Lucent & E Ink Develop E-Paper.

Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) and E Ink Corp. (Cambridge, MA) announced a joint development agreement to move electronic books and newspapers resembling flexible plastic sheets one step closer to reality. The two companies plan to develop "electronic paper," which would be the first flexible, plastic electronic display entirely made with a process similar to ink-on-paper printing, rather than the more costly silicon-chip manufacturing process. The same technology, which allows for instantaneous updating via computer link, may also lead to ultra-thin, lightweight displays for next generation consumer electronics, such as cellular phones and personal digital assistants.

The key elements of electronic paper would be plastic transistors, developed at Lucent's Bell Labs, which have the same properties as conventional silicon chips but are flexible and can be printed, and E Ink's electronic ink. Electronic ink is comprised of millions of tiny microcapsules filled with a dark dye and light pigment. When charged by the electric field created by the plastic transistors, the microcapsules will change color and create images.

The objective of this joint effort is to print the plastic transistors onto a flexible plastic film coated with electronic ink. "Our goal is to make a ...