chloeveltman.com > features

Profile: E Ink
19 June 2002

Seeking a new type of reading experience

E-book reading devices have not been greeted with great enthusiasm since their appearance in stores several years ago. Even though the latest wave of e-book hardware products provides a much better reading experience than former incarnations, which were expensive, bulky and power-hungry, most e-book hardware products on the market have not inspired readers to build bonfires with their hard- and paper-backed books.

"There are great products out there already," says Chris North, vice-president and general manager of electronic publishing at HarperCollins publishing house, enthusing about, among other things, the merits of the reflective thin film transistor (TFT) screens which provide the best resolution for flat-panel screens on pocket PCs. "The real obstacle is consumer adoption. People insist on the contrast and reflective quality of ink on a page."

E Ink, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based developer of electronic publishing technologies, is taking this on board. The company is developing a paper-and-ink-like screen technology for e-book readers that will, according to the company, rival the experience of reading a printed page.

"The single biggest factor preventing the publishing industry from shifting away from paper is the ability to have a paper-like reading display," says Russ Wilcox, vice-president and general manager of E Ink. "We understand the need to develop a reading device that rivals a book in order to break through the critical barrier of the reader interface."

E Ink's proprietary material, which it calls Electronic Ink, can be processed into a film for integration into electronic displays. The company is working on three applications of this technology: animated advertising panels (known as "Ink-In-Motion"), character and segmented displays for signs and portable consumer products and active matrix graphical displays for handheld devices such as e-book readers, mobile phones and PDAs.

Besides creating a higher-definition reading experience - Mr Wilcox says E Ink's display technologies provide three times the contrast of a regular liquid crystal display (LCD) - the company says its technologies also use between 90 and 99 per cent less energy than LCD displays and cut the weight of handheld devices by half.

Despite the slump in venture capital spending, E Ink is attracting quite a bit of attention from investors and has raised more than $100m since it was founded in 1997. More than $50m came from two rounds of equity financing in 1998 and 2000, and in the past couple of years E Ink has moved towards forming strategic partnerships with corporate investors.

In February 2001, Philips Components made a $7.5m investment in E Ink to develop the use of electronic ink in handheld device screens. More recently, the company announced a $25m investment agreement with the Japanese manufacturer, Toppan Printing, a maker of colour filter arrays for the flat-panel display industry.

Under the terms of the deal, Toppan will create front plane laminate (FPL) products for E Ink's active matrix graphical displays. This recent cash injection builds upon a previous investment in E Ink by the Japanese company.

Last year Toppan invested $5m in E Ink to receive exclusive rights to supply colour filter arrays for E Ink displays. E Ink also counts the Hearst Corporation, Lucent Technologies, Motorola and VC firm Atlas Venture among its investors.

E Ink has only just begun to roll out its products, focusing initially on selling animated advertising displays. "This is the simplest product to give us manufacturing practice," says Mr Wilcox. Coca-Cola purchased 200 Ink-In-Motion displays for its recycling campaign at the US Winter Olympics earlier this year, which E Ink manufactured in conjunction with advertising industry partners, including Prism and CPI Global.

Although E Ink unveiled an e-book prototype at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) e-book 2001 show in November last year, products using E Ink's active matrix graphical displays will not be seen on store shelves before next year.

Electronic Ink consists of millions of tiny transparent microcapsules, each about the breadth of a human hair. These are printed on a sheet of plastic film and laminated to a layer of circuitry. Each microcapsule contains positively-charged white particles and negatively- charged black particles suspended in a clear fluid. When a negative electric field is applied to the capsule, the white particles move to the top and make the "pixel" appear white. Likewise, a positive field causes the black particles to move to the top.

The 100-strong company, which employs some 65 scientists and engineers in its research department, is developing the technology for use with glass-fronted screens. But E Ink scientists say the microcapsules could be printed onto virtually any surface, including fabric and plastic. Initially, displays will be in black and white, with colour options available by 2005. The company has filed more than 100 US patents for its technologies.

E Ink is not the only company to develop products that involve plastic substrates. Gyricon Media, a Xerox spin-off whose clients include Macy's department store and the Wall Street Journal, is also developing e-paper technologies. Focusing on dynamic, electronic sign systems for retail outlets, Gyricon's "SmartPaper" technology shares similar design qualities to E Ink's Electronic Ink.

Both systems manipulate pigmented beads using electric fields, but while E Ink's microcapsules contain smaller coloured particles, the hemispheres of Gyricon capsules are "tinted" different colours. Mr Wilcox says E Ink's technology provides better resolution than SmartPaper can achieve, but Nicholas Sheridon, Gyricon's research director, says his company's product has several advantages over E Ink, including a longer image storage time and more colours.

A recent article by Seybold Reports, the publishing industry analysts, puts E Ink ahead of its competitors in the race to produce and market an e-book reader using electronic paper technology.

But not everyone believes in the electronic paper revolution. Thad McIlroy, a San Francisco-based electronic publishing consultant says that while E Ink and Gyricon might find a niche in the electronic billboard market, he does not foresee much uptake in the e-publishing sector. "It's wonderful technology, but it's not like anybody's asking for it," he says.