Bistable displays approach commercialisation

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Oct 6, 2003

ZBD Displays expects to commence commercial supply of its zenithal bistable display during the first half of 2004 as a result of its collaborative development work with Varitronix.

ZBD Displays expects to commence commercial supply of its zenithal bistable display during the first half of 2004 as a result of its collaborative development work with Varitronix, one of the world's leading manufacturers of passive matrix liquid crystal displays.

Over the last nine months, ZBD and Varitronix have been collaborating on the design and specification of equipment to fabricate displays incorporating ZBD's novel technology on Varitronix's existing LCD production lines.

Henri-Luc Martin, CEO of ZBD, comments: "We are delighted with the results of our work with Varitronix, having moved our technology out of the laboratory and into the best performing bistable display solution currently being commercialised.

We look forward to working with customers looking to design products incorporating our technology".

ZBD display samples produced on Varitronix's production lines are already being made available to customers and will be presented to visitors at the Varitronix booth during the Hong Kong Electronics Fair ElectronicAsia from 13th to 16th October 2003.

Dr CC Chang, Chairman, Varitronix, comments: "Our collaboration with ZBD in the commercialisation of their 'zero power' display technology is a key component of our future growth.

The fact that we are already filling development orders for shelf-edge label applications is a very encouraging sign of demand for this exciting new technology".

ZBD's technology does not use any power between image updates, allowing images to be kept on a display indefinitely.

Images do not degrade, even under severe mechanical stress.

This characteristic offers enormous power savings for handheld devices, extending battery life and enabling the size and weight of the devices to be substantially reduced.

The technology also inherently delivers superior readability under wide lighting conditions, with superior contrast and brightness and very wide viewing angles.

This means that ZBD offers the foremost solution for high-resolution displays on which information is kept unchanged for extended periods of time.

ZBD displays have also been produced to show as many as 16 levels of greyscale, with colour prototypes expected early next year to meet the requirements of applications such as electronic labels, e-books, electronic readers, mobile phones and PDAs, smartcards and smart watches.