A new Samsung patent focuses on a possible future Smartphone with a Motorized Slide-Out Housing that Expands the Viewable Display
Last week Patently Apple posted a patent report regarding a possible futurre foldable device based on a Slide-Out or Scrollable Display based smartphone. Coincidentally a Samsung smartphone patent was published last week by the U.S. Patent Office focused on the very same topic of a smartphone with a slidable display and housing that includes a motor.
Samsung notes in their patent background that electronic devices are gradually decreasing in thickness and are being improved to increase rigidity thereof, to strengthen design aspects thereof, and to differentiate functional elements thereof. Smartphones are gradually being transformed from a uniform rectangular shape into various shapes.
A smartphone may have a transformable structure capable of using a large screen display while being convenient to carry. For example, as part of a transformable structure, the smartphone may have a structure (e.g., rollable structure or slidable structure) capable of varying dimensions of a visible display area of a flexible display through the support of housings operating in a sliding manner with respect to each other.
The smartphone may also include a drive motor capable of automatically sliding the housings relative to each other, and an efficient disposition structure of the drive motor needs to be secured.
Samsung's patent / invention covers a future smartphone that may include a rollable electronic device (e.g., slidable electronic device) in which a display area of a flexible display may be expanded and/or reduced.
The rollable display-based smartphone may include a first housing (e.g., first housing structure, base housing, base bracket, fixing part, or base structure) and a second housing (e.g., second housing structure, slide housing, slide bracket, moving part, or slide structure) coupled to each other so as to be movable with respect to each other in at least a partially fitted together manner.
For example, the first housing and the second housing may slidably operate with respect to each other, and support at least a portion of the flexible display (e.g., expandable display or stretchable display), thereby inducing the flexible display to have a first display area in a slide-in state and inducing the flexible display to have a second display area larger than the first display area in a slide-out state.
The smartphone may further include a drive motor disposed in an internal space and for operating to automatically slide the second housing from the first housing. The drive motor may include a pinion gear, and the pinion gear may include a rack gear disposed in the second housing and gear-coupled to the pinion gear.
When the pinion gear rotates through the gear support member, for example, the drive motor, the rack gear gear-coupled to the pinion gear moves, thus, the gear support member and the second housing may be moved to a designated reciprocating distance.
Various embodiments of the patent may provide an electronic device including a drive motor disposition structure capable of contributing to decrease in thickness of the electronic device.
Various embodiments may provide a smartphone that includes a structure capable of inducing a stable operation of a pinion gear and a rack gear gear-coupled to each other.
Various embodiments may provide a smartphone that includes a structure capable of reducing an efficiency loss of a drive motor by reducing frictional resistance during sliding.
Lastly, a future Samsung smartphone may have a fixed structure in which a drive motor is fixed in series through a motor bracket at a side surface of a bracket housing, thereby helping decrease in thickness of the electronic device. Further, since a guide structure for guiding a gear support member through the motor bracket is provided, a stable operation can be induced, and frictional resistance is reduced through a friction reduction structure disposed between the motor bracket and the gear support member, thereby helping to reduce an efficiency loss of the drive motor.
For full details, review Samsung patent application 20240188238.
Oppo has provided a prototype of a smartphone with slide-out display and Motorola presented another version of the device with the display expanding in height instead of width which the Samsung patent also covers, though not covered in our report.
This smartphone form factor eliminates the classic crease that is found in traditional foldable smartphones.