British May Form Displays From Fabric
Brian Dance, Contributing Editor -- Semiconductor International, 2/1/2002
Softswitch (Yorkshire, UK) has developed a fabric that is expected to lead to display devices based on fabric materials within the next few years. These materials have already been used to develop low-resolution displays with pixel sizes of 1-2 mm. However, the company claims that, within two years, its fabric displays will be able to offer the same quality images as light-emitting polymers (LEPs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) — about 100 µm2 pixel size. This would enable a display with 400 × 500 pixels to be woven into the inside of a jacket or on its sleeve. Thus, computers could be made to be worn and used as conveniently as a wristwatch.
Softswitch has been spun off from the textiles research organization Wronz Euralab, which was set up in 1997 by the Wool Research organization of New Zealand. Softswitch is a joint venture between Wronz Euralab and the materials technology company Peratech (Darlington, UK). Peratech developed a quantum tunneling material based on composites that is sensitive to pressure, changing from an insulator to a conductor.
Softswitch used this technology to develop light-emitting fabrics that are based on a four-layer OLED. The material has been used to produce folding fabric keyboards in addition to the displays. The company was formed to control the commercial licensing of this technology.
Steven Lefty, a research leader at Softswitch, believes polymer-based displays, such as OLED and LEP displays, are complementary to the fabrics-based approach for the development of a wearable computer. He said Softswitch is coming from the textile side, while Cambridge Display Technology (Cambridge, UK) is coming from the electronics side, and it is hoped the two technologies will merge.
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