Color

Earlier this year, E Ink announced a partnership with Sharp to bring ePaper posters to the market. Sharp and EIH has been collaborating for three years, and this is the first commercial step in that collaboration. Sharp released the first 42" monochrome E Ink displays (or e-posters as they call them) in the Japanese market in April 2023.

The two companies now announced that Sharp is also introducing color ePoster displays - the company will release 13.3" and 25.3" models in September and October 2023. 

E Ink launched a new generation of its full color Spectra ePaper display technology, called the E Ink Spectra 6. Targeting in-store advertising, indoor signage and paper sign replacements in general, the Specra 6 offers "a level of color saturation and vividness never before seen in a reflective display".

E Ink Spectra 6 offers a resolution (density) of 200 PPI, a contrast ratio of 30:1 and an operating range of 0-50 degrees Celsius. E Ink Spectra 6 will be offered in a variety of display sizes, and can create a partial image flashing effect, called E Ink Sparkle, which enhances the effect of advertising messages through motion.

E Ink recently launched its latest segmented display technology, E Ink Prism 3, which features dynamic color changing capabilities. As part of the launch of this new technology, BMW presented its latest concept, the i Vision DEE car, which is covered with Prism 3 panels:

The i Vision DEE is covered with 240 panels, capable of showing 32 colors according to BMW (a bit strange as E Ink says the Prism 3 offers a palette of 8 colors only). Anyway this is a pretty nice concept, that builds on BMW's iX Flow shown a year before and covered with similar panels, but with monochrome (grayscale) Prism panels.

In April 2022, E Ink announced its latest color ePaper display, the Gallery 3, targeting applications in eReaders and Notes devices. The Gallery 3 is based on E Ink's ACeP (Advanced Color ePaper) platform, where a full-color gamut is achieved through a four particle ink system: cyan, magenta, yellow and white. The displays offer fast refresh rates (350 ms for black and white, 500-1500 ms for color refresh), a substantial improvement over the first generation E Ink Gallery.

E Ink today announced that Gallery 3 has moved into mass production, with customer products from Bigme, BOOX, iFlyTek, iReader, PocketBook, Readmoo, and AOC coming down the pipeline in 2023 and beyond.

E Ink Holdings announced a partnership with Sharp Display Technology Corporation (SDTC) to adopt SDTC’s indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO*2) backplanes for ePaper modules using in eReader and eNote products.

E Ink and Sharp have been working together for two years to bring oxide TFTs for ePaper displays into the market. The two companies will demonstrate the first next-gen IGZO ePaper displays at CEATEC 2022 (October 18) - a 8" 300 PPI display that offers a refresh time of 0.35 seconds (monochrome) / 0.5-1.5 seconds (color).

Respected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims that Apple is testing E Ink color ePaper display, for two different future devices. Apple is especially interested in E Ink displays due to their efficient power consumption.

The first device that Apple is testing is a tablet-like devices, while the second is a foldable phone. The foldable phone, which will use a foldable OLED inside, will require a cover display - for which an E Ink display can be highly suitable

AU Optronics demonstrated a new 7.9-inch display, that utilizes the company's new reflective LCD display technology, called ChLC - cholesteric liquid crystal technology.

The display can cut the driving voltage when the display is static, and does not have any backlight. This reduces the power consumption of the display, which also does not use any color filters or polarizers and so offers higher reflectivity and color saturation compared to E Ink displays.

E Ink announced its latest color ePaper display, the Gallery 3, targeting applications in eReaders and Notes devices.

The Gallery 3 is based on E Ink's ACeP (Advanced Color ePaper) platform, where a full-color gamut is achieved through a four particle ink system: cyan, magenta, yellow and white, which allows a full color gamut at each pixel. Gallery 3 displays offers a faster refresh rate (350 ms for black and white, 500-1500 ms for color refresh), a substantial improvement over the first generation E Ink Gallery (which offers a black and white update in 2 seconds, and full-color in up to 10 seconds).

E Ink announced a new display type, called the E Ink Spectra 3100 Plus, which is a five-color ePaper aimed towards retail applications. The new displays support black, white, red, yellow and orange colors. This display is an enhancement of E Ink's current four-color Spectra 3100 ePaper, adding the new orange color.

E Ink will produce the Spectra 3100 Plus displays in a variety of sizes, including 1.64-inch, 2.36-inch, 3-inch, 4.37-inch, 7.3-inch and 8.14-inch.

E Ink announced that it is seeing increased demand for color ePaper displays, and it is working with six module production partners to promote its color (ACeP) displays and to increase production capacities of its Gallery Palette and Gallery plus panels.

The six partners are BOE Technology, DKE, Jiangxi Xing Tai Technology, Innolux Corporation, Qingyue Technology, and Yes Optoelectronics. E Ink supplies the color ePaper frontplane materials while the module makers manufacture the color ePaper modules in various sizes and shapes.