FOURTEEN EMERGING DISPLAY TECHNOLOGIES

Print Action, Mar 2004

Revolutionary Tablet PC

An article from ITWorldCanada.com reports that an elementary school in Aurora, Ontario, began a 6-month pilot project, in January, with grade-eight students to see if Tablet PCs could improve the way students learn. The school board, according to the article, partnered with several technology companies to bring Acer TravelMate CIlO series Tablet PCs into the classroom. The Acer was chosen because of its versatility. Acer says the technology revolutionises mobile computing by uniting the notebook PC of today with the tablet computer of tomorrow. Multiple methods of input represent some move of the technology's innovative features. The Tablet PC has a touch-sensitive screen and is of a slate format, meaning that, while it looks like a laptop, the keyboard can be disconnected from the monitor. The device accepts handwritten input, from signed documents to what the company calls downtime doodles, and has a screen layout for landscape or portrait viewing. A single key launches the devices wireless LAN, which is a feature that should prove to be one of the greatest reasons for widespread adoption. The technology runs on Microsoft's Windows XP.

Flexible Video Screen

Universal Display Corporation continues to build upon its prototype flexible OLED display, or FOLED. The company is developing FOLEDs on a variety of substrates that range from optically-clear plastic films to reflective metal foils. Such materials provide the ability to conform, bend or roll a display into any shape - representing a huge ubiquity potential. A FOLED display can be laminated onto a helmet face shield, a military uniform shirtsleeve, an aircraft cockpit instrument panel or an automotive windshield. The use of thin plastic substrates can significantly reduce the weight of flat-panel displays in cell phones, portable computers and large-area televisions mounted on a wall. The weight of a display in a laptop computer can be significantly reduced by using FOLED technology. FOLEDs will also generally be less breakable, more impact resistant and more durable compared to their glass-based counterpart. While OLEDs are already projected to have full-production level cost advantages over most flat-panel displays, FOLED technology brings the prospect of roll-to-roll processing. Universal Display's research partners are said to have demonstrated a continuous organic vapor phase deposition process for large-area roll-to-roll OLED manufacturing. While continuous web FOLED processing requires further development, this process may provide the basis for very low-cost, mass production.

Philips Electronic Paper

Polymer Vision is the new internal division behind Royal Philips Electronics' current capability to produce prototypes of ultra-thin, large-area, reliable displays on a routine basis. The company intends to rapidly move toward an industrial-scale production process. These displays combine active-matrix polymer driving electronics with a reflective electronic-ink front plane on an extremely thin sheet of plastic. According to the company, the availability of such displays would greatly stimulate the advance of electronic books, newspapers and magazines. Polymer Vision is able to make organics-based active matrix displays with a diagonal of five inches, a resolution of 85 dpi and a bending radius of two centimeters. The displays combine a 25-micron thick active-matrix back plane, containing the polymer electronics-based pixel driving, with a 200-micron front plane of reflective 'electronic ink" developed by E Ink Corporation. It is the largest organic electronics-based display yet, with the smallest pixel pitch reported to date. Currently, Polymer Vision has the capability of producing over 5,000 fully functional reliable display samples per year, and aims to have production reach the millions within the next two years.

Philips and E-ink E-book

The ebook stumbled, in part, because it was not appealing to read from an LCD screen. Philips and E Ink are joining forces yet again for what they are calling the first mass-market device to feature a paper-like display. The E Ink technology is a monochrome display consisting of millions of tiny, transparent capsules - each filled with microscopic black-and-white pigment chips - spread out in a layer as thin as a human hair. Which chips are seen on the surface of the layer is determined by applying varying positive or negative voltages to the capsules, turning them black, white or different shades of gray. Another key point, according to the companies, is that the electronic-ink display consumes much less power. Unlike LCDs, E Ink needs no back or front lighting. Nor is power needed to maintain the image, since the white and the black pigment chips stay in position once the voltage is zero. The first model will have a single display, but a version planned for later in 2004 will include two displays that can be opened and closed like a real book. Users will be able to download content from the internet or from flash memory.