Finally –the
Flexible Display!
This year, organic films and electronic ink will
completely change the way we look at computingI
n Minority Report , a newspaper’s front
page layout suddenly updates to display
fugitive John Anderton’s face, giving
moviegoers yet another glimpse of pie-
in-the-sky Hollywood future-tech. Like
flying cars, personal jet-packs, and the
Orgasmatron, the notion of a digital dis-
play that is as legible and flexible as paper
is a concept everyone assumes will exist
someday—just not anytime soon. But the
images on this page prove that the futuremay be closer than we think.
In order to make flexible displays fea-
sible as well as practical, Philips has had to
overcome a few major technology hurdles.
A flexible screen requires a flexible sub-
strate—a supporting base layer—on which
to imprint the transistors that will activate
the individual display pixels. Previously,
only inflexible glass substrates could with-
stand the manufacturing temperatures
required by today’s active matrix liquid
crystal displays. Enter Polymer
Vision, a Dutch company that has
developed a solution. By creating
a substrate of several thin, flex-
ible alternating layers of materials,
electrical interconnections can
be passed on to individual pixels
without the need for high process-
ing temperatures.
Problem is, current thin film
transistor display technology is
incompatible with flexible sub-strates due to “cell gap control.” This is
the need for a uniform distribution of
pixels. If you were somehow able to bend
a traditional glass display, the pixel pattern
would warp and distort the image. Not
good. To circumvent this problem, E Ink
Corporation developed an electronic ink
that’s composed of tiny spheres suspended
in a clear fluid locked into a microscopic
grid. It works similarly to the way your
down comforter keeps feathers from
bunching up in one corner—by stitching
the feathers into square cells to keep them
uniformly distributed.
The spheres are like magnetized ping-
pong balls painted white on one side,
and black on the other. A positive charge
makes one ping-pong ball display its
black side; another charge flips the ping-
pong ball to its white side. What’s more,
E Ink extended this simple metaphor to
create spheres that contain spheres with-
in themselves, permitting even higher
resolutions. Check out the
results for yourself—pictured
here are functioning dynamic,
flexible displays.
Imagine: cigar-size maps
that unroll into large screens
that use GPS to show us our
current position and how to
get to our destination; pen-size
PDA’s with scrolling, touch-
sensitive displays; and stitch-
on screens that retain the last
image displayed with little, if
any, power required.
Yes, we’re thinking the
same thing you are: Fantastic,
Philips, now we’re waiting for
the Orgasmatron!Quick Start
The beginning of the magazine, where articles are small
APRIL 2004 MAXIMUMPC 11
Roll your own: Philips expects
to be shipping flexible displays
like this one by 2005.Vision, a Dutch company that has
developed a solution. By creating
a substrate of several thin, flex-
ible alternating layers of materials,
electrical interconnections can
be passed on to individual pixels
without the need for high process-
ing temperatures.transistor display technology is
incompatible with flexible sub-results for yourself—pictured
here are functioning dynamic,
flexible displays.that unroll into large screens
that use GPS to show us our
current position and how to
get to our destination; pen-size
PDA’s with scrolling, touch-
sensitive displays; and stitch-
on screens that retain the last
image displayed with little, if
any, power required.
To see the Philips flexible display in
action, go to http://www.philips.com , type “e ink”
in the search field, and click on the
“Display Technology” link.