E Ink Develops New Color Screens and Touch Panels

Though e-reader, so far, have grey scale displays developed by E Ink, with a few exceptions, the company is aware of the strong desire for color and actual touch input, so it went ahead and provided two new touchscreens and even its color e-paper products, based on the Pearl display, that have already been purchased by Hanvon.

The Taiwanese outfit reportedly build two e-paper devices with touch input, one of which has capacitive technology whereas the other one is electromagnetic.

Apparently, E Ink already sent samples of these two to its buyers, for testing purposes, ad it is not entirely clear when they will actually enter mass production.

According to the report published by Digitimes, the inventions should be released later this year, or very early in 2011.

As for the color readers, they employ the latest Pearl display, which has a color filter and a better response and reflection than any of the previous solutions.

These products have been bought up by Hanvon and should make it into color-enabled e-readers soon.

With all the hype surrounding energy-efficient color panels, one would expect color e-readers to quickly gain ground and secure a large market share.

Still, whether because they don't have a very high color sharpness or are just more power-hungry, color screens won't make it into overly many e-reader by next year, at least that is what E Ink seems to think.

According to Digitimes, color e-readers will only secure a 10% share of the e-reader market in 2011.

In the meantime, in order to address growing demand, the outfit will boost production of fringe filed switching panels (FFS) to 75 % of total capacity, instead of 50%, at Hydis, its subsidiary based on Korea.

E Ink hoeps to see a revenue growth in the third quarter but its gross margin may drop because of price cuts on the part of its clients.