It's too early to judge Rouyu's success or failure. Is it time to get to know Rouyu again?

In October 2018, Rouyu became famous. At the National Convention Center, Rouyu released the world's first foldable flexible screen mobile phone FlexPai.

Folding screen phones at that time were far less common than they are now. Although mainstream manufacturers have announced that they have begun to develop folding screen terminals, there has never been a real mass production model. Even the giant Samsung, which has the best screen technology and resources, launched a self-developed folding screen mobile phone only a few months after FlexPai was launched.

For a long time, the mainstream technology in the global flexible display field was dominated by the low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) technology route dominated by Samsung. It mainly uses polysilicon used in traditional LCD screens and curved OLED screens as backplane integrated circuits. The advantage is that the technology has entered a mature stage, but the physical properties of silicon determine its inherent shortcomings in flexible bending reliability and manufacturing costs.

The reason why Rouyu was able to take the lead in mass production of folding screen mobile phones was that it chose the "non-mainstream" route from the beginning. This company independently developed a new ultra-low temperature non-silicon process integration technology (ULT-NSSP), which is completely different from the technical solution led by Samsung.

According to the industry’s accepted statement, the LTPS process used by Samsung is based on silicon materials. The process temperature of the core process is above 450 degrees. The equipment investment cost of a single production line is usually as high as tens of billions. The material stacking technology and production of ULT-NSSP Equipment, device design, process technology, route design are completely different from the former, and the core process temperature can be below 300 degrees. Through this technology, Royole can simplify the production process to a greater extent and reduce investment costs and production costs while ensuring the yield. This is why Royole used only 11 billion yuan to independently design and build a mass production line with a total production capacity of 8.8 million 7.8-inch flexible screens.

In addition, few people in the industry know that Rouyu is all in on a fully flexible screen, which is a screen that can withstand more than hundreds of thousands of repeated foldings, while the OLED screens on the market are mainly used to produce fixed screens that are formed once. They are also often referred to as flexible screens by the media. Compared with the full flexible screen, its technical reference and difficulty are quite different.

It is obviously too early to judge Rouyu's success or failure. As Liu Zihong said: "It is normal to be questioned. Choosing a new direction will inevitably face various challenges and doubts. The value of a team and an enterprise is to solve problems. When you see these challenges and When it comes to questions, it means you see the direction of value, which should be very happy."