E Ink and Lucent Technologies reached a milestone in their collaboration to develop a flexible, paper-like electronic display by demonstrating a working prototype of the displays built on thin sheets of plastic.

The new display medium comes just one year after the development project was announced and proves that electronic ink, driven with printed plastic circuits, is a compelling design for electronic paper and other next-generation displays.

The working prototype is a big step toward E Ink’s mission to deliver portable electronic newspapers to the marketplace. The company already is marketing its large Immedia display signs, which are being used by The (Phoenix) Arizona Republic to display headline teasers in supermarkets and other locations to pique interest in the paper.

This working prototype display is part of E Ink’s
quest to provide portable e-newspapers.
Photo courtesy of E Ink

But the 25-square-inch prototype demonstrated by Lucent and E Ink pairs the electronic ink with a portable medium that could aptly be described as electronic paper. It is the predecessor to what E Ink refers to as “radio paper” for its ability to wirelessly receive the information that creates the display. The company expects to have a radio paper prototype in three to five years.

“We believe the world will increasingly go wireless, and that newspapers will ultimately be broadcasting over radio waves, (and) that content will ultimately be distributed wirelessly.” said Jim Iuliano, E Ink’s president and chief executive officer. “These wireless transmissions will be received by E Ink radio paper, and users will, at the push of a button, be able to receive the current edition.”

Jim Iuliano

The displays were constructed using E Ink’s electronic ink (N&T, March, October 2000) and Lucent’s active-matrix drive circuits printed on plastic, which were constructed by Lucent’s research and development unit, Bell Labs.

Researchers produced the plastic circuits by using newly developed, high-resolution rubber stamping techniques with compatible materials technologies that bypass many of the steps and costs involved in making traditional silicon devices.

The display prototype has two primary advantages, according to Iuliano — low cost and the ability to print the electronics on non-glass displays.

Lucent’s organic technology allows the electronic structures to be printed on thin sheets of plastic, on paper or on a paper-like substrate instead of processing them on glass at very high temperatures, which brings down the cost of the technology.

“One of the reasons that your laptop computer screen is glass-based is that the electronics have to be processed at very high temperatures to get them to operate. If you were to put them on plastic and heat them at 600 degrees … you wouldn’t have a display — you’d have mud,” Iuliano said. “But if you could print electronics down, now you wouldn’t have to put it on glass, which is one of the few things that can withstand very high temperatures. You could put them on pieces of paper, conceivably, or paper-like material or pieces of polyester plastic.”

Right now the prototype is a low-resolution monochrome display, but Lucent and E Ink are working toward increasing its resolution and color capabilities. The Lucent prototype is a 16-by-16-pixel array, with a resolution of three to five dots per inch. For comparison, laptop computer screens are just under 100 dpi. The electronic ink is compatible with high resolutions, having been demonstrated at resolutions as high as 200 dpi. It is the electronics of the portable display that need to be further developed.

“One of the things that is in both Lucent’s and E Ink’s technical objectives is to improve the resolution — and that is literally just coming down a learning curve,” Iuliano said. “Color is a bit more straightforward. Liquid crystals themselves have no inherent color. To get color on your laptop computer, display manufacturers use a red a green and a blue color filter. So for us to obtain color, most simplistically, we’ll just adopt the same approach.”

Newspaper companies have taken an early interest in E Ink’s research and development. Investors in the company include McClatchy Co., Gannett Co. Inc. and Hearst Newspapers, whose chief operating officer and head of its newspaper division, George Irish, sits on E Ink’s board of directors.

“We’ve had a lot of early-on interest,” Iuliano said. “The economics are compelling for newspaper publishers, because there’s no more chopping down trees, no more processing that into pulp, no more squirting ink on that, no more having big trucks deliver bales of newspapers. Think about the cost structure that goes into the paper production and distribution of the newspaper, and that basically gets eliminated.”

Kenneth Bronfin, senior vice president and deputy group head for Hearst Interactive Media, echoed that sentiment.

“Manufacturing, printing and distribution [costs are] a huge percentage of overall expenses that has basically stayed constant over the last 50 to 75 years. It’s a huge number which is not being driven down, and in some cases is being driven up,” Bronfin stated. “So you can understand the motivation of all these newspapers to try to eliminate some of those costs. Here’s the case where they could deliver the same type of news and information and advertising, except it is literally on paper that updates itself on a regular basis.”

While no one is talking about the immediate demise of the printing press and ink on paper, Bronfin said, “Long term, I think that’s very possible.”