LG Begins Mass Production of First Flexible E-ink Displays

MrSeb writes "LG has just announced it has begun mass production of the world's first flexible, plastic e-ink display, with finished devices expected to hit Europe next month. LG says these plastic displays are half the weight (14g) and 30% thinner (0.7mm) than the hard, heavy, prone-to-cracking glass-laminate e-ink displays found in e-book readers like the Kindle and Nook. The press release says the plastic display survives repeated 1.5-meter drop tests and break/scratch tests with a small hammer, and that it's flexible up to 40 degrees from the mid point. Technology-wise, it's not very clear how LG's e-paper actually works. The press release suggests LG is using a conventional TFT process, which hints that they've cracked Electronics on Plastic by Laser Release (EPLaR). EPLaR is basically a technique of embedding electrophoretic ink capsules in a plastic substrate, but using existing TFT manufacturing processes, rather than building a whole new factory (unlike E Ink, which makes displays for the Kindle and other e-book readers). If this is the case, then other LCD manufacturers like Samsung and Sharp could start producing e-ink displays as well, hopefully driving prices down and further improving the display technology."

Does the display require power?

[adisakp]

It mentions a TFT substrate and calls it an eInk display. Correctly me if I'm wrong but TFT requires active power for a display while the idea of eInk is that once a display is "set", you do not use any power until you need to update / change the display.

Re:Does the display require power?

[viperidaenz]

The property that governs the majority of the power consumption is the backlight. How do you think and LCD watch maintains its display for 5 years on a single 50mah battery? Transflective displays were semi-popular in the PDA market 10 years ago. You could turn the backlight off and still read it when there is sufficent ambient light. They're also easy to read in direct sunlight. The down side is without ambient light they require a much stronger backlight to get through the semi-reflective back layer of the screen.