BLT develops titanium 3D printed hinge for OPPO Find N6 foldable smartphone

Bright Laser Technologies (BLT), headquartered in Shenzhen, China, has successfully collaborated with smartphone manufacturer OPPO to develop titanium 3D printed hinge components for the Find N6 foldable device. Working within the Tianqiong Partners industrial alliance, BLT utilized an end-to-end metal additive manufacturing workflow encompassing powder development, process optimization, and post-processing to produce the hinge wing plates. This second-generation iteration follows BLT's previous work on the OPPO Find N5, specifically targeting the reduction of display creasing and improvement of surface flatness. Vincent Yang, General Manager at BLT (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., confirmed that the supporting surface flatness of the wing plate improved by 50% compared to the previous model through rigorous iterative testing.

The application of metal additive manufacturing in consumer electronics represents a high-precision niche that addresses the mechanical limitations of traditional CNC machining. By consolidating up to 13 individual machined components into a single, lightweight titanium structure, BLT has enabled the use of complex lattice geometries that optimize the strength-to-weight ratio. This part consolidation is critical for foldable smartphones, where hinge durability and weight are primary constraints for user experience. While competitors like Apple have begun integrating AM parts into wearables and mobile hardware, BLT's ability to deliver complex, consolidated titanium structures at an industrial scale for mass-market consumer electronics places them in a specialized tier of the AM value chain.

For BLT to maintain this momentum, the company must demonstrate the ability to scale these high-precision titanium production runs while maintaining the strict tolerances required for mobile hinge assemblies. The success of the Find N6 hinge depends on the seamless integration of BLT's additive processes with OPPO's Tianqiong memory glass and mechanical assembly lines. Buyers in the consumer electronics sector should view this as a validated use case for part consolidation and weight reduction in high-stress, small-scale mechanical assemblies.