E Ink Announces Major Strides in Its Flexible Display Program

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- E Ink Corporation, the leader in electronic paper display technology, today announced advances in its flexible display program with Dr. Michael McCreary highlighting these advances at the recent USDC symposium.

Partner LG.Philips LCD recently announced the world's highest resolution 14.3-inch flexible color display at the January 2008 CES show. This display utilizes E Ink's Vizplex Imaging Film with LG.Philip's metal foil and plastic substrate backplane. The resulting display is less than 300 micrometers thick with a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels and is both rollable and bendable, with no image distortion. "The potential applications for this display are incredible and will allow our customers to create new products that are not only convenient to use but also save natural resources. This represents the next generation in display technology." Said Mr. In-Jae Chung, the company's Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President.

Last week, partner Polymer Vision announced plans to mass produce a rollable display device, Readius(TM) aimed at cell phone applications. The rollable display in the Readius also contains E Ink's Vizplex Imaging Film. "People are demanding greater choice and flexibility in having overall instant access to personal content and information" said Karl McGoldrick, CEO of Polymer Vision. "They do not want to be concerned with small screens, not being able to read in sunlight, a dead battery or a device being too bulky to carry in their pocket."

Partner Plastic Logic announced that it had raised $100 Million in funding and was building the first factory to manufacture plastic electronics on a commercial scale. "Our revolutionary flexible displays using E Ink's Vizplex technology will radically change the way the world receives information," said Dr. John Mills, COO of Plastic Logic.

E Ink has worked with these, and other industry leaders including Prime View International, Samsung and Epson, in developing flexible displays for the market and has pioneered a number of "world's firsts" in the display industry. Displays using E Ink Vizplex Imaging Film are ideally suited for flexible display applications due to their thin form factor and inherent flexibility. E Ink's electronic ink is an image stable reflective display technology that uses ultra-low power but is easily read under any lighting condition including direct sunlight. Unlike liquid crystal displays, the image on E Ink displays looks the same from all viewing angles and will not distort when touched or flexed, making electronic ink the ideal display medium for flexible displays and portable devices.

"We believe the flexible display market will grow at the CAGR of over 120% in the next three years and be over $600 Million in 2010, and electrophoretic display will continue to be the lead among all the display technologies for flexible display." said Dr. Jennifer Colegrove, senior analyst of iSuppli Corporation who is the author of iSuppli's Flexible Display report (2008 version).

"E Ink was founded on the vision of Radio Paper(TM), that is, flexible wireless displays," said Dr Michael McCreary, vice president of advanced research and development at E Ink Corporation. "We are excited that our partners are moving forward with electronic solutions that are not dependent on breakable glass substrates, and, together with E Ink Vizplex Imaging Film, enable new applications that require extremely light weight and rugged displays."

Folding device coming soon

Polymer Vision has announced that its first device with a rollable display will hit the market by the middle of this year.

The Readius will include the features people have become accustomed to in a high-end phone: tri-band GSM with HSDPA support, email, mp3 player, SD card slot, etc.

But it will also include something definitely not available on other phones: a 5-inch display flexible enough that it can be folded up, making the whole device roughly the size of a typical smartphone.

This screen uses technology that has been developed by Polymer Vision. This eInk-type display has several advantages -- it doesn't require a backlight, for example -- but has one significant drawback: no color. Instead it will offer 16 shades of grey.

This will not be a touchscreen. Instead, this phone will be controlled through 8 buttons. Exactly how this will work is not yet clear.

"People are demanding greater choice and flexibility in having overall instant access to personal content and information" said Karl McGoldrick, CEO of Polymer Vision. "They do not want to be concerned with small screens, not being able to read in sunlight, a dead battery or a device being too bulky to carry in their pocket. Readius solves these worries and is generations ahead of anything else out there today".

More Details on the Readius

Because of its unique display, Polymer Vision is emphasizing the Readius' usefulness as an ebook reader, but its feature list doesn't end there.

It will be able to get email from POP3 and IMAP accounts, and play MP3s. However, because of its slow screen refresh rate, it will not be able to play video.

To store ebooks and music files, the Readius will have an SD card slot with SDHC support, allowing it at least 8 GB of capacity.

What operating system this model will use has not yet be revealed, but it will run on a 400 MHz processor and include support for ActiveSync.

This smartphone will be 4.5 inches tall, 2.25 inches wide, and 0.8 inches thick (115mm x 57mm x 21mm). It will weigh 4 oz. (115g)

Because it doesn't need a backlight, this phone will allow users to read for at least 30 hours on a single charge.

Polymer Vision is not saying yet what the Readius will sell for.

More information is available on this company's web site.