A personal electronic device that can change color and pattern to match your clothing or mood? Expect it soon…when gadgets start to include electronic skins.

Art Berman
Insight Media Consultant

An electronic skin can be described as a material that falls somewhere between a sticker and a flexible LCD. More specifically, an electronic skin is thin, flexible and reflective. The color or transmission of the film can be electrically switched. Being reflective, the features of the skin remain visible even in direct sunlight. Such films can be conformally applied to a variety of devices including cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players and notebook computers — you name it.

Up to now, one dissatisfaction with personal electronic devices has been their lack of individuality. In most cases, all devices of a given type look basically the same, customization is possible by purchasing an accessory case or skin that is not electronic. In fact, this is already a huge business, so the extension to allow electronic skins makes sense. Electronic skin technology offers brands and manufacturers new ways to personalize their products by controlling the surface color and even configuring icons and/or alphanumeric characters.

This Display Daily will offer a few comments regarding two players in this new display technology.

On the SID show floor, Kent Displays showed an electronic skin display based on cholesteric liquid crystals. The company calls it approach Reflex technology. The material can be electrically switched between a bright reflecting state and a dark non-reflecting state. Since it is bistable, no power is required to sustain either state.

The flexible, plastic skin is about 60 microns thick. This is thinner than a typical sheet of paper. The skin can be cut into any desired shape and made to conform to the surface of a personal electronic device. The company’s first generation electronic skins are available in eight different colors. The color can be changed in response to an action taken by the user. (Example: by the press of a button.) Alternately, the user could conceivably set the personal electronic device to change the skin color based on the status of the system. (Example: in a cell phone, to indicate that a message has been received.)

Reflex skins are well suited to roll-to-roll manufacturing. This is due in part to the structure of and materials from which the skin is constructed: two electrically conductive flexible substrates, a liquid crystal/polymer dispersion and a backing that absorbs light. Roll-to-roll processing offers the potential to produce skins efficiently in high volume and, thus, the promise of low cost products.

In a private suite at SID, HP demonstrated eSkin, their electronic skin product. It is based on an printed inks with an electronic layer above. By passing a current through an eSkin film, the electronic layer can be switched between opaque and transparent. When transparent, the surface underlying the eSkin is revealed. This is done rather quickly. HP was very elusive about exactly what this technology is, but it is too fast to be a traditional electrochromic layer.

HP’s eSkin device architecture is also compatible with roll-to-roll processing. Ultra-thin plastic circuits are combined with electrically controllable inks to achieve print-like color performance as well as transparency. Using a technology similar to color printing, HP is developing the capability to produce specific ink colors within the Pantone Matching System range.

A current eSkin version allows up to 80 segments to be individually controlled. This provides the capability and ability to give the perception of movement and/or to produce other visual effects with the eSkin.

Do we need electronic skin capability in our personal electronic devices? I don’t know. Will consumers want this feature? I believe so. It seems quite certain that we will all get to find out.