Refresh rate

US-based Solchroma develops a novel reflective inks and actuators based display technology, targeting the outdoor signage market (at least as a first step).

The company introduced its interesting technology at SID Displayweek 2021. The company's CEO, Dr. Roger Diebold was kind enough to explain the company's technology and business to E-Ink-Info.

Hello Roger, thank you for your time. Can you explain Solchroma's ePaper technology?

Solchroma creates reflective digital displays to change how we interact with the built environment and world around us. Solchroma’s technology is based on hydraulically forcing of colored liquid ink in and out of view. A backplane of actuators acts as an array of electrically-controlled pumps that push on nearby reservoirs of ink. Ink reservoirs are shielded from view by a white reflector, while simultaneously allowing passage of ink from the reservoirs behind the reflector to three sealed, viewable chambers stacked one atop the next on the viewable side.

During SID Displayweek 2021, BOE demonstrated a new reflective LCD display.

The 10.5-inch display offers a response time of

E Ink Holdings announced new Digital Paper solutions, developed in collaboration with pen tablet solution provider Wacom and Linfiny, E Ink's own JV with Sony Semiconductor Solutions.

These new solutions feature Wacom's EMR technology and are based on E Ink's 10.3" and 13.3" E Ink Carta 1250 panels. EIH says that the new platform offers faster pen speed and faster page turns compared to its previous platforms. The new devices will be commercialized in the summer of 2021, and EIH and Linfiny are looking for OEM partners.

E-paper passenger information systems developer Papercast announced enhancements to its range of solar powered e-paper displays. The main new feature is a higher refresh rate - which now can be up to 7.5 fps - which Papercast says significantly exceeds the limitations of other e-paper technology in this sector.

Papercast displays use the compayn's own proprietary e-paper driver board and heavyweight processing power, which enables the new fast refresh rate. Other recent enhancements include an ultra-low power battery operation mode when solar power is unavailable, text-to-speech support and more.

CLEARink announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China-based display maker Tianma to establish a partnership framework for developing CLEARink’s patented ePaper 2.0 displays

Tiama will develop TFT backplanes and module assemblies for CLEARinks next-generation e-paper displays for tablets, IoT displays and other applications.

Color e-paper developer CLEARink announced that is has signed a supply agreement with a leading tablet maker to start supplying tablet displays beginning in 2019. The agreement calls for at least $10 million in initial orders.

The CLEARink-enabled tablets will feature sunlight visibility, high resolution video and color, and will offer a much higher battery life compared to LCD or OLED based tablets. This is CLEARink's first major supply agreement.

Project Vivit (a Japan-based company) unveiled a 6" color E Ink prototype that is fast enough to display video. They wouldn't disclose any more technical details, beside the fact that it uses a Seiko Epson SoC which enables the fast response time.

Researchers from the Novel Devices Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati developed a new e-paper technology based on plastic sheets coated with aluminum with pores that hide black ink behind them. To show a black pixel, the display pushes the ink through the pore and onto the front of the sheet.

The research already developed a first prototype - a 6" round display that features 150 ppi. The refresh rate is very fast - about 67 times a second. It has a very bright white background - due to the aluminum coating.

When Amazon announced their new Kindle Paperwhite, they wouldn't say what kind of E Ink panel is used - just that it's got a higher resolution (XGA), better contrast, better touch capabilities and a faster refresh rate. Our friend Sriram Peruvemba, E Ink's marketing chief explains that the major advances in this new display is a better TFT and improved software.

The new TFT backplane allows them to achieve a higher resolution - 212 dpi (XGA), compared to the older generation TFT which allowed only 167 dpi (SVGA). The new software design also allows for faster refresh. Now grey-to-grey speed is 450 mSecs, compared to 600 mSecs using the older software (i.e. 25% faster).

Bookeen has been researching high speed E Ink displays for over two years, and now they have unveiled the technology - which they call High Speed Ink System technology or (HSIS). Basically, HSIS is an E Ink Pearl touch display, a TI Cortex A8 processor (which Bookeen said was developed in partnership with TI) and optimized software and algorithms developed by Bookeen.

Bookeen recently announced the Odyssey e-reader that includes all HSIS components - and is capable of fast page refreshes, video, scrollable menus and scrollable web-browser and more - all this on a monochrome 6" E Ink pearl display of course. Bookeen has been showing prototype HSIS devices since early 2011.