The under-screen camera has been hyped for a long time, when will the “explosive period” come?

On March 4, vivo officially released the APEX 2020 concept machine. In terms of appearance, APEX 2020 can be said to be full of technology.

In addition to innovations such as a 120° full-view integrated screen, 60W wireless ultra-fast flash charging, and 5-7.5x periscope continuous optical zoom, the under-screen camera on this concept phone has also become a highlight.

As early as the first half of last year, OPPO and Xiaomi terminal brands have successively exposed their own pre-research products. Meanwhile, Samsung also applied for a patent on the technology early last year. However, so far there has not been a mass-produced terminal product equipped with this technology.

According to industry sources, the transmittance of OLED screens and product cost are the two main reasons why such products cannot be mass-produced in the short term.

Product development has bottlenecks

The so-called under-screen camera requires the screen Display area above the front camera to display a normal display state when the camera is turned off. When the camera is turned on, this area can ensure that the front camera has sufficient light input.

Therefore, terminal products equipped with under-screen cameras must use OLED screens with very high light transmittance, otherwise, insufficient light input will affect the imaging effect of the front camera.

In order to meet this condition, vivo APEX 2020 expands the light transmittance of the screen above the front camera to 6 times that of other areas by changing the pixel layout design and circuit design of the screen. In addition, coupled with the super-sensing chip and algorithm optimization for simultaneous software and hardware blessing, while achieving super-sensing, it also reduces the impact of optical interference, diffraction, stray flashes and other issues.

It is understood that due to the obvious changes in the above-mentioned hardware designs, this model is still in the pre-research stage, and after that, it still needs to go through the process of trial mode and trial production. There is still a long time before the release.

Industry insiders said: “At present, if we want to meet large-scale mass production, the production capacity and yield of high-transmittance OLED screens in the entire industry still need to break through. Therefore, many terminal brands have been doing pre-research for a long time but have not yet mass-produced.” As you can see, the same is true for the brands such as OPPO, Xiaomi, and Samsung mentioned at the beginning.

In addition, there are also supply chain manufacturers who said that it is inevitable for the mobile phone industry to form an under-screen trend, but in terms of the current maturity of the under-screen camera product in all aspects, we believe that Apple should not have it in the past two years. With planned adoption, Apple will prioritize the latter over both appearance and performance.

When will the “explosive period” come?

Since January this year, my country has been affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and the market prosperity has dropped sharply, which has caused most manufacturers in the entire consumer electronics industry chain to suffer the first quarter performance. Although the current treatment and control of the epidemic has been effective, the crisis caused by the epidemic has not been fully resolved.

Thanks to the strengthening of epidemic prevention and control in various provinces, cities and regions, the situation of the spread of the epidemic in my country has improved. However, the spread of the epidemic has not stopped, but has begun to rage in many countries around the world. At present, the epidemic situation in Japan, South Korea, Italy, the United States, France and other places is even more and more serious, which not only disrupts the normal production and manufacturing rhythm of local enterprises, but also hinders the transportation supply of the global industrial chain, and the consumption power of the terminal market declines. .

The global epidemic has not been fully controlled and resolved, and the impact on the consumer electronics industry chain is far more than that.

A supply chain manufacturer said that as the epidemic continues to spread all over the world, the consumption power of the global market has declined significantly. The impact on terminal products is the most intuitive. Now many brands have accumulated a lot of inventory. The reduction in overall demand this year also means that the entire industry will face greater cost pressures. Under such a premise, it may be more difficult to popularize high-cost new products such as under-screen cameras.

Some analysts said: “This year, cost control is particularly important for the mobile phone industry chain, and the production capacity and yield of high-light transmittance OLEDs, super-sensitive chips, miniaturized lenses, and modules are relatively limited. The cost of use at this stage will be very high. The large-scale adoption of terminal manufacturers will also bring a lot of cost pressure to themselves. This year, it is more likely to be seen on the flagship models of several first-tier brands.”

Although the global smartphone market has been hit by the epidemic this year, which has slowed down the overall innovation and development and sales growth; but it is worth mentioning that even if there are still many obstacles to the development of the current under-screen camera, it will not affect its popularity in the mobile phone market. form a trend. With the passing of the epidemic and the recovery of the market, the growth in demand will further promote the improvement and popularization of this technology.

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