Introduction: Philips has pointed out that the impact of e-paper technology is far more than that. This kind of display may unify the world of the future display market, and may change the game rules of the future electronic equipment manufacturing industry, or even more than that. Just considering its impact on the field of e-books is undoubtedly wrong.
About "Electronic Paper" >>
The publishing industry is no longer unfamiliar with the term "electronic paper". This electronic device that combines paper and digital display technology has been successfully developed, but it is still far from the general application. At present, the consumer market for such products is still It is not very big, there are three main reasons: one is that the implementation cost of this technology is higher; the second is that the reading format supported by such products is limited; the third is that the display effect of this product is not satisfactory, and needs further improvement. Some professionals predict that in the near term, although various digital display technologies, including the application of liquid crystal display technology, are developing rapidly, it will take time for these display devices to truly replace paper. In fact, with the application of digital display technology, the consumption of paper is exactly proportional to it, which makes it more urgent for "electronic paper" to achieve greater technological breakthroughs.
1. Rising background
In 1975, a scientist named Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center named Nick Sheridon developed a new display technology. The products developed based on this technology have the superior thinness, flexibility, and high contrast of paper. And the relevant characteristics of electronic displays. The display made by Sheridon, a display technology called Gyricon, is made of thousands of small balls embedded in a flexible rubber-shaped sheet. Half of the balls are black and positively charged; the other half are white and uncharged; when the integrated circuit board under the rubber-shaped sheet is energized, the ball will rotate, thereby displaying a simple black and white pattern on the display. Gyricon monitors are thinner, lighter, and more flexible than previous display devices. In theory, it has the same display function as paper, and can update the display content at any time according to the entered digital information. More importantly, the Gyricon display only needs power supply when the ball is rotated to change the display content. After the pattern on the page is set, it can still be displayed when it is not powered. Unfortunately, Xerox terminated further development of Gyricon technology and turned to projects that seemed more promising at the time.
In the mid-1990s, a physics researcher named Joseph Jacobson at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab also had a strong interest in "electronic paper" display technology. He and his two graduate students developed a display technology that is similar to Sheridon's scheme. Of course, Jacobson's scheme is not a copy of Sheridon. Jacobson's solution does not use solid spheres, but a hollow transparent sphere filled with blue dye and titanium dioxide chips called "microcapsules." After energization, the wafers in these balls will float to the top or sink to the bottom, resulting in small spots of varying depth. The microcapsules of this electronic ink nature are very small, with a diameter of only about 100 microns, which can display high-resolution graphic information. Such microcapsules can be sprayed or compressed on many kinds of materials, and it is possible to use assembly line mass production technology to generate electronic ink "pages". The surface of the luminous body formed by such microcapsules can produce a contrast ratio similar to that of printed newspapers, so that people can read graphic information under a wide visual angle under different lighting conditions. Because electric energy is only needed when changing the content of the page, electronic ink technology can also significantly save power consumption.
In 1997, Jacobson resigned from his position at MIT and established an electronic ink company (E Ink Inc.) with millions of dollars of venture capital. Today, electronic ink companies own $ 50 million in assets including Motorola and Hearst. At the same time, Nick Sheridon, a senior researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, restarted his development of electronic ink technology. Last year, Xerox separated Gyricon and set up another wholly-owned company. Nick Sheridon served as the company ’s director of research and development.
2. Application prospects
Although both the Electronic Ink Company and Gyricon are developing similar technologies, the two companies' business development strategies have different focuses. Gyricon focuses on the development of electronic graphic logo design projects for retailers or other commercial uses. Gyricon's main product is called MaestroSign (design master). It integrates the company's electronic ink technology and software so that retailer users can monitor the display of graphic signs at multiple points of sale in one location. For example, retailers using the MaestroSign system can immediately adjust the prices of products and promotional slogans on the display according to market conditions. The MaestroSign system not only eliminates printing and distribution costs, but also reduces the labor cost of maintaining dozens or hundreds of displayed icons at multiple retail locations. Gyricon has released agreements signed with Macy's and Thomson-Leeds. The three parties agreed that as early as June 2001, the two department stores would place MaestroSign system displays at all of their retail outlets.
The electronic ink company initially focused on the development of electronic icon projects for retailers and outdoor advertisers, which has changed. After completing a navigation project that includes 200 electronic displays from 30 retailers, the electronic ink company announced that it will not launch retail icon technology again until early next year. This is because some recent advances in this technology have been significantly higher than the company's technical level, the main reason is that the electronic ink company has signed a cooperation agreement with Philips. Under this agreement, electronic ink companies will provide technical support for Philips' next-generation PDA displays, e-readers and other products. Wilcox, the general manager of the electronic ink company, revealed that Philips plans to launch a series of products that use the display technology of the electronic ink company by mid-2003.
3. Technical obstacles
Although electronic ink can be "printed" on many surfaces, researchers will face more and more technical difficulties, such as how to deal with the transistor array of the display. Liquid crystal displays use silicon wafers and resin integrated circuit boards to process each pixel unit, but the cost is too high after all and is quite bulky. This is the main reason why both Gyricon and Electronic Ink initially focused on developing point-of-sale displays rather than developing display technology for mobile devices.
However, in the past few years, researchers from many companies including Lucent and IBM have been working on solutions for organic thin film crystals. This polymer crystal sheet is light, thin, and flexible, that is, a conductive plastic. The researchers pressed the integrated circuit onto this plastic board and used gold and other high-toughness metals to guide the power supply. This made a flexible, bendable, rollable, and foldable circuit board that would not be destroyed.
In September 1999, Lucent and Electronic Ink began to develop a new generation of products that integrated Lucent ’s printed plastic integrated circuit boards and Electronic Ink ’s electronic ink display technology. According to a semiconductor physics researcher at Lucent, the basic development of this project is progressing smoothly. In November last year, the two companies released a 256-pixel display, which was the first time the two companies demonstrated an electronic display system. This kind of display theoretically combines the visual effects and physical properties of paper and ink, which is a significant technological advancement for electronics manufacturers and publishers.
Fourth, the realization of mass production
Although Lucent and E Ink have demonstrated this new technology, both companies face another problem: how to transform this technology into a low-cost and high-performance mass-produced product. At present, the production process of display is too much, too complicated, and expensive. The computer manufacturing industry has not been able to produce large-scale production, so the price index has been high. Therefore, both companies want to seek more advanced production methods.
Lucent's plan is to seek technical production methods with relatively low cost and simple processes from the beginning of the R & D stage. It can be said that Lucent ’s solution is a set of production tools that are more similar to printing tools than traditional silicon wafer production processes, because their processes are compatible with continuous disc production processes, and plastic semiconductors can reduce display production costs. One or two grades and corresponding technical improvements are possible, which is impossible in the production technology of liquid crystal displays. Owing to this type of printing production process, the company can enter many fields and develop large-screen displays at a relatively low cost. In this way, this single production method can be used to produce everything from PDA displays to outdoor billboards, with unit costs similar. Of course, this kind of plastic integrated circuit board technology needs to be improved, and it will take some time before it is actually put into production.
V. Future technical improvements
EInk plans to further improve this production technology. The company's Philips electronic equipment uses the traditional silicon wafer integrated circuit board production process, its display screen resolution reaches 125 and 150ppi, which is twice the resolution of the existing PDA screen. Moreover, the brightness and contrast are higher than traditional displays, the weight is reduced by 30-50%, the viewing angle is wider, and the power consumption of the LCD display is used, the power consumption is reduced by 99%, which shows that this new device has strong market competitiveness.
Display speed is also an issue that people care about. Of course, it is better that electronic ink and its integrated circuit board can quickly process the video display information input. Although plastic semiconductors are inherently lower in performance than silicon wafers, Lucent has implemented plastic integrated circuit boards to quickly process full-screen video information. Although the first wave of mobile devices using E Ink's technology does not need to reach this level, E Ink is currently developing display technologies that support full-screen video information, and the project is progressing well, and is nearing completion.
Another big challenge is the problem of color output. Although the E Ink display currently supports only two colors (black / blue + white), the company recently announced that it will cooperate with Toppan Printing to develop a color electronic ink display. As the world's largest manufacturer of color filter arrays for flat-panel display systems, Toppan will provide basic technical support for the production of color filters for E Ink displays. Of course, the first color display will likely be better than a monochrome display Thicker (but still 20-50% lighter than LCD monitors). The two companies also reached an agreement to jointly develop plastic color filters and flexible color displays.
6. Impact on the publishing industry
At present, at least the publishing giant Hurst is very interested in E Ink's technology, and has invested millions of dollars in this technology. In addition, many electronic equipment manufacturers including Philips, Motorola and Toppan have invested in E Ink and signed a joint development agreement with the company. However, the ultimate goal of E Ink is to develop a low-cost ultra-light display that can support wireless communication. Some people have named this new type of display "radio paper". Of course, the realization of the goal needs to take time, and there may be intentions. Unexpected problem. Do publishers need to intervene in the face of such rapid technological innovation?
As we all know, the publishing industry is currently focusing on the development of the e-book market, and publishers should be able to support or even invest in this technology for this purpose. The production cost and distribution cost of e-books may be very low, but people do not want to pay as much as printed books for online products. The difference between the two is not a content problem, but a container problem. If the e-book reading experience is ideal, people will be more willing to buy. The current status quo is that only early adopters and vertical markets (such as school textbooks) are interested. It can be predicted that in the near future, E Ink's technology will make e-books a product with a broad market space.
Publishers should carefully consider the ultimate goal of E Ink, once the company's goal is achieved, it will be extremely competitive. At present, many technical analysts have great interest in e-paper technology, but the publishing industry may not necessarily realize the seriousness of this problem. Even if they realize it, they only consider the impact of this new technology on e-book technology.
Philips once pointed out that the impact of this new technology is far more than that. This kind of display may unify the future display market, and may change the game rules of the future electronic equipment manufacturing industry, or even more than that. Just considering its impact on the field of e-books is undoubtedly wrong.
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