E Ink Shows Off Full Color Display

Full-color electronic paper is finally a reality. But don't expect to flip through vivid comic book e-pages any time soon: The technology will serve as signage for now.

E Ink—maker of the ePaper display on your Nook, Kindle, or Kobo—this week unveiled Advanced Color ePaper (ACeP), a high-quality, full-color reflective display.

ACeP uses colored pigments and a single layer of electrophoretic fluid to achieve a full color gamut. The new technology achieves its richness of color, E Ink explained, by having all colored pigments in every pixel, rather than the side-by-side pixel colors achieved with a color filter array (CFA).

"At its heart, E Ink is a materials and technology company," Fank Ko, chairman of E Ink Holdings, said in a statement. "It's this core that provides the energy and the foundation for the stream of products being developed at E Ink. We expect ACeP to become the basis upon which another generation of EPD display products can be developed."

Other attempts at getting reflective color at every pixel have proven complex, difficult to manufacture, and costly. ACeP, meanwhile, maintains the same ultra-low-power and paper-like readability as regular ePaper.

"The technical team was convinced this was achievable," E Ink CTO Michael McCreary said. "The breakthroughs required to achieve this milestone were numerous and frequent. We are very proud of the [global R&D team's] accomplishment and dedication to this task."

Multiple 20-inch ACeP displays, with a resolution of 1,600 by 2,500 at 150 ppi, have already been constructed.

Visitors to this week's SID Display Week exhibition in San Francisco can visit E Ink's booth for a first-hand look at Advanced Color ePaper. Also on display is a 32-inch flexible display (below), another device intended for signs.