San Francisco (May 24, 2016) – E Ink® Holdings, "E Ink" (8069.TWO), the leading innovator of electronic ink technology in the world, today announced a breakthrough technology with its Advanced Color ePaper(ACeP), a high quality, full color reflective display. For the first time ever, an electrophoretic display (EPD) can produce full color at every pixel and without the use of a color filter array (CFA). ACeP sets a new standard for bright, reflective color achievable with EPDs. The initial target application for ACeP will be for digital signage applications.
ACeP achieves a full color gamut, including all eight primary colors, using only colored pigments. The display utilizes a single layer of electrophoretic fluid which is controlled using voltages compatible with commercial TFT backplanes. The fluid can be incorporated into either microcapsule or Microcup® structures. The richness of the colors is achieved by having all the colored pigments in every picture element (pixel) rather than the side-by-side pixel colors achieved with a CFA. This eliminates the light attenuation, which can be quite significant. ACeP maintains the ultra-low-power and paper-like readability under all lighting conditions of regular E Ink ePaper.
“At its heart E Ink is a materials and technology company.” said Frank Ko, Chairman of E Ink Holdings. “It is this core that provides the energy and the foundation for the stream of products being developed at E Ink. We expect ACeP to become the basis upon which another generation of EPD display products can be developed.” In developing ACeP, E Ink researchers solved the very complex problem of how you can get reflective color at every pixel in a commercially viable structure. Other approaches have utilized stacked backplane structures that are complex, difficult to manufacture and costly. The E Ink approach utilizes only a single backplane. Many materials and waveform inventions were required to independently control the position of the multiple color pigments.
“The technical team was convinced this was achievable.” said Michael McCreary, CTO for E Ink Corporation. “E Ink’s global R&D team has a deep understanding and experience with electrophoretic displays. During the years of hard work of applying this experience to full color, the breakthroughs required to achieve this milestone were numerous and frequent. We are very proud of the team’s accomplishment and dedication to this task.”
Multiple 20” displays with a resolution of 1600 X 2500 at 150 ppi have been constructed. ACeP will be on display during SID’s Display Week, in E Ink’s booth (#521) at the Moscone Conference Center from Tuesday, May 24th through Thursday, May 26th.
