Touch

E Ink Holdings has launched an on-cell touch ePaper module, which it says is the world's first. EIH's on-cell touch technology can be applied to the company's E Ink Carta monochrome displays and its Kaleido Plus color displays.

Most e-readers today add a touch layer onto the E Ink display. EIH says that the new technology will increase the contrast ratio by 30% compared to the standard added touch layer solution. For the Kaleido Plus displays, the on-cell will increase color contrast ratio by 40% and the color saturation by 15%. As an added bonus, the on-cell touch solution will be more cost effective and could help reduce eReader prices.

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.

If you're looking for ePaper display modules, we can now help you find suitable suppliers for a wide range of displays. These can be bought as stand alone displays, or as a complete system solution.

We can support over 15 displays, ranging from small 1-inch displays for wearables and small devices to 13.3" panels. Most of these displays are monochrome (Black/White) but some also support three colors (Red or Yellow). A few of these displays are flexible.

This is a sponsored post by Ynvisible

Fig.1 Example use case for printed electrochromics: a shock detector smart label with an interactive printed interface.

Expanding Need for Simple Electronic Display Functionality

Rapid advances in the miniaturization and reduction of costs in computing, electronic sensing, and communications have allowed the integration of “smart” electronic functionality into almost everything. ”Intelligence” is now embedded into a wide range of everyday objects, and spread throughout our working and living environments. Much of this intelligence, data collection and transfer is hidden from the human senses, requiring little or no human involvement. But as the number of human daily touch points and interactions with smart devices grows, so too does the importance of user experience design and the role of displays.

Conventional electronic displays cannot be economically and sustainably applied into all smart objects and environments and can often times be functionality overkill for the simple display requirements of many everyday objects. Also, user experiences built around the need for extensive use of separate reading devices, e.g. RFID or Bluetooth readers in smart phones, can be increasingly challenging especially with the high number of distractions and strong competition for attention on mobile screens. Further with a doubling of screen time over the past four years among certain user demographics, there is also a growing sense of screen fatigue leading to people “detoxing” from light emitting screens while still valuing user interfaces that are useful yet unobtrusive.

E Ink Holdings introduced a new digital paper film, branded as JustWrite, which aims to bring writing functionality "on every surface".

JustWrite combines an E Ink display with touch functionality - without the use of a TFT backplane. EIH says that JustWrite features almost no latency in pen writing - and so it closely resembles writing on paper, natural surfaces or marker boards. The film is produced via a roll to roll process and requires only a writing stylus and simple electronics to enable functionality.E Ink can produce JustWrite films up to 3-feet in width.

In April 2017, E Ink Holdings and Sony Semiconductor Solutions announced a joint venture with an aim to develop, manufacture and market products that use e-paper displays. E Ink now reveals that the JV, called Linfiny, will officially commence operations towards the end of 2017.

Linfiny will focus, at least initially, on e-paper notebook products. Linfiny was setup with an initial capital of $13.9 million. Sony and EIH together hold 70% with the rest of the investment coming from venture capital funds. Linfiny aims to develop solutions that will shorten the time-to-market for its clients - it will not produce its own devices.

E Ink and Canatu announced a new partnership, to develop a line of flexible touch displays for the wearable markets. The first product will be ready next month (July 2016) - a bendable ultra-thin (0.162 mm) 6.3" touch-enabled E Ink display.

The new display will have a resolution of 200x1040 (169 PPI) with 16 gray levels. It's short and long and suitable for applications such as bracelets and other wrist worn devices. The two companies will hopefully offer other display sizes in the future too.

China-based e-paper developer Guangzou OED Technologies announced that it developed a new graphene e-paper technology. The company aims to start producing these new screens within a year.

Graphene is the world's strongest and most conductive (to both electricity and heat) material, and it is set to revolutionize many industries - including the display industry. The company says that the new graphene-based paper is brighter and more flexible. The graphene paper is also said to have "more intensity", but I'm not sure what this means.

Microsoft presented a new prototype tablet keyboard cover that they call DisplayCover, and it includes a 1280x305 E Ink touch screen. This can be used to access applications via shortcuts, and can also accept stylus input and touch gestures.

Microsoft says they opted for an E Ink because it's very power efficient. This is just a prototype, but hopefully Microsoft will commercialize a similar tablet cover one day.

Back in October 2012 we posted about an Onyx E Ink phone prototype, and now we hear reports that the company plans to launch this phone soon. The so-called E43 Android phone sports a 4.3" E Ink panel and a 1 Ghz CPU.

The company is also working on two new E Ink e-readers. Both will have Wi-Fi, a touch display, 4GB of RAM and a 1 GHz CPU. They will actually be Android (v2.3) tablets, limited by the E Ink display. The BOOX R65 will have an IR touchscreen while the BOOX C65 will have a capacitive touchscreen.