Texas Instruments chip and software will streamline reader designs

Dulin's Books · 01-29-2010, 04:38 PM

http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/sho...leID=222200558

I know this information regarding TI's new chips for e-ink based ereaders was mentioned before but this article gave some insight I hadn't realized before.

The new chip and software will combine to replace some 40 discreet components currently found in EBRs using e-ink. It will also increase battery charge life by 50%.

Quote:

"Based on an e-book using a 6-inch E-Ink electrophoretic display (EPD) with a 600 milliamp/hour battery, readers could get up to 14,800 page turns, 50 percent better than current e-book," he added. Idle time for an e-book that continuously displays a single page is about four weeks, significantly longer than other e-books, Burke said.

Leave it on the page your reading without touching it for weeks

and still have battery left.

Their software gets rid of the dedicated display driver as well as the need fro ram for frame buffering and since the display driver is software e-ink can make updates without needing chip makers to redesign.

This is allot of good stuff - longer battery life, cheaper devices, thin/smaller devices, faster devices .

igorsk · 01-29-2010, 08:19 PM

So TI wants to get some of the Freescale's pie. Well, some healthy competition is always good for the market.

charleski · 01-29-2010, 08:34 PM

They don't just want Freescale's pie, they want to turn it into a cake. Greater integration of the silicon is the one area in which we can expect some real progress for ereaders. This is certainly good news, as opposed to the lackluster announcements concerning new display technology.

ardeegee · 01-29-2010, 11:20 PM

"Based on an e-book using a 6-inch E-Ink electrophoretic display (EPD) with a 600 milliamp/hour battery, readers could get up to 14,800 page turns, 50 percent better than current e-book," he added. Idle time for an e-book that continuously displays a single page is about four weeks, significantly longer than other e-books, Burke said."

Uh, since current readers are rated at around 7k page turns, 14k turns would be a 100% increase.

If he is wrong on basic math, it makes me question what else he might have wrong.

DawnFalcon · 01-30-2010, 12:49 AM

Based on the battery throughput he posits, he may well be right. Dosn't mean that's a typical actual throughput ofc

01-30-2010, 12:49 AM	#5
DawnFalcon Banned Posts: 2,094 Karma: 2682 Join Date: Aug 2009 Device: N/A	Based on the battery throughput he posits, he may well be right. Dosn't mean that's a typical actual throughput ofc Last edited by DawnFalcon; 01-30-2010 at 12:51 AM.

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01-29-2010, 08:19 PM	#2
igorsk Wizard Posts: 3,442 Karma: 300001 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Belgium Device: PRS-500/505/700, Kindle, Cybook Gen3, Words Gear	So TI wants to get some of the Freescale's pie. Well, some healthy competition is always good for the market.

01-29-2010, 08:34 PM	#3
charleski Wizard Posts: 1,196 Karma: 1281258 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: PRS-505	They don't just want Freescale's pie, they want to turn it into a cake. Greater integration of the silicon is the one area in which we can expect some real progress for ereaders. This is certainly good news, as opposed to the lackluster announcements concerning new display technology.

01-29-2010, 11:20 PM	#4
ardeegee Maratus speciosus butt Posts: 3,292 Karma: 1162698 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: PRS-350	"Based on an e-book using a 6-inch E-Ink electrophoretic display (EPD) with a 600 milliamp/hour battery, readers could get up to 14,800 page turns, 50 percent better than current e-book," he added. Idle time for an e-book that continuously displays a single page is about four weeks, significantly longer than other e-books, Burke said." Uh, since current readers are rated at around 7k page turns, 14k turns would be a 100% increase. If he is wrong on basic math, it makes me question what else he might have wrong.

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