Ereaders created a huge new opportunity for innovative, low power display technology, but it has been tough to make an impact ‘ even for giants like Qualcomm. The firm is backing away from Mirasol, which once looked set to revolutionize device screens because it was readable in full sunlight and used minute amounts of power.
The chip giant will seek licensees for the technology, a route taken by several smaller pioneers in this area, such as the UK’s innovative Plastic Logic, which made a similar decision in May. Other ereader screen specialists, like Holland’s LiquaVista, have been fortunate enough to be acquired by firms with serious display muscle (Samsung in that case).
The change of direction highlights the intense R&D activity that has surrounded all kinds of innovative mobile displays over the past five years. Well beyond the touchscreens of the smartphones, start-ups and giants were looking for new ways to make displays more visible, flexible and less power hungry. This was driven initially by the rise of the ereader, and the need for paper-like surfaces and readability in sunlight; and then by tablets.
That has created success for some firms, like Taiwan’s E-Ink, the dominant e-paper technology as seen on the Kindle, and Pixel Qi, which invented multimode screens which can switch between backlit LCD and e-ink, as well as LCD panels with enhanced visibility in sunlight. Pixel Qi has an important alliance with investor 3M, which is giving the start-up the scale to attack the mass market.
But developing an innovative display technology and bringing it to scale is a major commitment in design and manufacturing. Qualcomm clearly has the wherewithal, and had invested in a dedicated plant in Taiwan for Mirasol, in partnership with Foxlink. But since screens are not its core business, it has clearly decided that, in the absence of an overnight success, it will do better to license or sell its offering.
Sources indicate that, once Qualcomm started to evolve Mirasol towards larger screen sizes and color, it found it difficult to achieve an efficient manufacturing process.
CEO Paul Jacobs said Mirasol would not be abandoned altogether but ‘only certain Mirasol products’ would be commercialized, implying these would be in niches, with the main activity focused on licensing. He did not give any reasons for the change of heart, but it appears to have been quite recent, since only in January this year, Qualcomm paid $175m for MEMs display specialist Pixtronix to strengthen Mirasol.
Mirasol is based on a MEMS moving structure which operates at extremely low power levels. It uses a tiny amount of ambient light reflected in thousands of tiny nanotech mirrors, so makes the best of any available ambient light. With no backlight for a display, it means that the more light that falls on the screen, including direct sunlight, the better the image that it gives off. It was originally developed by Iridigm Display, which Qualcomm acquired in 2004 for $170m. It was given a surprisingly high profile by the company, but did not achieve a hoped-for breakthrough deal with a player like Kindle.
However, the technology did evolve considerably under Qualcomm’s auspices. Initially it was grey, with oversized pixels and ultra-slow switching speeds, and was most interesting for its low power ‘ it used around 5% of the energy of existing LCD screens. Low power LCDs started to narrow that gap from 2009 but Mirasol was catching up in other ways, with its MEMS technology increasing its switching speed, supporting color and trying to handle video.
In 2010, Jacobs had grand plans for Mirasol, which he anticipated finding its way into smaller tablets and color ereaders by now. He said: ‘There will be a time when there is no need for us to design mobile phone screens which black out after 30 seconds, to preserve battery life, because these screens will take so little power.’ And the firm said larger form factors were also viable. An executive said at an analyst briefing last year: ‘There’s no fundamental reason why the technology could not go larger ‘ We would be remiss if we didn’t investigate [9.7-inch].’ But this has reportedly proved more difficult than expected, limiting the addressable market even as other low power display technologies emerge.
Other innovators will take the licensing route too, such as Plastic Logic. The UK firm is best known for creating its own ereader but its actual intellectual property lies in having the first plastic active matrix display. Plastic Logic has spent nearly a decade developing processes for manufacturing active matrix backplanes on plastic substrates, which would allow for flexible and even rollable screens as well as bringing other advantages such as durability, lightness and potentially low cost. The firm announced its QUE ereader, to showcase its technology and generate a revenue stream, in 2010, but later cancelled the product.
Last year, the start-up took financing from Russian investment house Rusnano, a deal which included support for a manufacturing facility in Russia for the schools-focused Plastic Logic 100 for Education product.