Advancing electronic paper designs for factory automation, conveyors

Pervasive Displays and Energy Micro have formed an alliance to combine their technologies to develop a cost-effective prototype for low energy electronic paper solutions. Electronic paper provides instant updates and ultra-low-powered operations for information displays in many applications, including manufacturing.

March 28, 2012

Pervasive Displays Inc. (PDi), announced an alliance with Energy Micro. Combining PDi’s low power electronic paper display modules with Energy Micro’s low power microcontrollers, this alliance enables Energy Micro solutions developers to quickly and cost-effectively develop and prototype a wide range of low energy electronic paper solutions to display dynamic content.

The first release from the alliance is the EPD SK-2 daughter board for the EFM 32 Gecko developer kit. To enable easy, fast demonstrations of electronic paper solutions, Retronix created the “EPD SK-2” for Energy Micro developers and bundled it with the EFM 32 Gecko developer kit. The 32-bit EFM 32 Gecko microcontroller family has ultra-low energy consumption, a modern and powerful ARM Cortex-M3 CPU and with a vast array of tools like real time, accurate energy and power profiling. It is the perfect development platform for an ultra-low power display where low energy consumption and showing dynamic content are critical.

Easy to install, the Retronix “EPD SK-2” uses PDi’s 2-in. low-power electronic paper display and the incredible flexibility of Energy Micro’s EFM 32 Gecko platform, making the kit ideal for demonstrating applications in various areas like electronic shelf labels in retail, warehouse and logistic applications, reusable container labels, kanban cards, factory automation, warehouse picking stalls, shop floor conveyer systems, and unlimited other digital display options.

Instant updates, ultra-low-powered operation

The alliance between PDi and Energy Micro enables developers to quickly integrate EPDs into products and applications, creating enhanced benefits and return-on-investment potential unique to PDi’s electronic paper solutions, including:

  • Ultra-low-power consumption for a dot-matrix digital display, capable of years of operation from a coin battery or energy harvesting-based technology
  • Paper-like dot-matrix displays that offer unmatched readability and viewing angle, even in direct sunlight and high ambient light
  • Ideal for applications where low energy consumption and showing dynamic content are critical

Pervasive Displays Inc. (PDi)

www.pervasivedisplays.com 

Energy Micro

www.energymicro.com 

– Edited by Chris Vavra, Control Engineering, www.controleng.com