JDI (Tokyo, Japan), a major manufacturer of small panel displays, has announced that it will start to sell the company's memory-in-pixel (MIP) reflective-type color liquid-crystal display (LCD) modules for wristwatch-type wearable devices. The displays require no backlighting and are visible in bright sunlight. They are round, 34 mm in diameter, and have 320 x 300 pixels.
Power consumption of the company's reflective-type LCD modules is less than 0.5% that of ordinary transparent-type LCD modules, says JDI.
Samples of the display will be available in March 2015, while sales start in July 2015. JDI was formed through the consolidation of the display panel businesses of Sony, Hitachi, and Toshiba and began operations in April of 2012.
JDI's display is a direct challenger to the Mirasol interferometrically modulated reflective color display from Qualcomm (San Diego, CA); the Mirasol display is already available in a smartwatch sold by Qualcomm.
Memory transistor in each pixel
The MIP structure of JDI's display has a static random-access-memory transistor fabricated in each subpixel. For still screen images, once the data is written to the display it is held there, resulting in ultralow power consumption.
The display is 8-bit, with red, green, and blue 1-bit, and produces a 23% color gamut. It has a typical contrast of 20:1 and a typical reflectance of 21%, although both these figures can be increased by implementing a diffuse film that JDI developed with Tomoegawa (also in Tokyo).
JDI has produced and sold reflective-type color LCD modules for wristwatch-type wearable devices since January 2014. JDI is now intending to create a large market for its reflective-type color LCD modules for wearable devices. The standard models will lessen the amount of product development and shorten the time period for product release, says JDI.
JDI is also planning to offer a line-up of standard reflective-type color LCD modules for industrial applications.
Source: http://www.j-display.com/english/news/2015/20150219.html
