E-paper displays move a step closer to real paper

by Martyn Williams

April 16, 2008 —

A new electronic paper display could allow users to annotate pages in electronic
books, make amendments to documents and erase parts of the page with as much
ease as using a real pen and paper.

The screen, on show Wednesday at the Display
2008 exhibition in Tokyo, was developed by E-Ink,
Taiwan's Prime
View International and Japan's Seiko
Epson. It combines a conventional electronic paper display with a touch
panel and a newly developed control chip.

The chip, from Seiko Epson, can control a screen with up to four times the
resolution of current "writable" e-paper devices such as iRex
Technologies' iLiad.

Seiko Epson's chip also refreshes the display faster than the iLiad can, eliminating
the slight lag between movement of the stylus and its effect on the screen.

The new chip shortens the update time so the screen can be refreshed 50 times
per second. That means lines appear on the screen as they are drawn by the user
and interpreted by the touch-panel interface, said Akihiro Furuya of Seiko Epson's
semiconductor operations division, who demonstrated the system.

The prototype screen and controller board on show at the Display 2008 expo
allowed users to drawn on printed pages with a black, grey or white pen. With
black text on a white page the white pen had the effect of acting as an eraser.

The chip supports a screen of up to 2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels and will be
available commercially from August.

Electronic paper is often lauded for its high contrast that makes it appear
close to that of real paper. Under development for many years the technology
is now being used in commercial displays such as those in Amazon.com's
Kindle e-book reader, Motorola's
F3 cell phone and numerous in-store advertising displays.

(Chiara Castañeda contributed to this report.)

IDG News Service