In the Android camp continues to explore the road of high-end flagships, a new technology has begun to have an increasingly mature foothold.
The new flagship model Axon 40 series released by ZTE Terminal recently is equipped with its third-generation under-screen camera technology, and the starting price has been raised to a high-end gear of nearly 5,000 yuan.
At the display week and SID annual meeting in the United States, panel manufacturer Visionox and 3D sensing solution provider Guangjian Technology jointly launched a flexible OLED screen 3D solution, which is also the first solution that can be mass-produced and adapted to Android mobile phones.
Unlike the early days or in the way of 3000 + yuan to enter the market, the price range of this new machine also means that the 3D screen camera has entered the mature stage of technology. It is precisely because off-screen technology is generally considered by the industry to be the ultimate form of smart machine screens, this technology is expected to become another heavy weight in the high-end market competition.
Compared with Apple's path of adopting new technologies for self-research, different links in the domestic industrial chain have made the promotion of off-screen technology at the forefront through joint research and development.
Zhu Li, founder and CEO of Guangjian Technology, pointed out in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that after the adjustment since 2019, the under-screen camera part of a mobile phone screen and the surrounding area can no longer see obvious differences. And not only mobile phones, the company has also begun to explore the technology landing of off-screen technology to the smart cockpit market.
Maturing
Although as early as a few years ago, the head mobile phone manufacturers have already demonstrated the engineering machine of the off-screen camera technology during the Mobile World Congress (MWC), but the real commercialization is still in the past two years, the manufacturers represented by ZTE and Xiaomi have taken the lead in promoting the commercialization of this technology.
This is not a niche market, the Android camp is now continuing to explore a completely holeless screen experience, but also hope to replace the "transition period" state of Liu Haiping and punching screen. Therefore, under-screen camera technology has always been regarded as the final screen form of the bar machine pursued by manufacturers in the visible cycle.
Only in the first two years, the technology under the screen has not yet matured visible to the naked eye. Querying the evaluation of some commercial under-screen camera phones in the e-commerce platform will find that the problems with high attention include: How effective is the camera under the front screen?
Users who have previously bought related products have replied to similar to "or listen to Lei Zong (Xiaomi founder Lei Jun), and it is not recommended that users who especially like selfies buy" and "X years ago (effect)" and so on.
Of course, the industry believes that at the current node, the under-screen camera technology has reached a relatively mature level and can be configured in higher-order mobile phones.
In the previous interview and communication, Ni Fei, senior vice president of ZTE and president of ZTE Terminal Division, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that the full screen has always been the most important direction for innovation of various mobile phone manufacturers. "We found that the camera became a major obstacle to 100% full screen, and gradually realized that only off-screen camera technology is the best solution for a full screen without a defect. We will continue to work this track. Of course, I also saw that there were many friends following up, making this track more and more clear. ”
He further pointed out that he believes that the Axon 40 series is equipped with a new generation of new products with higher yield rate, higher display effect, full screen experience and image experience. "I think this also indicates that the under-screen camera phone is fully mature and moving towards a broader application scenario." I believe that there are more friends and chambers of commerce participating in this track, and we can jointly create a better experience. ”
According to reports, the aforementioned new products take the lead in using independent pixel one-drive one-drive technology, each pixel unit is driven by a separate pixel circuit; the circuit uses distributed transparent traces to eliminate the aggregation of the edge circuit in the lower area of the screen; the UDC Pro screen display chip has fusion algorithm upgrades and intelligent pixel enhancement, intelligent display optimization and other technologies, thereby realizing a clearer and more refined screen display.
From the overall technical point of view, Zhu Li analyzed to reporters, if the gap between the technical requirements brought about by the quantitative comparison of non-screen and off-screen camera technology is calculated with the transmittance of a flexible OLED screen of 20%, then the beam with a base of 1 becomes 0.2 after playing, and then experiences diffraction, reflection and other physical effects, the value becomes 0.04, which means that after being placed under the screen, there will be 25 times the light loss than the non-screen lens. This is the problem that the industrial chain continues to explore and overcome.
Therefore, the difficulties faced by under-screen camera technology mainly include two aspects: screen transmittance and diffraction brought about by screen pixel arrangement.
Specifically, the camera is placed below the screen, then the transmittance will become lower, resulting in weak image signal transmission, at this time the solution provider needs to improve the signal extraction efficiency of the laser, and then overcome the loss caused by the screen; diffraction is a physical phenomenon that will inevitably occur during the process of light penetration, when the laser passes through the screen, it will be diffracted into several beams, resulting in the focus being blurred and changing the contrast, which requires the elimination of the changes brought about by diffraction through the algorithm.
Therefore, under-screen camera technology will rely more on the joint division of labor adjustment between industrial roles than on technologies such as punching screens.
Zhu Li said that for example, the layout of each pixel electrode by the screen manufacturer and the development of the solution provider can effectively reduce the challenge caused by the light transmittance. The current commercial models use 400PPI pixel density for the screen in the under-screen camera area, which means that the display of the area under the screen has the same effect as other areas.
Explore new frontiers
Multi-party supply chain information shows that Apple is also exploring the research and development of under-screen camera technology. With the help of the joint research and development trend of the supply chain, the Android camp has grasped the commercial nodes of mature technology in advance and hopes to continue to explore outward.
"The evolution of technology is mainly related to screen iteration and market demand changes." Zhu Li said that in 2019, due to the requirements of terminal manufacturers or based on hard OLED screen research and development, its advantage is that the light transmittance is high, the screen solution can be relatively simple, but also because it is a hard screen, it will lead to the "forehead" and "chin" parts of the entire mobile phone being large.
In contrast, the flexible screen is the mainstream choice of the current machine manufacturers, because this can make the overall appearance of the mobile phone screen account for a higher proportion, reliability and display effect is better. But for off-screen technology, it means lower light transmittance. Once the program development on the flexible OLED screen is realized, it means that mainstream manufacturers can realize the on-screen 3D camera technology based on the solution.
According to Zhu Li, the technical route and physical principles used by Guangjian Technology are completely different from the currently known Routes of Apple.
In simple terms, it uses an edge emitting laser (EEL) as the light source, and then based on the nanophoton chip to achieve the function of projecting laser speckle by realizing the modulation of the light field at the sub-wavelength scale, and dividing a beam of light into tens of thousands of beams. Therefore, only an EEL side light emitting laser is required as a laser emitter to achieve the overall conversion efficiency from electricity to light to shorten the pulse, and increase the light intensity by increasing the current, thereby compensating for the energy loss caused by the "light transmittance" and reducing the cost of the speckle emitter.
It is reported that through cooperation with Visionox, its off-screen 3D solution can support both hard OLED and flexible OLED, but also because of the different technical routes of the under-screen 3D solution of Guangjian, all devices are domestic, and the cost has also dropped significantly.
"From the perspective of research and development, the problem of the 3D solution under the screen has been solved, that is, from the introduction of new products to mass production, it may need certain adjustments, but they are all controllable problems in engineering." Zhu Li continued that the current module cost of the under-screen 3D solution is basically close to the head manufacturer's 3D ToF (a mainstream front-lens optical technology route, but used in perforated screens) solution cost, which costs about $10.
A few years ago, when 3D structured light (an emerging technology route) technology was just applied to the mobile phone, its cost was about 20 US dollars, but with the current domestic industrial chain, the cost itself was constantly exploring, resulting in even as a new technology under the screen, its module cost no longer brought too much pressure to the whole machine.
Although the technology is currently mostly sought by smartphone manufacturers seeking commercial landing, the widely optimistic automotive market also has matching application needs.
Zhu Li introduced to reporters that the smart cockpit is expected to become a new application scenario for 3D under-screen camera technology. Since the control panel of the smart car is becoming a whole screen, and based on safety considerations, more and more cameras are needed in the car to detect the state of the car, and the passenger does not have too much "staring" feeling, then the off-screen solution will undoubtedly bring a better experience.
"Of course, an important premise is that in-vehicle products have high requirements for industrial design, and users are more concerned about how the look and feel effect after using new technologies, if not improved, then the off-screen technology may not necessarily be quickly landed in the smart cockpit." Of course, this is the household level, and there is no need to think too much about this aspect at the level of commercial vehicles. He continued.
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