WEBINAR: e-readers and e-paper - technology and applications

Sara Ver-Bruggen - 27 Jan 2010

Rapid consumer adoption of e-readers is driving demand for e-paper, the display technology crucial for providing an immersive reading experience.

Advances in e-paper in areas such as flexibility (transition of fabrication on glass to plastic/foil substrates) and colour will have a direct impact on the future widespread uptake of e-readers by publishing markets including newspapers, magazines and textbooks.

e-readers and e-paper: technology and applications, an upcoming webinar from +Plastic Electronics and IntertechPira, discusses the evolution of e-paper for the e-reader market.

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

e-readers and e-paper: technology and applications will be given by Ian French, a principal scientist at Prime View International (PVI). Taiwan-based PVI is the leading supplier of e-paper displays to the burgeoning e-reader market and recently acquired E Ink,the sole supplier of e-paper frontplanes for e-reader devices.

PVI's customers include Amazon, Sony, Hanvon and Bookeen. Before joining PVI in 2008, French worked at Philips and developed a flexible e-paper technology that exploits existing active matrix TFT-LCD fabrication processes used in the mass manufacture of electronic information displays.

As well as PVI, other flexible e-paper technologies commercialised or in development include Plastic Logic's, used in the company's recently launched Que e-reader. The flexible display technology uses e-paper film supplied by E Ink integrated with a backplane made from an array of polymer transistors on plastic.

LG Display is also close to commercialising a flexible e-paper display fabricated on thin metal substrates in e-readers developed by the Hearst-backed Skiff venture.