddenly thought of a final question and immediately asked:
"Can this thing be mass-produced?"

　Thanks to ChatX for the reward.

I haven’t written so many words in a long time. I slept until twelve o’clock yesterday. There are two more chapters to come!
　
(End of this chapter)