Prime View International (PVI) will announce its new product, Touch EPD, at the 2008 Society for Information Display (SID) Exhibition in Los Angeles.
Until now none of the major e-book reader products targeting the consumer electronics market has combined touch technology with e-paper. One of the strengths of e-paper is that, as a reflective display, reading it does not strain the eye the way reading a traditional computer screen would. However, because e-paper emits minimal backlighting, when combined with traditional resistive touch panels (which has the light throughput of only 80-85%), the book becomes too dark to read. Combining capacitive touch panels is also not ideal either, as the cost is too high and stylus handwriting recognition does not work.
PVI's new Touch EPD uses innovative "force sensing" touch technology. In this technology, several force sensors are placed under the e-paper display. When a user touches the display, proprietary software calculates the location and intensity of the touch with input from the sensors. There is no additional layer of materials on top of the display as there is in traditional touch technologies; as such, there is no impact to the reflective qualities of the display.
This technology requires no indium tin oxide (ITO) (the most fragile component in traditional touch panels), hence exhibits superior robustness. Unlike capacitive touch panels which requires the touch medium to be conductive (such as a finger), this force sensing technology works with either stylus or fingers. The cost of the technology is competitive with resistive and is lower than capacitive touch panels.
PVI's Touch EPD product is co-developed by PVI and US force sensing touch technology vendor F-Origin, in which PVI owns close to a 20% stake. In addition to the e-paper project, prior to year end 2008, the partners plan to launch a touch panel LCD product.
Article translated by Rodney Chan
