This past week, e-paper products have been sprouting up like the numerous oak trees from fallen acorns in my garden. FDP International featured a diversity of e-paper products including gifts such as wrist watches using E Ink technology. And, would you believe, ‘e-Notes’ - a concept for an electronic version of Post-It pads from Sequoia Studios (www.Sequoia-studio.com). Even the Army is to field-test e-paper through 2011, and so far, E Ink-based products have shown remarkable ruggedness.

Paul Beatty
Analyst

Hanwang Technology Co Ltd. (Hanvon, Beijing, China; www.hangwang.com.cn) has launched their own 11mm thin electronic e-book reader (EBR), the first using E Ink’s smaller 5-inch Vizplex electrophoretic display (EPD) with a plastic substrate. The N510 is selling in China, and next year in the US, for the equivalent of some $295.

And, according to EE Times, the N510 was launched in a different sort of way aboard the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft. Astronauts are using it to read books, take notes with handwriting recognition (a Hanwang speciality) and listen to music with its MP3 capability. Intended for the mass market, its handwriting input rivals that of recently touted larger readers from Plastic Logic and iRex Technologies, although those have wireless connection for downloading.

Also in China, Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) and Chi Hsin Electronics Corp of the Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) Group, exhibited samples of 8- and 6-inch electronic paper displays at the FPD International in Japan. However, unlike most e-paper products, these didn’t use E Ink but the other type of electrophoretic display from SiPix, where white particles are contained in a colored liquid within a layer of honeycomb-like micro-cups. At present, these are on glass, but next year on plastic with less expensive roll-to-roll technology (as mentioned in July’s Mobile Display Report). For now this is just in development, but Chi Hsin Electronics say samples are being shipped. Each display has 16 shades of gray like the latest E Ink ones.

Meanwhile, Wintek (Taichung, Taiwan; www.wintek.com.tw) has been using SiPix EPD materials (also manufactured in Taiwan) for a prototype 4.3-inch display module using color. This was also shown at the FPD International where Wintek said it was using an RGBW color filter approach, getting a reflectance of only 15%.

That is a bit unexpected because at last May’s Society for Information Display Show in LA, SiPix claimed that they were making RGB dyes for the liquid to avoid color filters. They claimed this approach could be used for a much brighter color display with 35% reflectance - similar to monochrome reflectance values rather than other color e-paper prototypes that offer 18-25%. For now it seems, we will just have to wait for the brighter versions.

Over in the UK, more EBRs are becoming available. Mobile computer distributor, Widget UK (www.widget.com), has announced release of the BeBook reader from Endless Ideas in the Netherlands. Again, this uses E Ink’s Vizplex display but with a 6-inch diagonal and is 10mm thin. This also plays MP3 but has no writing input. Department store chain John Lewis is offering Sony’s latest reader, the PRS-700, for about $316 at today’s exchange rate.

And, we have just heard that e-book sales in the US increased 53% over the past year. While many may be read on notebooks, some sales are undoubtedly being driven by e-book availability too.

While most EBRs are monochrome, color displays are clearly desirable for some documents, magazines and photographs. To start to meet this need, Liquivista (www.liquavista.com) announced on Oct. 16 their ColorBright segmented electrowetting displays, and envision full color video versions in the future. Albeit not completely powerless for static modes, they do operate at lower power than OLEDs, and, as they need no backlight, under 20% of the power for LCDs. This might make them as competitive as true e-paper in terms of saving battery life and weight!

And OLEDs might play a role too. For example, Universal Display Corporation (UDC) (www.universaldisplay.com) and Samsung (www.samsung.com) have just shown very thin, 50-micron, flexible OLEDs using efficient emissive phosphorescent materials for possible future roll-out display. But, lifetime seems to be only around 1000 hours, so don’t hold your breathe.

It sure is starting to seem that paper for books, magazines and newspapers will soon get a run for its money with e-book offerings. On the other hand, paper ballots are still used as back-up in case those fancy optical readers or touch input screens malfunction. So, paper will never go away, but it will coexist with many new forms of electronic print.