For the past decade, Philips Research has developed
electrowetting technology, a way of creating full-color, highly reflective displays for mobile applications such as PDAs, mobile phones and video cameras without the need for a backlight. Today the company announced its latest spin-off venture,
Liquavista, which aims at industrializing and commercializing electrowetting technology by 2007. Unlike other upcoming paper-like display technologies such as E Ink, electrowetting displays consist of standard technologies of which nearly all are used in existing LCD display manufacturing facilities. Furthermore, electrowetting liquids can move fast enough to display video content in full color.
"Liquavista will bring a revolution to the mobile display marketplace." commented Mark Gostick, CEO, Liquavista, "Our HEOS technology offers bright vivid colors, video speed, exceptional viewability, even in bright sunlight, and substantial power savings compared with other technologies. We are set to play a key role in the portable and mobile applications markets by enabling new advances such as TV on mobile."
Attached you find a table comparing properties of various e-papers including E Ink,
ChLCD Fujitsu and Electrowetting Liquavista. For more background information, visit Liquavista's
download section or read this
Nature article (PDF).
[via
press release (PDF)]