In the world of e-paper (EPD), black and white technology has been dominant for years. It is particularly so with the popular application of e-readers. However, living in an era with non-stop development of new technologies, consumers demand more than just a B&W visual experience. The emergence of color display was bound to happen because it allows for more versatile content, such as comics and animations. Color EPD was definitely a significant breakthrough, though frontlighting in EPD has been widely established for a long time. It is not hard to imagine that this technological quantum leap is certainly going to offer plenty of business potentials in the industry, such as digital signage and education.

On the other hand, color in reflective LCD has been industrialized in applications like smartwatches. R-LCD technology with richer color gamut and higher frame rate is better suited for video content. But using backlighting in R-LCD has its limitations. When the display size increases to a certain point (e.g. tablet), it becomes totally uneconomical. Besides, it is unusable in the dark unless an in-built frontlight is in place. However, such a display is far more complicated to frontlight due to its specular reflection behavior.

The great advantage of Nanocomp lies in our capability of offering fully laminated FLG solutions containing both EPD and R-LCD display types, which excel in contrast, color gamut and do not require special light in-coupling setup. We can say with confidence that Nanocomp is a technical leader in the market of front lights. This market position and our acknowledged competence in the field have helped us to win a good number of well-known clients. In addition to being part of the Amazon supply chain, our customer portfolio has been built up with a holistic consumer electronics ecosystem including TPK Touch Solutions, Hisense, Holitech Technology and Pocketbook International. Moreover, Nanocomp’s FLG can be found in information displays at bus stops within several European cities.

Nanocomp has been supplying tens of millions of B&W front light guides world-wide successfully. The transition towards color displays provides us with not only opportunities but also challenges since even more sophisticated optical designs and tooling are required. Consequently, as part of our strategy, we have been actively enhancing the manufacturing capabilities with remarkable investments regarding illuminating larger displays as well as optical properties.  In the meantime, we are constantly reinforcing our operations in China and transforming our identity of a contract manufacturer into a full-service supplier, who gets involved from the initial designing to the mass production phase throughout.

 

VELI-PEKKA LEPPÄNEN

CEO

Nanocomp Oy Ltd