E Ink has shipped over 20 million flexible SURF (segmented) displays - into applications ranging from wrist watches to smart cards to mobile phones to indoor signs. The company has won the 2011 FLEXI award from the FlexTech Alliance. The FLEXI Awards recognize significant accomplishments in R&D, innovative product development, and leadership in education within the flexible, printed electronics and displays industries.

E Ink's active-matrix flexible displays aren't commercialized yet - but the company is working with over a dozen companies towards that goal.

Here's a nice video showing 3 different Point-of-Purchase (POP) samples that use E Ink SURF (segmented) displays:

Seiko Epson announced that it has developed a new 16-bit micro-controller (the S1C17F57) for segmented e-paper displays (like the E Ink SURF). The new chip is now shipping samples, and will be available in volume by March 2011.

The S1C17F57 has memory (ROM and RAM), timers, and serial interfaces. It includes a real-time clock, theoretical regulation, a high performance segmented EPD driver, and a temperature sensor (so it can correct temperature related distortions). The IC draws 120 nA in sleep mode and the bare die is only 200-microns thick.

Phosphor has released a new E Ink watch - the World Time Curved, and we got one to review. The watch has got a "surf" (segmented) E Ink display that offers 24 time zones, several displays zones. The display is very similar to Phosphor's Digital-Hour watches (here's our review of those) - in fact E Ink tells us it's pretty much the same display. The new watch is thinner, though, at 9.3mm (you hardly notice this, to be fair).

The watch costs $150 and is now shipping from Phosphor's own shop (hopefully it'll arrive in Amazon.com soon as well). The Digital Hour watch is still available for 195$ - so the new watch is actually quite cheaper.

A few months ago Art Technology released a new range of E Ink watches, called Phosphor watches. Now they have released a new model (black case Digital Hour), and have kindly send us one for review. The watch is now available for 190$.

The watch

The Digital Hour watch is a curved, light-weight watch. It's not thin, though, which is surprising because the display itself is very thin (more on this later, but it's under 400 micron thick!). The watch functions are pretty basic: you can view the time (in two modes: analog/digital combined, and just digital), the date, and there's also an alarm you can setup. The watch is always in 12-hours mode (no military time).

There are two buttons: one is used to flip between the 4 display modes (analog/digital time, digital time, date and alarm setup). The other button is used to flip the display between white on black or black on white. The two buttons are also used to setup the watch. You can see the analog/digital mode above, and here are the other 3 modes (from left to right: digital time, date and alarm). You can tell it's the date mode because of the small icon on the top-left.

Hicel have made a brochure for Hyundai Yachts, using a flexible segmented E Ink display (SURF displays):

It looks very much like the Esquire magazine cover display...

E Ink announced today that their segmented display product line is now called SURF. Over 15 million products with E Ink segmented display have been sold already, including the Samsung Alias 2 phone, the new Phosphor wristwatches, the Esquire magazine cover and the Lexmark jumpdrive.

SURF displays are ultra-thin, rugged and flexible. They are ideal for consumer electronics, medical devices, PC-accessory, display smartcards, capacity indicators, electronic shelf labels, signage and communications applications.

Update: We have posted our own review of these cool E Ink watches

Art Technology has released a new range of watches that has E Ink displays. They will be sold under the brand phosphor, and include 3 models (a curved watch, a curved 'calendar' watch, and an analog-digital style watch). The display is segmented (not active-matrix) - the total thickness is less than 400 microns, made entirely from plastic. Price will range from 175$ upwards...

Phosphor curved E Ink watches

The kind folks at E Ink have sent me some demo displays. The first one is the Lexar Jumpdrive mercury. This is a USB drive that has a capacity meter. The E Ink displays needs refreshing only when it is connected to the computer anyway, so it's the perfect display. The display looks rather good, and it's a nice use for E Ink. The jumpdrive costs 9.99$ for the 2GB version.

Lexar jumpdrive mercury

The second thing I got is the Esquire magazine with the E Ink display. It's a big display on the cover. It basically consists of several words and photos, and the display just lights on or off in all sorts of sequences. It's not an active-matrix display, but a segmented one. Ir runs on batteries, and still goes on since October 2008 - much more than they originally anticipated...

Esquire magazine E Ink cover

There's actually a second E Ink in the first page of the magzine (sharing the electronics with the first display). This time it's an advertisement for ford. This display is really simple, just lighting up a third of the photograph each time. It's not very bright, and actually not so easy to notice.

Esquire ford ad E Ink

Motion Display today announced the launch of its retail signage products for the point‐of‐purchase (POP) market. Motion Display will design, manufacture and assemble signage products using E Ink‘s field proven Ink‐In‐Motion technology.

Ink‐In‐MotionTM (IIM) electronic paper displays are thin, lightweight, flexible and powered by small batteries. The IIM display is deployed the same way as paper and plastic signs that makes it very accessible.