LG Display Begins Mass Production of World's First Plastic E-Paper Display

[Cristian_25H]

LG Display, a leading manufacturer of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display, announced today that it has started mass production of the world's first plastic electronic paper display (EPD) for use in E-Books. The 6" XGA (1024 x 768), e-ink, plastic EPD is expected to revolutionize the E-Book market with its advancements in functionality and design.

"With the world's first plastic EPD, LG Display has once again proven its reputation for leadership and innovation with a product we believe will help greatly popularize the E-Book market," said Mr. Sang Duck Yeo, Head of Operations for LG Display's Mobile/OLED division. "Based on our success in mass-producing plastic EPD, we are excited as we look toward applying concepts from this experience to future developments like plastic OLED and flexible displays."





Innovations in Functionality and Design

The world's first plastic EPD from LG Display offers users a paper-like reading experience with a plastic substrate that is as slim as cell phone protection film, and a flexible design that allows bending at a range of 40 degrees from the center of the screen. Compared to glass EPD of the same size and resolution, LG Display's plastic EPD realizes a super slim thickness of 0.7 mm which is 1/3 slimmer than existing glass EPD; as well as a weight of 14g which is more than 1/2 lighter.

E-Book users have long expressed a desire for more durable EPD, since around 10% of them have damaged their product screens from accidentally dropping or hitting them. When LG Display's plastic EPD was put through repeated drop tests, from 1.5m above the ground or the average height of reading when standing, no damage resulted. When put through a break/scratch test involving hitting the display with a small urethane hammer, no scratches or breakage resulted.

As EPD gets thinner, lighter, and more durable with the introduction of plastic EPD, E-Books will be able to offer certain unique benefits compared to smart devices and tablets, including reduced eye fatigue and more efficient electricity consumption in addition to lower prices.

A Manufacturing Breakthrough

LG Display developed a unique technique to utilize the high TFT process, typically employed in general LCD manufacturing and with temperatures exceeding 350 degrees, in the production of its plastic EPD. By overcoming the obstacles associated with applying the existing production process to heat susceptible plastic, LG Display achieved a breakthrough with the successful mass production of plastic EPD able to maintain strong durability in high temperatures.

Availability

The world's first mass-produced plastic EPD from LG Display will first be supplied to ODM companies in China, followed by completed products to be released in Europe at the beginning of next month.

[erocker]

Very cool! Looking forward to what kind of designs are used with this.

[twicksisted]

finally they can have some kind of device that feels like paper or a magazine that has writing on it that you can read...

..wait a minute

[PopcornMachine]

I've been patiently waiting for something like this. I want some to cover my case!!!!

Now that would be cool. Instant status and info right on your case.

[Delta6326]

Oh NO! Harry Potter is becoming real!

This looks awesome.

[m1dg3t]

IIRC This tech was originally developed in a Canadian uni/college, pretty sure I recall them displaying it as cellphone/basic smartphone. Think it was on "Daily Planet" few months back, good to see it got picked up and is coming to market

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

Very cool! I wonder if it will be just another e-reader or perhaps a more interesting device.

[DarkOCean]

This looks great! To Lg.

[Jizzler]

Time for a skin tight body suit made from it.

[Kreij]

Very cool tech. I was hoping the EPDs would get into the commercial markets sooner than later.

If they could make these about the size of a magazine, in full color, touch capable (for paging) and more flexible so you could roll it up ... it could completely replace print magazines.

A whole years worth of magazines you could stack up and it would only be about 10mm thick.

They would just need to be able to produce them very inexpensively.

[ensabrenoir]

Remeber that cool.news paper from monority rep,ort.....or better yet ....stealth suits

[racedaemon]

Hope it's not some kind of april fools/marketing research for the future... you can't be to careful around this date, with all sorts of early april fools, april fools and late april fools. If Facebook produces a car... i won't believe it, if Google puts his logo on the dark side of the moon... i won't believe it, if Microsoft buys Apple... you guesses it, i won't believe it.

But anyway, nice tech that plastic e-paper, hope to see it on the market... wait a minute, did i just fall for it... we will see.

[hhumas]

awesome work ..

[Wrigleyvillain]

Inevitable but none the less amazing...

[theJesus]

We still need flexible PCBs and such as well for this to be useful for much more than improved durability.

[n-ster]

Originally Posted by racedaemon

Hope it's not some kind of april fools/marketing research for the future... you can't be to careful around this date, with all sorts of early april fools, april fools and late april fools. If Facebook produces a car... i won't believe it, if Google puts his logo on the dark side of the moon... i won't believe it, if Microsoft buys Apple... you guesses it, i won't believe it.

But anyway, nice tech that plastic e-paper, hope to see it on the market... wait a minute, did i just fall for it... we will see.

When it's really something crazy, like W1zzard leaving, then you know TPU is trying to fool the world with the best April fool's joke of the year

[avatar_raq]

Back to the future, any one?

[Depth]

Woah it's finally coming out to the market? Brilliant! I remember reading about it in science magazines years ago

[THE_EGG]

if it gets a crease in it can we iron it out again?

[Isenstaedt]

6" XGA means roughly 210 PPI. That's pretty good.

[Super XP]

I gave this exact recommendation to a local news paper outfit due to there negative news paper sales. I thought about this, something like a thin digital news paper, just that the technology wasn't around back in the day (2000).

Good job LG, keep pushing innovation.

[Munki]

This is very cool. I am interested to see where this leads.