Samsung Electronics's Galaxy Round smartphone has been making headlines thanks to its fancy curved display. The model has just been released in Korea, and retails for a whopping $1,000. The reason for the pricey price-tag has to do with the fact that manufacturing them is still a challenging and expensive process.

So what about phones that you can bend or fold? According to Max McDaniel, chief marketing officer of Applied Materials's display business group, mass-producing such flexible mobile devices will only become a reality after at least a decade.

The main reason has to do with organic light-emitting diode (OLED) tech, which allows companies to make screens that are thinner, sharper and more energy-efficient. But producing large amounts of these screens requires using machines that cost tens of millions of dollars. And then you have to deal with the relatively high failure rate, as just tiny speck of dust can be enough to ruin the whole screen.

However, solving screen manufacturing issues is half the challenge, since component makers will still need to figure out how to make other parts such as cases and batteries flexible as well.

[Mashable]