Asian giants develop flex e-paper displays, but Europe first to market

At the recent SID 2008 event in Los Angeles, attended by IDTechEx, more companies than in previous years were demonstrating e-paper displays. These displays are non emissive, making them easily readable in sunlight, and low power, as they usually only need power to change the image.

 

One of the biggest developments we saw this year was the widespread move to colour versions of e-paper displays, with more companies than before showing working samples, such as Samsung below.

 

Taiwanese PVI showed their 9.7 inch conformal e-paper display with a plastic backplane, pictured below.

 

E-ink demonstrated the new driver for their front plane e-paper displays which has been developed by Epson. This enables a much faster display update rate - a problem with e-paper technologies, and allowing it to be used in new markets. First applications have not yet been announced.

 

Click on the link below to view a video of the display updating at real-time speed.

 

Video of E-ink display being updated in real-time using new Epson driver (wmv file) .

However, it is PolymerVision in Europe who will be first to launch a flexible e-paper device, which they will do this year but would not commit to an exact date. At the event the company also exhibited a new prototype - a colour rollable display. This achieves a roll radius of only 6mm. The 65,000 colour display has a resolution of 127 ppi, and the monochome version has a resolution of 254 ppi. The link below shows a video of the colour display being rolled.

 

PolymerVision colour rollable display (wmv file)  .

 

To learn more hear from Samsung, LG and many at others at Printed Electronics Asia .