LCDs would be easier to read in the sunlight if this new breakthrough works out: E Ink alternative, too, eventually?
An appeal of E Ink displays is that you can read e-books in bright light. LCDs don’t always fare so well under the circumstances. The view may look washed out.
But now Funai Electric Advanced Applied Technology has come up with an experimental reflective display that supposedly doesn’t even need a backlight. Might it actually thrive in bright surroundings, then? And could Funai’s LCDs reduce power consumption enough to get into E Ink territory? That would be great for interactive e-books since E Ink displays typically aren’t fast enough (though this will be changing).
Excerpt from Crunch Gear:
The company claims their display uses 0.16mW of electricity per square centimeter, which translates back to just 1% of what conventional LCDs need. Reportedly, clarity can still be compared to that of characters printed on a piece of paper. The display uses dyes changing color when exposed to an electric current.
Funai even says their new display boasts 80% reflectivity, 30% more than reflective LCDs so that images can be seen in sunlight more easily. On top of that, Funai doesn’t use thin-film transistors in the production of the screens, resulting in costs that are two-thirds lower than that of existing LCDs.
Funai aims for a commercialization of the display sometime next year, initially rolling out versions ranging from seven to 14 inches in size.
So what do you think, gang?
Related: Item on Nemoptic technology, which apparently is also within LCD Land.
November 19th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Wake me when he has a prototype device, pricing & software. By next Summer the playing field should be even more crowded than it is now. Plastic Logic and Astak should both have touch screen offerings out and the 9 inch e-ink devices will go on sale. It’s going to be an interesting year for display technology. Will this be anything more than an also ran…who knows?
November 19th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
0.16MW, or 160kW, or 160,000W, is insanely much energy!
November 19th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
I guess we’ll have to wait for official spec sheets before we can say anything about the downsides of this particular technology.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:35 am
LOL. mW, perhaps? Small m? Milliwatts? Good catch, Marcus, thanks. I’ve fixed the item. David
November 20th, 2008 at 2:35 am
Well, mW sounds more like it. Normal transflective LCDs consume 1-2 mW/(cm*cm) (which means this new display would be 10 times as efficient, not 100 times, as the article claims).
With this new display an A4 (630 cm*cm) would consume 100-130 mW, so if you drive this (5V?) display with 4 AAA batteries storing 800 mAh you have almost 4000 mWh (4*1.2V*800mAh), which translates to 30-40 hours. Hmm.. shouldn’t it be more, considering I used to have these small LCD pocket games that ran with tiny batteries for months? What am I missing?