Roll up for a larger handheld display

Polymer Vision has begun producing rollable displays from its recently acquired manufacturing facility, Polymer Vision (UK) in Southampton, UK.

Polymer Vision has begun producing rollable displays from its recently acquired manufacturing facility, Polymer Vision (UK) in Southampton, UK.

In less than 12 months the clean room facilities have been completed, the first complete manufacturing tool set has been installed and the process has been successfully transferred from Eindhoven to the Southampton facility.

The first batch of rollable displays produced has immediately delivered functional displays and from December onwards volumes will ramp up to meet growing customer demand.

"Our strategy to use standard semiconductor infrastructure has helped us to successfully and quickly start up production in Southampton", says Guido Aelbers, COO of Polymer Vision.

"The result is an unprecedented pioneering step for the flexible display industry as a whole and marks the beginning of a new era of commercialisation of rollable display enabled devices".

Demand for larger mobile displays is accelerating as telecomms players push mobile content and mobile advertisements to compensate for shrinking growth in voice revenues.

The solution is to unroll the display when needed and simply store away when not in use.

This breakthrough for the mobile industry is closer than many may have expected as samples of Polymer Vision's first commercial product, the Readius, will be shipped to customers before the end of 2007, giving the company at least a year's lead on the rest of the industry.

The Readius is a pocket sized device which combines a large 5in rollable display with 3G high speed connectivity for true mobility and instant access to personalised news and information.

The Readius is the first member of a family of future Polymer Vision products that will offer consumers large rollable displays (5in and bigger) in small pocket size devices.

Back to top