Bright Laser Technologies (BLT), a Chinese metal additive manufacturing company, collaborated in the development of smartphone manufacturer OPPO’s Find N6 foldable smartphone by producing titanium 3D printed hinge components used to improve display flatness and minimize creasing. The project followed BLT’s earlier work on the hinge system for the OPPO Find N5 and focused on one of the foldable phone sector’s most persistent technical problems: reducing visible creases without compromising hinge durability or user experience. At the center of that effort are the wing plates on both sides of the hinge, which bear the majority of folding stress. In earlier designs, these parts required up to 13 individual components that had to be machined and assembled with precision. For the Find N6, BLT used titanium 3D printing to consolidate those parts into a single lightweight structure.…