A Big Step for e-Paper

Today was an exciting day for e-Paper technologies, both in terms of symposium talks and significant advances found in the exhibition hall. Clearly, the big news was a new product line by E Ink (announced in this press release) that was not incremental and not an R&D demo that would never turn into product.

The reflective market right now is dominated by simple and dim reflective liquid-crystal displays, with at best poor color that is relegated to only sub-sections of the display. Now with the new E Ink Spectra technology, any part of the display can provide a deep black, a brighter and more paper-like white, or a red color to highlight sales or promotions. This is significant for two reasons. First, it shows a significant investment and advance toward capturing market share in the electronic-shelf label market.

The second reason for excitement steps us back to last year‘s breakthrough reported by Fuji-Xerox on full-color electrophoretic displays based on cyan/magenta/yellow switchable particles. We wondered, could more than 2 particles (black-white) ever be commercialized? The answer is now yes, and it should be interesting to see just how far this type of technology can continue to advance for signage. Don't expect this to lead to color e-Readers anytime soon, though, because each time you add another colored particle, the switching speed slows dramatically. None the less, it is great to see a significantly new and visibly compelling product from E Ink. Credit should be given also to the researchers at the former SiPix Corp, which was acquired by AUO and then E Ink, which developed the technology that underpins this new E Ink product. –Jason Heikenfeld