Magneti Marelli and Samsung Mobile Display have signed a Cooperation Agreement for the development of new generations of display-based products, targeting the automotive market of Instrument Clusters, Infotainment and Car Navigation.

Magneti Marelli and Samsung will carry-out joint design and development activities, sharing their respective know-how and technological leadership: Magneti Marelli will provide its experience and expertise in the automotive field, specifically in the Instrument Clusters and built-in Car-Navigation systems sector (about 5,000,000 instrument cluster produced per year, from luxury to small cars), while Samsung Mobile Display will make available its know-how related to a broad and innovative range of technologies developed for display solutions, ranging from TFT  (Thin Film Transistor display technology) to Active Matrix OLED.

Within the cooperation, special focus will be given to joint activity for validation of promising technologies for the automotive market, like OLED, bendable and free-shape display, capacitive touch panel and best-in-class TFT applications. The first tangible results of the cooperation are two joint projects aimed respectively at the development of a new 9 inch TFT instrument cluster and to a new 12 inches reconfigurable display. The activities related to these projects are already underway.

With this Agreement, Magneti Marelli confirms its leadership position in the field of instrumentation for Automotive-use, adding to its portfolio the next generations of reconfigurable Instrument Clusters, based on large TFT. Samsung Mobile Display has been leading small and medium sized TFT-LCD market based on the world's largest capacity, mainly for handheld applications like mobile phones, Personal  Navigation Devices (PND), mp3 readers. By setting up the world’s first Active Matrix OLED mass-production line in October 2007, Samsung Mobile Display's paved the way for being the first company, currently accounting for 97 percent of the global market.

”In our vision, Human-Machine Interface will be more and more a key competitive factor inside the car and displays represent a key component: we are committed to creating value for our Customers by making available to the automotive sector the newest technologies which are currently successful in the Consumer Market” stated Eugenio Razelli, CEO of Magneti Marelli. “At Magneti Marelli, we put significant effort into imagining a new concept of in-car instrumentation, in term of embedded functions and interface with the system.”

“Samsung Mobile Display is pleased to cooperate with Magneti Marelli for the new automotive products, and we plan to continue developing our strategic partnerships with high performed displays,” said Jin Hyuk Yun, Executive Vice President of Samsung Mobile Display. Samsung Mobile Display was established in January 2009 as a joint venture between Samsung Electronics and Samsung SDI. Bringing together Samsung’s cutting-edge technological capabilities in LCD and OLED, Samsung Mobile Display is committed to providing a comprehensive range of display solutions including OLED, TFT-LCD and TSP in one convenient channel. As a total solution provider, Samsung Mobile Display is striving to light up the future with next-generation technologies such as foldable, flapping and transparent displays.