E Ink - Page 32

Update: iRiver has a new e-reader too, and it too sports a high-resolution display. iRiver says that the Story HD is the highest-resolution 6" E Ink e-reader.

Hanvon have announced a new 9.7" e-reader, the WISEreader E920. They say that it is the first one to use a new E Ink display offering 200dpi - the highest resolution e-reader display yet. Check out this photo showing how the compares to a regular E Ink display:

Check out this video showing an e-reader (E Ink) platform based on Freescale's i.MX508 chipset. The page refresh rates are great compared to what's available on the market today.

A couple of weeks ago E Ink and Freescales announced that they will jointly develop a color e-reader platform based on the same i.MX508 chipset.

Freescale and E Ink have teamed up to develop a platform for color e-readers, based on the i.MX508 processor (which uses an ARM Cortex A8). This is the same processor that is currently driving E Ink's new monochrome display (the Pearl).

A color E Ink display prototype

Seiko Epson announced that it has developed a new 16-bit micro-controller (the S1C17F57) for segmented e-paper displays (like the E Ink SURF). The new chip is now shipping samples, and will be available in volume by March 2011.

The S1C17F57 has memory (ROM and RAM), timers, and serial interfaces. It includes a real-time clock, theoretical regulation, a high performance segmented EPD driver, and a temperature sensor (so it can correct temperature related distortions). The IC draws 120 nA in sleep mode and the bare die is only 200-microns thick.

Seiko's active-matrix E Ink watch is now shipping in Amazon Japan. It costs ?84,000, which is just a little over $1000...

BnF-Lab is showing a new e-paper drawing tablet this week. It uses an A4-sized e-paper panel, although we're not sure who made this panel: as Bridgestone, Epson and Samsung are all mentioned as sponsored, and these three use different e-paper technologies.

LG Display is showing a 19" flexible E Ink display. It's only 0.601mm thick including the protective film. LG are using amorphous silicon (Si) TFTs formed on a stainless substrate. The resolution is 2560x1600 at 163ppi, it supports 16 levels of grayscale, it features 40% reflectance and the viewing angle is 140 degrees.

LG unveiled those display back in January 2010, and in August they said they plan to mass produce them "soon".

Seiko's active-matrix E Ink watch is now up for pre-order via Amazon Japan. It costs ?84,000, which is just a little over $1000...

LG is showing two new color E Ink prototypes. One is a 9.7" panel that offers 800x600 resolution: this is similar to E Ink's own Triton prototype (and it's probably based on it). The second display is interesting: it offers a single display in which the top 75% part is monochrome (1200x1200 resolution) and the bottom 25% is a strip of color display (200x600). Interesting. We've got a couple of videos showing the new displays: