Electrowetting - Page 3

Liquavista is based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands and was founded in 2006 (a spin-out from Philips Research Labs). They have developed a new type of display technology that can operate in transmissive, reflective or transflective modes, has a great optical performance and is very efficient. Liquavista's display are based on the principle of Electrowetting (when a voltage is used to modify the wetting properties of a solid material). With Electrowetting displays, a simple optical switch is obtained by contracting a colored oil film electrically.

Johan Feenstra, Liquavista's CTO, was kind enough to answer a few questions we had. Johan joined Philips Research Labs back in 1999, where he co-invented Electrowetting displays and co-founded Liquavista.

Q: Johan, can you explain Liquavista's three product families?

• LiquavistaBright: monochrome display with improved optical performance compared to existing readers, while providing a seemless UI (iPhone-like) or even videos.
• LiquavistaColor: full-color reflective version with video rate, so also seemless UI
• LiquavistaVivid: Hybrid version with a highly reflective, low power monochrome mode and a full-color mode with saturated colors. The color is made with so-called Field Sequential Color Mode, so no color filter, but a fast switching Red/Green/Blue backlight.

LiquaVista and TI are showing a new color e-reader demo. This prototype will soon be available as a system developer kit. Last month both companies announced the collaboration to support Liquavista's monochrome and color displays on TI's OMAP platform, it's good to see them move so fast.

Update: Liquavista are also working with Freescale and is showing a prototype based on the iMX5x platform. This one will also be offered as a system dev-kit soon:

Liquavista say that TI will include support for their displays in an OMAP-based e-reader development platform. Liquavista are working on both monochrome and color displays.

TI is also working with E Ink to include support and special software for E Ink displays in their platforms.

Liquavista is showing their color e-paper display at CES. They say they expect product announcements in 2010/2011. Here's a nice video showing how it compares to an E Ink display:

Liquavista today launched its first technology platform LiquavistaBright, aimed at the booming eReader space. Offering vastly improved usability, content compatibility and cost compared with the first generation of ereader’s, LiquavistaBright offers a high performance monochrome reflective display with video capability.

Liquavista are developing three technology platforms (LiquavistaBright™, LiquavistaColor™ and LiquavistaVivid™) planned for product implementation throughout 2010/2011.

The first technology platform, LiquavistaBright, will enable a smooth and fast user interface on eReader devices, thanks to the inherent video capability. Being able to move and scroll the content seamlessly will allow consumers to have a fully featured UI and significantly larger effective screen, enabling access to other more traditional online media such as web content and video, as well as both tabloid and broadsheet newsprint. In addition, these displays will be brighter and have more contrast than current solutions. The devices using the LiquavistaBright display can combine the durable eBook experience, which can be found in the current eReaders, with a new multimedia experience, which is according to recent marketing research one of the most requested benefits of future eReaders.