Fujitsu Laboratories announced today that they will be unveiling a new version of their color electronic paper display at the company’s Fujitsu Forum exhibition in Tokyo next week. The new screen is a supposed to be a third brighter and has a contrast ratio of 7:1, three times that of the previous model. These improvements are mostly due to the use of a new liquid crystal material with superior reflective characteristics.
One of the problems with many e-paper displays is the slow screen write time compared to LCD screens, but Fujitsu’s display will use a newly developed driver control method that is expected to cut write time in half to 0.7 seconds. For those who don’t know, one of the key advantages of e-paper is that the displays only need energy to write the initial image onto the screen, after which the image will remain on display without requiring any additional power. This energy efficiency is what allows e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle to operate for weeks without having to recharge. Unfortunately, this method has also puts limits on the speed at which images could be displayed on the screen. Overcoming this challenge has been a major focus for many developers.