eCorel by IRX Innovations: Revolutionary E-Ink Technology Set to Transform the eBook Market

The color E-Ink technology has been developing at a painfully slow pace for years. Several renowned companies are researching relevant technologies, but so far with mixed success in the eBook reader market. E Ink Holdings hasn’t been particularly successful with Triton 2 displays, Qualcomm’s Mirasol technology is only found in a smartwatch, and Liquavista was purchased by Amazon some time ago (and has yet to produce any end products anyway). Other companies like HP, Fuji Xerox, Ricoh, Bridgestone/Delta, Pixel Qi, or Japan Display have completely faded into the background in this regard.

However, this does not mean that development has come to a halt. Another company is working on a promising solution: IRX Innovations.

Company Profile

Based in the Netherlands, IRX Innovations is developing an extremely promising technology that – if it lives up to the company’s promises – could revolutionize the eBook reader (and tablet!) market. The people behind IRX Innovations are no strangers to the E-Ink market – quite the opposite: the employees were involved in the development of the very first E-Paper displays back then as the development department of Philips. The first E-Ink display was then brought to market in the Sony Librie through a collaboration between E Ink, Philips, and Sony.

Following a restructuring at Philips, the E-Paper enthusiasts went independent and founded IREX Technologies. IREX also manufactured its own eBook readers (pictured left: IREX DR800), which were ahead of their time in terms of functionality – but unfortunately too expensive. The company went bankrupt in 2010 – the same year the first Apple iPad was introduced, which was hardly more expensive. The founders completed a management buyout and established IRX Innovations.

Instead of continuing to produce their own eBook readers, they focused on further developing E-Paper or E-Ink technology.

eCorel Technology: How It Works

The aforementioned new E-Paper technology is called eCorel. It is a technology based on electro-osmosis, similar to conventional E-Ink technology based on the electrophoresis principle. Like an E-Ink display, it uses “electronic” ink. These are tiny particles suspended in a liquid and aligned based on charge.

Common E-Ink technology uses black and white particles in a clear liquid. Depending on the charge, the particles are moved within the liquid from top to bottom to create the desired image. So far, so good. The problems, however, arise at the latest with the color representation because Triton color E-Ink displays are also based on black and white technology. A color filter is simply applied to the E-Ink screen. The problem is that to display a color, only one-third of the filter is activated, and the remaining two-thirds remain black. Thus, only one-third of the light is reflected. This is also why the PocketBook Color Lux in our test generally showed a relatively dark screen when the lighting was off.

In eCorel, the clear liquid also moves

eCorel also operates on the particle charge principle, but it takes a few steps further, as it moves not only the particles but also the liquid itself. This allows faster switching and eliminates the need for white particles. Instead, the screen is transparent in areas where no particles are present, allowing a reflective surface to be placed on the back. A paper-like reflectivity of 90 percent is thus possible. This is twice as much as the current E-Ink Carta technology in the Kindle Paperwhite.

The second advantage is that thanks to transparency, a multi-layer setup can be used. This means that colored pigments (magenta, cyan, yellow) can be arranged in three different layers to create a high-contrast image based on the same principle as a printed page from an inkjet printer.

Multiple layers stacked; Image source: IRX

Depending on the desired color, the particles in the three layers are concentrated to varying degrees, enabling coverage of a vast color spectrum. For instance, if you only want to display the color yellow, only one layer is actively controlled, and the other two remain transparent. The following video demonstrates how it works:

The technology is not limited to color applications. Although the three-layer solution can render black by filling a pixel with all color particles, eCorel can also operate with a single layer that can contain only black particles if necessary. This could potentially lower costs. Readability in sunlight is, of course, still possible, and the long battery life is maintained since eCorel technology requires no additional power once the image is built.

An apparent advantage of the technology is the option to use a backlight. However, E-Ink fans might not be too pleased about this – at least if the lighting effect is similar to a standard LCD screen. A front light can naturally be realized as well.

… there are also drawbacks

The invisible particles are shifted to the side

As promising as it sounds, it’s not entirely without issues, as there are no white color particles to cover the colored ones, the color particles would need to disappear from view. Therefore, the color particles are shifted to the side. Upon closer inspection, this creates fine black stripes on the screen. Whether this effect is only present in the prototype or is an inherent trait of the technology remains to be seen. I have not yet received a response to my inquiry.

The effect can be observed in the following video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBF926yu_-0[/youtube]

However, the following technology demonstration also shows that there are areas without stripes. It raises the question of whether the prototype is faulty in that area or actually displays an image:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WcGvxnHb1I

Another issue is the viewing angle stability of color representation. Since the different layers naturally have a certain thickness, a slanted viewing angle could lead to a slightly distorted color display. According to IRX Innovations, the effect will only be at the pixel level, which means that, depending on the angle, “only” the edge sharpness might suffer.

Conclusion

According to IRX Innovations, the technology is in the final stages of development for commercial use and is just a few months away from possible market launch. However, this requires finding a partner.

Apart from the basic functionality of eCorel, little is known. For instance, we don’t know whether IRX Innovations is already working with an eBook reader company or how expensive the displays will be.

Nonetheless, the technology sounds very promising, particularly the 90 percent reflectivity would be a tremendous leap forward. Since the company’s founders have previously collaborated with Sony, E Ink, and Amazon, at least there shouldn’t be any hesitations among current eBook reader manufacturers. Whether that is enough to outweigh the possible drawbacks mentioned and perhaps a higher price remains to be seen. Hopefully, there will be some news at CES 2014 in January. We’ll keep you updated.

Until then, interested parties can study the IRX presentation from SID 2013 or get more information on the company’s website.