Hewlett Packard
Mobile phones that change color and design to match your shirt, hat or skirt could soon be the latest fashion accessory with the recent advancements in Electronic Skins.
HP launched yesterday a new display technology that can personalize consumer products such as mobile phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, and laptops with an electronically controlled color surface of flexible reflective color film. Brand manufactures will now be able to personalize their products with eye-catching designs and logos with possible uses for anticounterfeiting and identification.
The Electronic skin uses HP's breakthrough roll-to-roll manufacturing platform. Designed to make fine-scale circuitry on plastic substrates, the platform processes flexible screens in rolls rather than individual sheets, offering the potential for more cost-effective manufacturing. When the process is combined with the electrically controllable inks, a print-like color performance that can also be transparent is achieved.
Using a technology similar to color printing, HP is developing the capability to produce specific "ink" colors within the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM® range. The print-quality colors have excellent visibility in direct sunlight and can electronically shift into a transparent state, revealing the surface below the e-Skins film.
Kent Displays
Kent Displays have developed an electronic skin that utilizes a different technology - cholesteric liquid crystals, producing an image from reflected light.
The technology called Reflex uses Cholesteric liquid crystals, which are bistable and exhibit both a bright reflecting state and a dark non-reflecting state without any voltage applied.
The ultra-thin flexible plastic displays are 60 microns thick - which is thinner than most copying paper, can be cut to a custom shape and conformed to the surface of a cell phone case or other personal electronic device. The company's first generation electronic skins display eight different colors, changeable at the touch of a button to match a user's mood, clothing or preference. The user can also select a menu option to change the skin color based on device status (e.g., new voice mail). These capabilities bring a new level of personalization and differentiation to a wide range of consumer products.
The displays are ideal for manufacturing roll-to-roll because of the simple structure of two flexible substrates, a liquid-crystal/polymer dispersion, and a light absorbing backcoat. This production process offers the promise of low cost and high volume because of a reduction in handling and continuous web transport of displays at a rapid rate.
Kent Display's e-Skins are reflective and require no power from the host device to retain an image.
The company has just received $4.9 million from the Ohio Third Frontier Commission to develop their next generation of Reflex LCD electronic skins.
Partners include plastic substrate producer DuPont Teijin Films and electronic chip designer Solomon Systech Ltd., as well as two leading research institutions in liquid crystal technology and polymer science: Kent State University and the University of Akron, respectively.
