Philips has announced that it will start developing rollable displays in earnest. Until now, the Dutch company only had a working prototype.

Such displays are projected to be the primary solution to demand for larger displays in mobile devices: just pull the screen out of a smart phone or PDA and enjoy a movie. Or read an electronic newspaper that you can roll up and put in your pocket.

Philips says that current process and yield improvements will enable large scale production within two years. The newest 5-inch PV-QML5 rollable display already has a decreased radius of curvature, improved operational and mechanical lifetime and paperlike viewing contrast, all improvements on the world's first rollable display prototype introduced by Philips'Polymer Vision (http://www.polymervision.com) just over a year ago.

A couple of specs for display buffs: The Polymer Vision PV-QML5 is an ultra-thin (100µm) featherweight QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) active-matrix display with a diagonal of 5 inches. When not actively used, the display can be rolled up into a small housing with a radius of curvature of less than 7.5 mm.

With four gray levels, the monochrome display provides paperlike viewing comfort with a high (10:1) contrast ratio for reading-intensive applications. Even in bright daylight, the display is easy to read. The display, Philips claims, consumes an exceptionally low amount of power. ®

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