SK Innovation Wins First 'CES Innovation Award' for FCW

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] FCW, the flagship product of SK IE Technology, a materials business subsidiary of SK Innovation, recently won the 'CES 2021 Innovation Award' from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) in the United States, which organizes CES, the world's largest home appliance and IT exhibition.

SK Innovation announced that SK IE Technology's Flexible Cover Window (FCW) was recognized for its innovative technology and excellent design, receiving the Innovation Award in the 'Wearable Technology' category.

The significance of SK IE Technology receiving the Innovation Award in the FCW business, which it is strongly promoting as a future core business, is special. It became an opportunity to prove the results of SK Innovation Group's 'Deep Change' efforts to fundamentally transform and innovate its business structure away from the traditional petroleum and chemical industries. To publicly announce these deep change achievements, SK Innovation participated in CES for the first time in the petrochemical industry in 2019 and became the first to win an Innovation Award.

FCW is the brand name of SK IE Technology's flexible display product. It is a product made of transparent polyimide (CPI), similar in form to a smartphone screen protector film, with a hard coating treatment to enhance durability. It is used on display surfaces that can be folded, rolled, or curved, such as foldable phones, rollable TVs, and curved monitors. Recently, as technologies like foldable and rollable displays are expected to lead the premium smartphone market, FCW has been gaining attention.

SK IE Technology is the only company in Korea that has independently completed the entire process from the synthesis know-how of raw materials for FCW production, film manufacturing, special hard coating to enhance durability, to functional coating that prevents fine scratches and fingerprints on the film surface and protects it from chemical exposure. In particular, it developed the special hard coating technology, which previously relied on some Japanese companies, by itself, achieving material independence in a promising future industry.

SK IE Technology has already completed preparations for FCW production. The FCW factory located in Jeungpyeong, Chungcheongbuk-do, has been in full commercial operation since July this year, supplying products to global smartphone manufacturers.

No Jae-seok, President of SK IE Technology, said, "Just as batteries using separators produced and supplied by SK have become premium batteries without a single fire incident, flexible displays using SK FCW will also become premium products," adding, "FCW, which won the CES Innovation Award, will be intensively nurtured as a symbolic product that maximizes customer satisfaction and represents the deep change of SK Innovation Group."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.