Guest post by In the past few months, especially after CES in January, there were some stories about a number of new display technologies for colour e-books. IEEE Spectrum ran this thorough article that explains it all.
In the past few months, especially after CES in January, there were some stories about a number of new display technologies for colour e-books. IEEE Spectrum ran this thorough article that explains it all.
I am staggered the article doesn’t mention Unipixel of Texas, a technology that was licensed to Samsung last year that potentially covers the range of uses from phones to giant TVs like no other technology can really match. It uses many of the LCD process steps but does not use the LC effect itself which is not even 5% efficient at passing light through. The Unipixel cell is a highly redundant MEMs device that is closer to 60% efficient so the LED light source can be 10-20 times smaller. It works by bumping two glass surfaces together so that light bleeds from a back light plate through the MEMs device, fully on or off.
The three RGB pixel FETs are replaced by a single FET that is pulse width modulated to give gray scale. The three RGB LEDs are then time division switched by frame at rates far above normal. This can be done because the MEMs switch is several orders faster at switching light than the LC switch, us instead of ms.
I like this technology because it is so elegantly simple. Whether Samsung can make it work, I hope so. Given that it uses 1/3rd the no of pixel FETs and uses 10th the light power, it should be a possible to make panels far cheaper than current LCD panels that are also free of most of the LCD issues. For an E Reader though, I can think of only one issue, it is not a storage display so must be actively driven, but at least it vastly improves on LCD.
I have no stake in this, just appreciate good tech when I see it.