What They Say
We reported on the deal between Sharp and E Ink for the use of IGZO backplanes for EPD displays. I wasn’t sure about the real advantages of going to IGZO, which costs more than amorphous silicon and is significantly harder to make, so I reached out to the firm. The answer came back:
“Customer expectations for ePaper enabled devices (particularly eReaders, eNote and Signage), include faster UI, faster page turn, quick color transitions and faster pen writing experience. So the higher mobility and higher voltage charging properties of IGZO (vs. a-Si TFT) contribute to faster moving ink. As color ePaper contains multiple color particles, controlling those particles and moving them quickly, is much more complicated than black and white. The faster the inks move, the shorter the time required to refresh images.”
What We Think
That makes sense. It amazes me that engineers have been able to develop the complex driving system for colour E Ink displays at all. Doing it relatively quickly is even harder. As a reminder, of the article last week, the update speed of IGZO black and white has been reduced to 0.35 seconds and 0.5 to 1.5 seconds for colour. That’s still not fast in terms of other displays, but is getting a bit better. Sharp will show the new technology at Ceatec in Japan from October 18th to 21st.
We recently reported on the Amazon Kindle Scribe device which adds a pen to the Kindle eReader. The Stuff website compared the new device to the Remarkable notepad. (BR)
Image:Stuff
