Philips Rolls Out Flat, Flexible Displays

Rolling the dice on a fascinating new technology that some critics say lacks true consumer utility, Philips (NYSE: PHG) has announced it is taking a paper-thin display technology into production.

The Dutch electronics giant said it is now capable of producing prototypes of ultrathin, large-area rollable displays and soon will ramp up to higher production levels to push the displays into several technology areas, such as electronic books, newspapers and next-generation wireless services.

The technology, however, might not be able to roll with the punches, according to Gartner (NYSE: IT) research director Martin Reynolds, who told TechNewsWorld that the concept is about as appealing as a rolled-up newspaper left behind on the subway. "My experience with a newspaper that's been rolled up is it's difficult to read," Reynolds said. "Do we really want roll-up displays? Is it truly useful? The answer is no."

Turning Up Volume

In contrast to some critics of the technology, Philips remained optimistic, saying it will use years of groundbreaking work on polymer electronics to create the prototype digital paper through an internal venture called Polymer Vision.

"Philips not only wants to prove the feasibility of such displays, but also has the ambition to move toward the development of an industrially feasible process for volume production," the company said in a statement. "Within the Philips Technology Incubator, an internal venture has been formed with this aim."

Philips said it will create organic polymer-based active matrix displays -- called QVGA displays -- that have a diagonal of 5 inches, a resolution of 85 dots per inch and a bending radius of 2 centimeters. The resolution will be 320 x 240 pixels.

The company said the display technology is based on a 200-micron plane of reflective electronic ink developed by E Ink Corp. Philips hopes the displays will be ideal for reading on the road because of their paper-like image quality and their ability to run on very little power.

Thin and Light Trajectory

Philips, which said Polymer Vision group now can produce more than 5,000 fully functional, rollable display units per year, indicated it is in the process of defining a pilot production line.

The company hopes availability of such displays will stimulate the advance of electronic content and services. Philips also hopes the displays will solve some of the architectural dilemmas associated with large laptops as well with low-resolution displays on devices such as cell phones.

Reynolds did concede that the technology appears to be on a path toward robust, thin and light displays. "It may not get to be rolled up, but it does bring the idea of computing down to the size of a piece of paper," Reynolds said.

Looks Promising

Not all analysts are skeptical of the digital paper technology. Yankee Group analyst Michael Kelleher told TechNewsWorld that the Philips idea is part of a larger, forceful trend toward mobility. "We're going mobile," he said. "It's too great of a movement, and this is just part of it."

Kelleher said that despite improvements in connectivity, one limiting factor of mobile computing has been the constraints imposed by displays.

"A product such as this that allows more content to be displayed without being too cumbersome of a device -- it looks promising," he said. "If it's big enough and you can easily carry it around and it's cheap, it's pretty promising."