Three major Taiwanese manufacturers plan on entering the color e-paper market in 2010. Prime View International, Delta Electronics, and AU Optronics made this joint announcement during the symposium on Flexible Display and Electronics Technology in Taiwan earlier this week. The announcement came as no surprise to anyone– Delta Electronics estimated e-paper products and applications will become a $12 billion (USD) market within a few months.
Performance Still Lacking
Even though the market will be in the rise in the future, the companies plan on going in conservatively, and producing low at first. The main reason for this is the slow performance of most color e-paper displays, much slower than their black and white counterparts. Senior Vice President of AU Optronics, C T Liu went on record to state that even though they will still be producing color e-readers, they don’t expect to sell more until the performance of the e-paper increases.
He then went on to stress the members of the symposium into working on applications for color e-paper, and to think outside of the current e-reader market that is tied to e-paper. He said the firms needed to develop more creativity, and to create more interesting user-interfaces that took advantage of the new technology. He then said that his company, AU Optronics, planned on releasing a sample of the flexible, e-color display technology in 2010.
Other Applications
Delta Ventures already has some plans in the mix for new applications. They’re currently partnering with Bridgestone Japan, and using their QR-LPD screen technology. Delta’s said that since they’ve taken under production and development using e-paper they’ve already gained quite a few new partnerships and customers.
Delta has already cranked out 4.1-inch e-paper display panels for use in hospitals and doctor’s offices. The benefits of e-paper displays can be easily seen in this situation– low power consumption, lightweight and it’s own power supply make it ideal for this market. Doctor’s can carry patient records with them on a single device that barely needs to be recharged, or have a patient fill out the necessary paperwork on a touch screen e-paper display.
Some of the other applications are things like billboards, outdoor advertisement, e-tags and electronic signs for store front advertisement. An e-reader may also be in the works, but it doesn’t seem to be Delta’s main focus in the upcoming year.
Government Backing
The Cabinet of Taiwan also sees the booming e-paper industry, and has decided to funnel some money into it as well, approving $66 million (NT $2 billion) over the next five years to go directly into e-readers and the e-paper industry. The money will be funneled into companies creating e-paper displays and help them come to terms with different regulations for different countries, to allow the products to truly go global in their outreach.
They plan on utilizing a four-fold strategy: promote innovation, enhance the global outreach, encourage expansion of Chinese language digital books and magazines, and foster a superior digital reading society for the citizens of Taiwan. Such a broad move of support from this government casts a pale shadow over German Parliament’s bulk purchase of e-readers. If the future will be e-paper and e-readers, Taiwan wants to be the heart and soul of it’s publication.
This begs the question– will other countries be far behind in embracing e-paper? Will other governments show their support behind the technology, or will they be left behind?
AU Optronics, auo, delta electronics, e-paper, govenment, prime view international, pvi, taiwan