E Ink Goes Bright, Adds Eye-Catching Orange to Create Its First Five-Color ePaper Display Panels

Electrophoretic ePaper display specialist E Ink has announced its third new product family in the last month, this time offering a way to get more eye-catching colors into the mix — by literally extending its panels to support five, rather than four, colors.

"Since its launch in 2013, the E Ink Spectra series ePaper has been well received by the retail industry," claims E Ink chief executive Johnson Lee. "We have gradually designed and developed the series from three-color and four-color to our latest release of E Ink Spectra 3100 Plus, five-color ePaper, which shows our strong R&D capabilities in color ePaper technology."

As Lee says, the biggest difference between the new Spectra 3100 Plus and its predecessors is the addition of an extra color, and it's an eye-catching one: As well as the black, white, red, and yellow of previous generation panels, the new family offers bright orange — great, the company claims, for eye-catching retail displays or creating an overall more vivid image.

The company has also confirmed an update to its all-in-one driver chip, which when paired with compatible displays — including the new Spectra 3100 Plus family — offers a rapid-update flash effect dubbed E Ink Sparkle.

The announcement of the new five-color panels comes two weeks after the company showed off its Kaleido 3 family, a high-contrast color ePaper panel range designed for eReaders and small-form-factor digital signage, and just under a month after it announced the large-format Gallery Plus color displays.

Thus far, E Ink has not announced pricing for the Spectra 3100 Plus family — which will be available in sizes including 1.64", 2.36", 3", 4.37", and two larger-format variants at 7.3" and 8.14" — but will be showcasing the panels later this month at Touch Taiwan, Booth M802, and Display Week in May, Booth 626.