Qualcomm's Butterfly Wing Display Gets Nearer

holy_calamity writes "Technology Review has an update on a screen technology from Qualcomm called Mirasol that delivers LCD-like colors and video but sips power like e-ink. Demonstration Android tablets with 5.7 inch Mirasol displays apparently held up well in bright light and were responsive enough for gaming. Qualcomm are in the process of building a $1 billion new factory to make the screens, which should appear in devices from phone and tablet makers next year."

Comments

Soon

[jmorris42]

Between this and a couple of other low power passive displays working their way to market, one of them is going to succeed. And change everything.

The display is one of the biggest power hogs right now. The radios in cell phones are also pretty hungry but having an always on display will be game changing. Then when you consider the work on various memory techs that eliminate idle current and the lifetime issues with flash, things are going to continue to be very interesting in the tech world.

Re:Soon

[penguinstorm]

Shit. I thought we already changed everything. I'm not buying anything else until we stop changing things!

Re:Soon

[somersault]

Indeed.. 30fps from a colour e-ink display. I can hardly imagine how strange it would be watching a video on one of these things.

This is the beginning of the end of printed magazines, now that people can't complain about eye strain from backlights. It will also be damn cool to be able to do real "living photos" without a backlit display.

Modifiable tattoos is another fun use that they're already doing with monochrome e-ink - being able to have them in colour that doesn't fade would be awesome too. The whole reason I haven't got a tattoo so far is that I know I'd probably want to change the design at some point.

Re:Soon

[nanoflower]

LOL. Hardware engineers can often make more than software engineers in the same company. What you are talking about is people that go off and make their own products that other people buy. That could be hardware or software. Consider the case of two guys named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak that built a company started out with a hardware product (and some software to drive it.) It doesn't matter what your background is so long as you can come up with a decent product that people want. Hardware/software/literature/movie/clothing. Come up with a good product at a decent price and figure out how to market it and you too can make millions. T

Re:Soon

[Eternauta3k]

It's a different time, back when they were building PCs in their garage it wasn't consumer electronics. Nowadays you can't hope to make a tablet, PC or whatever without getting some serious funding. The alternative is producing more expensive goods so you don't compete with massive factories in China for slim profits.

Re:Soon

[LordNimon]

This imbalance will only spur the mass exodus of smart EE's from hardware into software.

God, I hope not. The worst code I've seen is almost invariably produced by EEs. The last thing the software world needs is more hardware engineers who want to "try out" being a programmer. No thanks.

Re:Soon

[Anonymous Coward]

This imbalance will only spur the mass exodus of smart EE's from hardware into software.

God, I hope not. The worst code I've seen is almost invariably produced by EEs. The last thing the software world needs is more hardware engineers who want to "try out" being a programmer. No thanks.

FWIW I've seen some hw architected by software engineers "trying out" being a hardware architect, and believe me that ain't a pretty sight either.

But then I've seen that there are people who are good at both so as with all generalizations, it depends ;^)

Re:Soon

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Other than the fact that somebody attached it to a Notion Ink Adam, not really...

Re:Soon

[mug funky]

action movies are often shot with extremely fast shutter speeds, essentially removing the motion blur.

also, you need to swap the word "fact" with "myth".

Japanese movies are coming out at 30fps progressive, now that digital projection is commonplace.

Best practice with cinematography is that the camera should not be moved too fast, on account of the 24fps shutter making motion very staccato, and the faster things move, the more obvious the flickering becomes. some slow graceful pans can appear completely smooth in a cinema, but since Dogma and the Bourne movies popularised hand-held, all the best practice cinematography rules have been thrown out the window, in spite of how shitty the result looks.

btw, 100fps.com is not a good resource. it's simplistic and plain wrong in parts. not a bad place to start, but you'll spend a lot of time being corrected if you do start there.

Re:Soon

[jimmydevice]

I didn't think most EE's these days even know which end of a soldering iron to hold. Most of the hardware development is programming. All my EE friends seem to be shifting to the dark side.

Re:Soon

[fyngyrz]

That 80bn cash pile that Apple has built up is good for something

Is it? Ever since Jobs got sick, basically since Leopard, which is really pretty decent, Apple's been producing poorer and poorer OSX and IOS releases. IOS5 has many, many problems, and also, apparently intentionally, inflicts a rather wicked planned obsolescence on Leopard users -- wifi sync doesn't work. And then there's the *way* they implemented wifi sync. Previously, you had to connect to your PC/mac, and it would sync via USB. Now (assuming you're not using Leopard), you (a) have to plug the iDevice into power, (b) you have to start iTunes, and then it'll sync. This isn't any more convenient from plugging it into the computer to sync in the first place. What were they thinking? Snow Leopard broke quite a few drivers and applications. Lion dumped the PPC emulator for no particular reason. There is a fairly pervasive rumor they're thinking of dropping the Mac Pro, and there is this "sandboxing" thing they're planning on doing to apps from the Mac app store (goodbye programs that talk to one another.) There's still no midrange tower. The mini lost its optical drive. Then there's this batshit idea of "fullscreen apps" that basically crap all over multiple monitor setups (yeah, you guessed it, I have multiple monitors.)

Maybe it'll work out -- but right now, to me, at least, it seems like things are changing in a new direction: decisions I can't get behind, one after another.

Re:Soon

[mangu]

The worst code I've seen is almost invariably produced by EEs

How does that compare with code produced by business or art school majors who want to try out being a programmer?

All EEs who aren't old enough to have been retired long ago have taken courses on logic design. Things like state machines or indirect addressing come naturally to them. Software is a natural evolution from circuit design.

Backlight

[alendit]

Am I the only one who wants backlight in his tablet? E-Ink is all nice and good, but its stupid to have to turn the lights on to read from an electronic device...

Re:Backlight

[Greystripe]

Actually how hard would it be to have either a backlight that could be turned on/off at whim or a small glow bar that swung out from the face a short distance to provide illumination as needed?

Re:Backlight

[idji]

Wrong! You will need much less front light than back light to see things. You need back light ALL THE TIME. You only need front light WHEN IT IS DARK. These devices will probably have away to produce some "side light" so you can read in the dark

Re:Backlight

[Anonymous Coward]

Page two of the article states:
"In dark conditions, light is directed onto the panel's modulators from LED lights at the edge of the panel."

Re:Backlight

[mark-t]

Is it stupid to have to turn a light on to see at all?

You'd normally need a light to read a real book anyways, how is needing a light to read something on a different surface any different?

Maybe you like having tons of photons projected directly into your eyes, when your pupils are mostly dilated to accommodate reflect the total amount of light visible to you (which actually doesn't tend to average to much if the room is otherwise too dark to be able to read anything that isn't actually glowing, so your pupils are generally more dilated than they might need to be), but not everybody likes trying to read while staring into a flashlight.

Re:Backlight

[shutdown -p now]

You cannot have a backlight with eInk, because it is not transparent. Not sure about Mirasol.

A compact retractable LED light is certainly possible, and, indeed, precisely what Amazon did with their Kindle cover.

Re:Backlight

[amRadioHed]

Would someone RTFA? The displays have LCDs on the side which provide light for viewing when there is not enough ambient light.

Re:Backlight

[mark-t]

While all you need is photons going into your eyes to *SEE*, you need actual contrast in order to visually perceive and recognize what it is that you are actually seeing (which is crucial for reading). Emissive displays can easily produce the necessary amount of contrast that makes reading easy to do, but when in room that is otherwise too dark to read in, it effectively amounts to trying to read while, as I said above, staring into a flashlight. While turning down the brightness on the display may help alleviate that particular problem, it creates another - lowering the contrast, which reduces your ability to visually process whatever it is you are looking at, and in a darkenned room, where the display is the only real source of light, any illumination from the display is still going to feel like trying to read while looking directly at a light bulb. Even if it's not actually uncomfortable because it's not bright enough to be, it's also then not going to be presenting enough contrast to your eyes for you to easily read what you are seeing. Admittedly, all of this may just be a technical limitation on current designs of emissive displays, and not an inherent flaw in an emissive concept, but owing to the fact that it is not present at all in passive displays, there's reasonable cause to suspect that emissive displays might just be a dead end in that regard.

But as things sit right now, with an emissive display, and when in a room that is otherwise too dark to read in, you have to choose between getting a headache from looking at a bright display, or getting a headache from trying to read something that doesn't present enough contrast.

In the end, the best thing to do is just turn on a light... and if you have another source of light anyways, then the backlight on the display is just so much wasted energy.

Re:Yay

[ColdWetDog]

This is great! I keep a Sony Reader, since it accepts SD cards, loaded with survival manuals, medical books, car/motorcycle repair manuals, only problem is most of the files are in PDF format, which the device isn't too great at displaying. Combine this screen in a device with large storage and battery, solar charging option and I'm all set Unless Ron Paul continues his trend, he's in second in Iowa, then I'll have no need for such a thing.

Oh wow. A techno survivalist nutjob. Here on Slashdot.

Sorry guy, the Aliens have already contacted the Illuminati. NO digital devices will be allowed to the masses. Not even Ron Paul can save us now.

We're doomed.

Next year? Yeah right.

[artor3]

They're just now building the factory, and you expect the product to be in devices next year? That would be the smoothest production bring-up in history. Maybe in 2013.

MEMS display

[Smallpond]

The Mirasol display technology is pretty cool.
http://www.mirasoldisplays.com/mobile-display-imod-technology

Re:MEMS display

[fyngyrz]

Not dithering -- just cumulative addition. The more reflecting elements there are, the more color you get. So each pixel is a series of imod elements, arrays of R, G and B. Black is all off; dark color is just a few on... medium color is half of 'em on... bright color is all of 'em on.

Simply not enough screen real-estate, I'm afraid.

[mark-t]

Make it large enough to handle textbook content presented at a readable size (typically letter-sized pages), and I'd be all over it, as long as it allowed me to upload my own pdf's to it, and, perhaps no less important, as long as it wasn't priced ridiculously high. And yeah, I know there's some e-ink readers oout there with displays nearly that big, but the current state of affairs with eink displays totally blows. Page refreshes are so slow that I'd rather carry 20 lbs worth of textbooks than try to use an eink reader for anything other than the reading of fiction.

A 14" screen would be ideal... although with a respectable resolution, a 10-11" one might also be able to suffice.

Re:Disruptive

[tycoex]

Considering the vast majority of people are perfectly happy with 1920x1080 on a 50" screen, I doubt people will really care much if their 10" screen is any higher than that.

The BIGGEST complaint/problem with smartphones today is the lower battery life. If I could choose between doubling the resolution on my phone and doubling the battery life, I would choose the battery life in a heartbeat.

Can't wait!

[engun]

I can't wait for this tech to get into tablets. Just a few of the advantages I'm expecting (and here's hoping there will be no disappointments)

1. I stare at an LCD screen all day, and I really detest the backlight. This is what prevents me from reading on a "tablet". Mirasol will fix that.
2. The Kindle's e-ink display, even though it didn't have colour, was simply amazing. However, the slow refresh rates combined with the lack of colour, made it too special purpose. Mirasol fixes all that, allowing for a general purpose tablet + e-reader and I can't imagine why that wouldn't succeed.
3. The paper like effect (which I assume Mirasol will have), will be so much easier on the eyes - meaning less eye strain. Given a choice between ruining my eye sight and enduring bad colour, I'll choose bad colour anytime.
4. We can go back to the look & feel of paper without the associated wastage (trees cut down etc. etc). One "electronic book" to substitute them all.
5. A battery life comparable in the kindle range instead of the lcd range would be an added bonus, but not a deal breaker.
6. Resolution however is important. I assume that high res screens will be available.
7. Some form of built-in illumination in the absence of ambient light.

Re:Can't wait!

[macshit]

I can't wait for this tech to get into tablets. Just a few of the advantages I'm expecting (and here's hoping there will be no disappointments)
...
3. The paper like effect (which I assume Mirasol will have), will be so much easier on the eyes - meaning less eye strain. Given a choice between ruining my eye sight and enduring bad colour, I'll choose bad colour anytime.
4. We can go back to the look & feel of paper without the associated wastage (trees cut down etc. etc). One "electronic book" to substitute them all.

I dunno, it's not so clear it will be "paper-like"...

e-paper uses a real matte reflective surface, like paper, but this mirasol stuff seems to be based on thin-film mirrors—i.e., not matte. Maybe they can do something with a diffusing layer over that, but who knows how much that will look like a real matte surface; it could look more like a material with significant sub-surface scatting, like wax...

The other thing of course, is that because mirasol uses separate wave-length-specific sub-pixels for red, green, and blue, the amount of light reflected is going to be cut down accordingly, as each sub-pixel will be absorbing many wavelengths even when in its "reflecting" state. So it may very well be kind of dim. [On an LCD, they can compensate for that by simply cranking up the backlight sufficiently to make up for any losses, but mirasol is supposed to work in ambient light...]

E-ink like power consumption?

[tylerni7]

What does the article mean by e-ink like power consumption? I can't tell if this technology requires power to remain in a given state, or whether it can be static like e-ink. Although the low power consumption of e-ink displays is largely due to their lack of a backlight, being able to display static content with 0 power consumption is really one of the coolest parts about e-ink tech.

I read the article but it didn't seem to answer this, do any readers know? If it could display static content for free then that would be incredibly awesome.

Re:E-ink like power consumption?

[Jamie Lokier]

This page explains near the end: http://www.mirasoldisplays.com/mobile-display-imod-technology
It's bistable, so it retains memory of the image without needing power (or only a little power), which is similar to e-ink.
But it switches much faster than e-ink, so it can do video, presumably consuming power for the regions which change.

Re:Yay

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah. Keep in mind that every ounce you waste on your tech gadgets is one less round for your gun. And the guy who didn't skim rounds on his gun will eventually come by and take your Sony Reader from your cold, dead hands.

Re:Disruptive

[shutdown -p now]

The reason why Apple needs 2048x1536, and not, say, 1980x1200, is because with the latter they cannot easily scale up existing apps with a simple 2x factor.

(flexible layouts? what's that?)

Too little too late

[manekineko2]

We've been hearing about this technology for years now, and unfortunately it's taken it so long to get to market that I think they've missed their market window.

Smartphones and tablets, spurred on in large part by Apple, have entered into an arms race of display quality with consumer displays the likes has never been seen before. The sort of displays our mobile devices have make our computer monitors look shameful, with AMOLED pushing the boundaries in terms of true blacks and contrast ratios and viewing angles, and ever-higher resolutions pushing DPIs to the boundaries of human sight. Most LCD IPS displays, which are the cream of the crop for desktop monitors and better than any flat-screen TV, are really just average at best these days in the mobile world.

The Mirasol displays, at least the ones that have been demoed, have never been the highest quality displays. Their two huge advantages are daylight-readability and low power-consumption. Those are two very positive traits, but at this stage, I don't really foresee anything outside of a niche market giving up ordinary-circumstance display quality for these.

Re:Disruptive

[shish]

Battery life is good for mobile devices; but Apple pushing for retina displays in all circumstances means that we can avoid situations like this on all devices. Combine both of these with thin + flexible display research, and in maybe as little as 5 years time we will have invented something that can compete with paper \o/

The diference being

[publiclurker]

that the hardware guy can usually get something, no matter how bad, to appear to work. All of the software guy created hardware I've seen could barely catch fire.

Re:The diference being

[TuringTest]

The diference being that the hardware guy can usually get something, no matter how bad, to appear to work.

That's what makes them far more dangerous.

Loony Tunes Technology

[boristdog]

This technology uses "interferometric modulators", which I cannot hear in anything but Marvin the Martian's voice.

In other words, Ray Bradbury got it right.

[xmark]

About a lot of things, actually.

Re:Simply not enough screen real-estate, I'm afrai

[fyngyrz]

Better yet, get rid of the screen bezel and build a collapsible handle system into the back, so your hand can be behind it, yet still hold it securely. The bezel on my iPad strikes me as a complete waste of space. I might feel better about it if there had been a camera in my gen 1, but there isn't... the bezel just makes the thing so big I can quite get my hand around it without an uncomfortable stretch. We'll have a Kindle Fire in the house tomorrow, looking forward to reading on something that actually fits in my hand.

Re:Image quality issues

[fyngyrz]

With just two, the wavelength specificity of the reflected light will be poor: you won't be able to make a bright green spot, merely a greenish spot.

No. The resonance (physical size) of the cavity controls the color; it doesn't depend upon how many layers are in there.

This means that if we try to set the pixel as bright as possible (all subpixels on) we'll still only get a medium grey, not white.

Yes and no (mostly no.) Look at your LCD screen. See that bright, burn-your-eyes out white capability? That comes from r,g and b spots. Meaning, each spot is only emitting 1/3 of the light that it takes to be white, or, in your concept, you're only seeing 1/3 as "white" as you could be (well, not exactly, since our eyes are nonlinear between red, green and blue, but anyway...) Still makes for a nice white. Bottom line: You don't have to reflect every photon to make a decent white. And in fact, paper reflects a lot of them at angles that don't hit your eyes, so you're not getting them all there, either. The "brightness" of the white here will depend on how wide the reflected photons spread on the way back out of the cells. Or to look at it another way, if the light reflection angle is 1/3 of the light capture angle, it'll seem perfectly white to you. The RGB nature of them isn't really the limiting factor.

each subpixel is either on or off, so each pixel can only display 8 colours.

No. Each pixel holds many elements. So the color of the pixel doesn't depend upon its neighbors.

Maybe also sarefice resolution for color depth

[BlueCoder]

It's made of tiny monochromatic mirrors that reflect or black out specific colors. It's relies on the number of mirrors per pixel sub-color to determine color intensity. While I suspect they are grouping the sub-colors per pixel right next to each other if they didn't... if every sub-pixel on this display was more or less a group of RGB each... (not likely since humans are more sensitive to certain colors) then the display would be capable or variable resolution. More resolution the closer you get to the pure RGB colors or black and white. So text on the screen can potentially be at a higher resolution while colors pictures appear at lower resolutions. This is such an advantage I suspect the research is focused on interleaved color manufacturing. While the colors on the screen won't be perfect RGB they will be a balanced matrix of colors. Addressing is the only technical challenge which would mean three different color address buses for three different screen colors. One color, I think blue being a reduced resolution for a smaller palette. That's a lot info to be transmitted but fortunately the display is it's own memory.

So to sum it up pictures at normal resolution, black/white text at 1000 times the resolution and nominal color text at 100 times the resolution.

I want one....

Top 3 ...

[knarfling]

What are the 3 scariest things to a SysAdmin?

1. An Electrical Engineer with a software patch.
2. A Programmer with a soldering iron.
3. A user with an idea.