What is the biggest challenge for a bezel-less smartphone? It is not merely hiding the camera. It is the lighting, circuitry, and physics that need to go around four corners in a seamless piece. Apple’s 20th anniversary version, which is expected to arrive in 2027, intends to perform this feat, and the route it is taking is compelling its suppliers into colossal overhauls.
The “four-sided bending” OLED on the iPhone 20 does not simply rely on the same kind of curvature that Samsung implemented in their Galaxy Note Edge series and other high-end Android offerings in 2014 and 2015. While those devices simply bent their displays down the sides, Apple goes all the way and bends their screens on all four sides, as if they were a solid piece of glass with no bezels in sight no small tricks for a device that involves bending circuitry on the OLED into the bezels themselves.
The problem, at its core, is the Thin-Film Encapsulation (TFE) layer, the barrier layer that protects the OLED pixels from moisture and oxygen. In the iPhone 20, the TFE layer has to be thinner in order not to break due to the radius and in order to prevent it from becoming delaminated. In OLED, to reduce the thickness and maintain WVTR in the rate of 10⁻⁶ g·m⁻²·day⁻¹, there is no room for compromise, and in the OLED field, this is imperative, meaning going back to the inorganic/organic structure and ensuring optical clarity in top-emission stacks in which the light travels through the encapsulation layer.
LG Display is going all out to comply with Apple’s requirements. There are rumors of an investment of 400 billion won (~$300 million) in the overhaul of the production lines, with around ten lines dedicated solely to the production of theiPhone 20. This is no ordinaryequipment revamp. The four-sided bending process requires sufficient modification to the panel that the existing tools even for edge-curved OLEDs cannot be employed. Specialized deposition tools, bending equipment, and encapsulation chambers will have to be purchased in order to produce panels that will withstand the stress of the bending process as well as exposure to the environment over time.
The goal of a bezel-less design also relies on sensor integration. Apple’s plans include the iPhone 18 Pro and the foldable iPhone featuring under-display Face ID through a “spliced micro-transparent glass” window. This method is optimized to boost infrared transmission in specific regions above the TrueDepth camera array while not impacting the regular screen. For the iPhone 20, Apple has outlined a plan to relocate all frontend features such as the camera under the OLED screen. The under-display camera has been demonstrated in previous smartphones, though its overall image quality has been compromised due to scattering in the light and decreased sensitivity of the camera sensor. An essential task of Apple’s iPhone 20 will be to optimize the matrix array of its screen pixels along with its aperture array to accommodate adequate light exposure on the camera sensor.
From a manufacturing standpoint, the integration of optical systems into the display assembly adds complexity. The barrier required for optical clarity in specific areas needs to be optically clear while simultaneously providing barrier functionality. This might involve thinning or materialectransitions that require micron-level precision.
In the past, Samsung Display was the largest provider of OLED panels for Apple smartphones. However, the situation is different for the upcoming foldable Apple iPhone scheduled for 2026. According to market insiders, Samsung aims to meet the requirements for supplying foldable OLED panels for the new Apple foldable smartphone, ranging between 3–5 million units. Although the technology for providing four-sided bendable panels is available at Samsung, the company’s investment focus is on developing the foldable technology and then moving on to the anniversary model for Apple.
This split between LG and Samsung gives Apple more options for the future. LG’s timely engagement gives it the initial lead in providing the material for the wraparound screen on the iPhone 20, while the skills it possesses in both the foldable and OLED fields give it a head start in another segment for Apple the line of devices with flexible screens. To Apple, harmonizing these two sides of its business will focus on managing risk while synchronizing the timelines for both lines of products: getting the four-sided bending OLED to mass production in readiness for 2027 and ramping up the production of flexible screens for a new segment of devices.
A successful iPhone 20 will mean that its design embodies not only an aesthetics revolution but also the realization of technological breakthroughs achieved in ultra-thin encapsulation, flexible circuit routing, or optically integrating displays underneath. Indeed, this milestone will mean that every player within Apple’s display chain has to attempt to break the boundaries of current OLED technologies.
