Color E Ink technology still has some kinks to see, but Ricoh thinks it might have just taken an enormous breakthrough with its latest display. The company’s electronic paper, introduced at SID this week, promises to breed images which can be 2.5 times brighter than competitors’ offerings, while covering a colour range that’s four times wider. To reach this, Ricoh used an effortless lamination method, layering three strips of electrochromic material between two substrates. Unfortunately, however, there is no indication that the technology may be commercially available anytime soon, as Ricoh still must incorporate its e-paper onto more effective screen sizes, in addition to enhance the display’s durability — either one of which sound like pretty major hurdles to us. Full press release after the break.
Tokyo May 18 – Ricoh Company, Ltd. (President & CEO: Shiro Kondo) announced that the corporate, utilizing its original display method, has achieved a display of color still images with about 2.5 times brighter (in white reflectivity) and about 4 times wider color reproduction range compared with presently commercialized or announced color electronic paper technologies.
Electronic paper, having no luminous source, differs from a traditional display unit-it requires no electric power other than rewriting characters and pictures. Referred to as a technology gentle at the environment and the human eye, 6.6 million monochrome devices for reading digital books are actually sold annually within the world and sales are predicted to exceed 11 million readers in 2011 (*1). Although color devices have long been desired, the methods proposed for color electronic paper have up to now not been ready to solve the dearth of brightness or color reproducibility, even in theory. Therefore the colour electronic paper market is predicted to grow significantly with future technology development, greatly expanding possible applications.
(*1) Gartner Report: “Competitive Landscape: Connected E-Readers, North America,” published on December 8, 2010.
Ricoh developed the world’s first new organic electrochromic material (*2) producing three primary colors (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow) while improving memory properties in March 2009. The corporate together proposed a straightforward laminating element structure, forming three electrochromic layers between two substrates. This was made possible by stepping outside the box and beyond the unique display methodology hitherto trendy. This proved the feasibility of color electronic paper in a position to achieving a bright display at low power consumption and coffee cost.
(*2) Joint development with Yamada Chemical Co., Ltd. (Kyoto, President: Shimpei Yamada).
In keeping with this result, Ricoh moved from the event phase of element technology to the improvement of a realistic application of prototypes featuring high resolution electronic paper. This ended in success achieve bright images with high color image reproducibility. Ricoh will accelerate development toward practical application by improving reliability/repetition durability (guaranteeing tens of thousands of rewrites) and bigger screen size. Although development will expand to incorporate document display devices that could display fine characters, the evolution will progress with various applications developing in parallel.
Ricoh introduced this technology at DISPLAY WEEK 2011 of SID (The Society for info Display) held in La from May 15 to twenty.
Lumus’ OE-31 optical engine turns motorcycle helmets, other eyewear into wearable displays
OMAP 5′s dual A15 cores wipe the ground with four A9s in browsing benchmark
