Phillips Pioneers New Color E-Ink Technology

Posted on May 8, 2009

Phillips is working on creating color e-ink so that media readers (like the Kindle, which is only black and white) will be able to display full color pages.

A new approach developed by Philips now offers fresh hope for color e-paper displays that are so bright and clear that even traditional liquid crystal displays (LCDs) will pale in comparison. According to Kars-Michiel Lenssen, who headed the work at Philips Research, based in Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, the new approach has the potential to create color images that are three times brighter than displays that use color filters, including LCDs. "This is the closest an electronic-paper technology ever got to printed paper," he says.

Color displays normally require four subpixels--red, green, blue, and white--to create each full-color pixel. "That costs you in terms of resolution," says Pieter van Lieshout, head of product research and development for Polymer Vision, which was spun off from Philips Electronics three years ago to develop flexible electronic-paper displays.

The other consequence of using a color filter is that it reduces the brightness of a display, says Sri Peruvemba, vice president of marketing at E-Ink, in Cambridge, MA, which was spun out of research at MIT in 1997. For example, making the entire screen red using subpixels means that only a quarter of the screen will actually be red. In contrast, Philips Research's approach involves turning the traditional electronic-paper pixel quite literally on its side, in order to tune it to different shades of the spectrum.

Philips's new technique is called in-plane electrophoretics. It suspends colored particles in a clear liquid and moves them horizontally. The pixels are made up of microcapsule chambers, each of which contains either yellow, cyan, magenta and black. The technology is in its infancy, but it's clear that in the not too distant future, there will be full color ebook and magazine readers.


More from Writers Write


  • Costco Plans to Sell Books Only From September to December


  • Karlie Kloss to Relaunch Life Magazine at Bedford Media


  • NBF Expands National Book Awards Eligibility Criteria


  • Striking Writers and Actors March Together on Hollywood Streets


  • Vice Media Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy


  • New in Products: Amazon Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition