The first electronic paper factory has opened

Last Wednesday, the young Plastic Logic company opened the world's first factory for in-line production of electronic paper - high-resolution “ink” displays made on flexible polymer semiconductors . Electronic ink technology was licensed by E Ink, and the company’s product base was developed 10 years ago by its two co-founders Richard Friend and Henning Sirringhaus, who were researching polymers at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge at the time.

The plant, which will start producing displays in volumes of about 11 million pieces a year from January 2009, is equipped with original equipment operating in fully automatic mode. Conductors and transistors made of flexible materials are applied to a plastic substrate with an industrial analogue of an inkjet printer, spraying them through micro nozzles according to a given program at room temperature. This technology is cheaper and works much faster than printing displays on electronic ink on a glass substrate with traditional lithography. And the resulting board can be bent at least in half, while maintaining operability.

At the September DEMOfall Conferencein San Diego, Plastic Logic also showed a prototype electronic document reader, which is based on a new display. With a thickness of no more than a glossy magazine, the gadget has a touch screen A4 format. The display is enclosed in a rigid frame, but its flexible properties make the device practically unbreakable and very light - only 370 g.

Plastic Logic marks the e-readers for a free niche for business. Her gadget allows you to make notes in documents using stickers and markers, thus simulating paper, which is still familiar to most.

The closest analogue of the device can be called Readius from Polymer Vision, in which a small display is made according to its own "flexible" technology.