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Jun. 6, 2009

There is now a brand new manufacturing plant in Taiwan designed specifically in making a new type of power-thrifty mobile phone display. The plant is owned by Qualcomm and it started preparing production Thursday.

Cell phones and other MIDs (mobile Internet devices) using the new Qualcomm displays could be on the market before November, said Jim Cathey, Qualcomm's vice president of business development.

Qualcomm's Mirasol Displays as they will be called are different from regular color LCDs because they don't shine with their own light. Instead, they simply reflect ambient light. Tiny mirrors actually move in the screens to better manipulate light, which has a tremendous positive impact on power consumption, helping to increase battery life by at least three times.

The mirrors actually consume power only when they're moving, so Mirasol screens can show a static image with very little battery drain. They share this ability with "electronic ink" displays used in e-book reader devices such as the Kindle from Amazon.com.

But unlike e-ink displays, mirasol displays can quickly change from one image to the next and show video.

Small mirasol displays have already been used in a few Chinese and Korean phones, and in an MP3 player on the U.S. market. These were able to show two colors, but displays from the new factory will be in full color, Qualcomm reassured us.

The size of the Mirasol can range up to 5 inches diagonally, and the overall cost should eventually be competitive with any LCD display, Cathey said.

Qualcomm set up the factory in Taiwan with local partner Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co., also known as Foxlink. Previously, it has made smaller numbers of displays through a partnership with another Taiwanese firm, Prime View International.

Prime View announced earlier this week that it will buy Massachusetts-based E-Ink Corp., the maker of the Kindle's display, for $215 million.

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Source: Qualcomm.