11 people charged with illegally selling Samsung's foldable screen technology

Nine people and two companies have reportedly been charged with illegally selling Samsung’s foldable screen technology to a Chinese rival.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the chief executive officer of a Samsung supplier and eight of his employees received $13.8 million for a conspiracy to transfer organic light-emitting diode knowledge.

The names of the companies and individuals have not been disclosed.

Samsung has said that it is “shocked at the results of the investigation by prosecutors, at a time when competitors are intensifying their technological rivalry.”

Last month, Samsung  unveiled  its unnamed foldable smartphone, currently known as the  Galaxy F  at its developer conference, and the company will apparently manufacture as many as  1 million units  of the device. It now appears that the device will be priced in the range of $1,900 to $2,500, which is about Rs 1,35,000 to Rs 1,76,000, which is quite steep.

The company CEO DJ Koh recently  said  that, “possibly when we start selling the foldable phone, it may be a niche market… but definitely, it will expand. I’m positive that we do need a foldable phone.”

Samsung describes its folding phone technology as Infinity Flex Display and said that  mass-production  of the device should begin in a “matter of months.”

The display on the tablet has a resolution of 1536 x 2152 pixels which gives it a 4.2:3 aspect ratio and a screen size of 7.3-inches. When folded, the device is an 840 x 1960 display with a tall aspect ratio of 21:9 and screen size of 4.58-inches.