Electronic paper, long hyped as the technology that would make newspapers and books obsolete, is finally making its way into consumer products, powered by E Ink Corp.
The decade-old Cambridge company has grown 200 to 300 percent each year, and over the past few months, its retro-looking black- and-white displays have appeared in high-profile products such as the Sony Reader tablet, a Motorola cellphone highlighted at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, and a foldable, pocket-sized screen that won the Most Innovative Technology Award at the GSM Association's 2007 Global Mobile Awards last month.
"They have the incredible screen technology, and they have patents that make what they're doing pretty unique and unassailable," said James McQuivey , analyst at Forrester Research. "There are other ways to provide this kind of low-power flexible display, but their technology is really the one to beat."
While the concept of a digital screen that looks, bends, and folds like paper has been around for decades, E Ink has been a leader in bringing the technology to the marketplace.
The company holds more than 100 patents on its "electrophoretic" ink technology -- which literally means "the movement of particles by an electrical field." Electric charges sent along a grid embedded in the paper cause tiny black and white particles to move up and down, creating text and images.
It may take a cosmic cultural shift to make e-books mainstream, but the screens also use so little power that they may herald the birth of a whole new generation of displays, from e-newsprint to digital shelf labels.
Unlike traditional digital screens, which form images using light that shines out of the display, e-paper reflects ambient light, adding up to big power savings.
A typical 12-inch tablet display requires the equivalent of 36 AA batteries to stay on for 20 hours -- an equivalent electronic paper display would use only one AA battery, according to E Ink marketing director David Jackson.
"With a cellphone, you'll do something and then stick it against your head. Why should it be sucking up your battery life?" Jackson said. "With new ultra portable devices, you don't want to have a brick hanging off of it" just to keep the device on for a few hours.
The low-power screens are also beginning to drive other companies to come up with new uses for the technology, according to the recently published Patent Board 500, which evaluates company's patent portfolios. E Ink was ranked first for industry impact, a category that measures the company's influence on technology development in other companies.
Jennifer Colegrove , senior analyst for display technology and strategy at iSuppli, estimated that the total market this year for such displays will be 29 million units, or $78 million. By 2012, she predicts the market will grow to 350 million units, or $516 million.
The company has sold millions of units sold over the last year, on a smattering of different devices.
Motorola chief executive Ed Zander rode a bike onto the stage during his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, demonstrating how easy it was to generate energy for a minimalist candy bar phone with a simple black-and-white screen made by E Ink. The Motofone has up to 300 hours of standby time, in part because of its energy-efficient display.
Sony Electronics Inc. chose to use E Ink's technology in its Sony Reader because the display resembled the printed page, and because it wanted to create an electronic book with a long battery life so people wouldn't lose power in the middle of a gripping chapter.
"To my knowledge, [E Ink has] proven the only commercially viable electronic paper technology for these kinds of active matrix displays," said Ronald Hawkins , vice president of portable reader systems for Sony, adding that plans are to push the product this year.
Emano Tec Inc. in Newton has adopted the technology to create washable medical tablets for doctors. A Lexar jump drive uses E Ink's technology to create a disk space gauge. Polymer Vision uses the technology in a foldable electronic paper display called the Readius that connects to a wireless network, allowing people to access data and read news on a 5-inch paper like screen instead of a cellphone.
McQuivey said these "proof of concept" devices are just the beginning.
