March « 2006 « fantastic plastic

Toppan Flexible Electronic Paper Driven by Oxide Semiconductor TFT

According to their press release

Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. has developed an amorphous oxide semiconductor thin film transistor (TFT) array and succeeded in driving an electrophoretic E Ink front panel laminate to fabricate a prototype flexible electronic paper display.

Apparently the amorphous InGaZnO semiconductor used here has a higher charge carrier mobility (> 5cm^2/Vs) than [...]

Ring Oscillator on Carbon Nanotube

As reported in Science magazine (”An Integrated Logic Circuit Assembled on a Single Carbon Nanotube”; 24 March 2006; Vol. 311, no. 5768, p. 1735), researchers at IBM in New York and co-workers have created a ring oscillator on a single carbon nanotube.

According to the BBC, running at 50 megahertz,

the circuit is 100,000 times faster than [...]

Epson develops OLED-based print head

EETimes is reporting on a new printhead using an OLED light source.

Epson Corp. said it has developed a print head using an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) light source, which is touted as achieving printing performance comparable to that of laser printer heads.
Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd. collaborated with Epson on the prototype printer head from the [...]

European Commission announces RFID tag study

From the BBC:

The aim of the consultation exercise is to gauge reactions to RFID by both businesses and citizens in Europe.
Viviane Reding, the EU commissioner behind the exercise, warned that wider use of RFID would not be allowed to undermine the fundamental liberties that European citizens enjoy.

According to Vint Cerf, one of the “founding fathers [...]

E-Paper Enters Practical Use

Nikkei Electronics Asia has a cover story on the growing market for electronic ink applications.
Apparently E Ink has solved the ‘after-image’ or ‘ghosting’ problem seen in early applications, such as the Sony Librie. Two of the products available (in Japan) since January 2006 are the Seiko E Ink Watch and the Ishida shelf price tag [...]

Acreo: printing electronics on paper

Acreo, in collaboration with LinkÃ¶ping University, are developing low-cost electronics printed on paper. Their focus is on electrochemical devices, such as electrochromic displays. The change between bright and dark state is based on the difference in absorbtion of a polymer, e.g. PEDOT:PSS, in the oxidised versus the reduced state. Switching occurs at low voltages [...]

Thin Film Electronics printed polymer memory: cheap, fast, high-density, low-power

Thin Film Electronics (TFE) are developing low-cost non-volatile memory, consisting of a bistable polymer layer between two arrays of orthogonal addressing lines. This technology provides several advantages compared to conventional, silicon-based memory. As the memory function is a property of the acticve layer, no circuitry is required in the actial memory element. Further, the simple [...]

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