Fujitsu dramatically enhances colour electronic paper functionality

Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. today announced the development of a newly-enhanced colour electronic paper (e-paper) that features the world's highest-level colour image quality.
 
By extensively redesigning the panel structure and image re-write methods of Fujitsu's previous-version colour e-paper, in addition to offering bright colour, Fujitsu has improved contrast ratio to 7:1 (a three-fold improvement compared to Fujitsu's previous version), and has made the image re-write speed twice as fast at 0.7 seconds compared to Fujitsu's previous colour e-paper, thus enabling smooth image transitions and colour display quality that is at the highest levels available for colour e-paper.

Fujitsu's feature-enhanced new colour e-paper will be exhibited as reference at Fujitsu Forum 2010, Fujitsu's largest annual event in Japan, to be held 13 - 14 May at Tokyo International Forum.

Figure 1: Display image comparison of Fujitsu's new version vs. previous-version colour e-paper

E-paper is being heralded as an environmentally friendly electronic display medium that is lightweight and thin like paper, consumes little power, and allows an image to be freely redrawn.

While most e-paper applications to date - such as e-book readers - have been monochrome (black and white), Fujitsu Laboratories pioneered the development and practical use of colour e-paper, and in 2007 Fujitsu Frontech Limited brought to market FLEPia, the world's first portable information terminal equipped with a colour e-paper display.

With demand on the rise for e-paper in areas such as e-book readers and public advertisements, anticipation is mounting for e-paper technology that can display colour.

Technological Challenges
Although extensive R&D in the industry has been conducted for e-paper, in the past as it had been difficult to simultaneously achieve various functionality, such as the ability to feature brightness in colour, and simultaneously enhancing brightness and greater contrast ratios while achieving faster re-write speeds, there is anticipation for improvements in colour e-paper featuring further enhanced display functionality.

Figure 2: Cholestric LCD panel employed in Fujitsu's colour e-paper structure