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Originally Posted by NatCh
Did anyone else notice this little bombshell?
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Steve and Sriram told me that PVI is no longer the sole source for eInk displays. Other manufacturers, like LG, have licensed the technology and are gearing up to produce displays. Steve said "I have a lot of worries, but supply of eInk displays isn't one of them!" Sriram mentioned a manufacturer who had bought the production facilities of another which had gone Chapter 11, and confirmed that plenty of production capacity existed. I'll be contacting him shortly to get more information on E Ink's partners and future plans.
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This is a huge deal! |
I thought so too.
I'm an old computer geek, and the watchword in the industry was to always have a second source. If you are dependant upon a component only made by one supplier, what do you do if their factory burns down? I recall the furor some years back when Intel released the first 386 chip. Before that, Intel had licensed manufacturing rights to other suppliers, so they weren't the sole source of CPU chips, and system builders didn't have to worry about getting enough chips to build the machines they needed to meet demand.
With the 386, Intel decided to sole-source, and did not license manufacturing rights to other vendors. There was a lot of angst in the industry about it, but it faded as Intel proved it had the capacity to meet the demand.
eInk based readers were in a similar position, only the critical part was the screens. That was what prompted my question to Steve about supply chain constraints. At the time, I thought PVI was the sole source. With Amazon, Sony, Bookeen, iRex, Jinke, and others all getting into the eInk device market, would supplies of screens be adequate?
Since PVI is no longer the only supplier, the answer is yes.
I'll be following up with Sriram to try to get more information on who else has licensed eInk, and what they plan for the future.
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Thanks for covering this for us, DMcCunney, you did a fantastic job of it!  
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It was my pleasure. I'll happily do it again, but hopefully with more warning, and time to line up ducks. There were questions that occurred to me after I left that I just didn't think of at the time. Fortunately, I have contact info, and should be able to ask more after the fact.
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Dennis