Technical / Research - Page 13

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.

Update: we've got a video of the new prototype displays, see below

PVI is now showing 6" and 9.7" color E Ink displays for e-readers at a trade show in Shenzhen, China. The displays are demoing animated color clips, although the refresh rate is not fast enough for video. PVI has shown those screens to Amazon and Barnes & Noble, although they won't say whether there are any plans to use them in future e-readers.

PVI predicts mass-production to start 4Q 2010. The new PVI screens add an extra layer of color-filtering glass on top of a standard E Ink panel. The color screens consume more energy than monochrome ones. PVI also displayed new flexible displays, made from plastic which could make readers lighter and harder to break.

Delta Electronics will use Allied Material Technology (AMTC)'s 3.5" color-filter production line to produce e-paper panels. Delta decided not to build their own production line to save costs. They might lease the production line, or buy it.

Delta is using Bridgestone's technology to make the e-paper panels, and will also launch thier own e-reader in 3Q 2010. In the future they also plan to launch color e-paper displays.

Pixel Qi will offer DIY kits towards the end of Q2. Yeah, you'll be able to turn your laptop/netbook display into a Pixel Qi display yourself! They say it's rather easy: "It’s only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbuld: it’s basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting the old screen and plugging this one in. That’s it. It’s a 5 minute operation".

I'm guessing that these will be 10" displays, so it'll only fit in small laptops... but maybe these are better as e-readers anyway.

Freescale announced today a new processor called i.MX508 targeted for e-readers. The processor is based on an ARM A8 core and includes an E Ink controller. Freescale says that the chip is fast (800Mhz), efficient and cheap (less than $10 in large volumes). In fact they say that this chip can enable $150 e-readers.

The new chip is faster than Freescale's previous e-reader chips (used in the Amazon Kindle and Sony's Readers, for example) which can result in faster page refresh and can enable new features. As the chip includes an E Ink controller, USB and NAND memory it can help reduce the price of the final product.

We had the good chance to talk with Mary Lou Jepsen, Pixel Qi's CEO. She agreed to answer a few questions we had...

Q: Can you tell us about Pixel-Qi? the company and the displays?

A PQ panel looks like normal LCD with backlight on, but with backlight off it becomes a highly reflective screen that rivals the performance of electrophoretics in terms of reflectance, but with video rate fully available (for fast typing, multitouch, fast panning, and video). 

We have already done self-refresh screens in the roots of this technology to lower the power – Pixel Qi actually spun out of One Laptop per Child where that architecture was implemented to create a ~1W laptop (and what is widely considered the netbook that launched the recent netbook revolution).

Q: Can you tell us of any upcoming Pixel-Qi products? Are you working also on other displays beside the 10" one?

Only our customers can announce their products, and we have brought on several more since our last discussion in January. We have been in early production since December and are now scaling it volume in the current 10” size and in process of designing new sizes that we will announce in the future. Our customers are pulling us into a variety of new product categories.

Q: What kind of products do you think can benefit from PQ displays?

Our panels are easy on the eyes – they combine the best of LCD and best of EPD together in a single screen and are excellent for reading. Anything that uses a battery can benefit from our technology. Anything that is used outdoors and indoors can benefit from our technology. 

Thanks Mary, and good luck!

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:

PVI's chairman says that they plan to release color and flexible E Ink displays. They are also working on touch-enabled E Inks, and ones that support video. They predict that the market share of touch-capable e-readers will increase sharply in 2010. PVI wants to place the touch sensors behind the display, so image quality will be better.

PVI also reveals that E Ink's response time has increased, to the point where animation can be played.

IntertechPira and +plasticElectronics have announced an upcoming webinar (18 of February) called "e-readers and e-paper: technology and applications" that will discuss the evolution of e-paper for the e-reader market. The webinar will be given by Ian French, a principal scientist at Prime View International (PVI).

The webinar will provide an overview of e-readers to date, technology advances in three key areas: flexibility, color and video and will also discuss future applications for e-paper displays.

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.