Qualcomm announces first IMOD-based Mirasol displays

You've got your LCDs, you've got your OLEDs, and you've got your E Ink, but Qualcomm's gearing up to push a new kind of display your way: the technology's called reflective interferometric modulation (IMOD), which is something of a mouthful, so Qualcomm intends to market it as Mirasol. These IMOD displays should have many of the same qualities we've come to know and love about OLED, like low power consumption, visibility in outdoor lighting, and no backlighting requirement, and apparently the first, very tiny 0.9-inch Mirasol screen will be showing up in a future Freestyle Audio player (technology sample shown above).

Read - Press release
Read - Mirasol site (not a lot there, unfortunately)

[Jayden @ May 21st 2008 9:23PM]

The resolution looks pretty crappy. Lets just stick with OLED's, stop trying to come up with new ways to make displays and focus on something better like massive memory storage in tiny devices :)

[Josh @ May 22nd 2008 12:08AM]

the entire photo's a bit pixelated.

[Richard Lai @ May 21st 2008 9:30PM]

I never knew Qualcomm's into display technology too, but OLED seems to be the bomb right now.

[John @ May 21st 2008 11:27PM]

Mirasol? Sounds like a cleaning product...

[Josh @ May 22nd 2008 12:09AM]

credit goes to being one of the few color displays for rugged mp3 players.

[marius cristian @ May 22nd 2008 1:58PM]

From: "Interferometric Modulator (IMOD)
Technology Overview"

"In a MIRASOL display, a flexible thin-film mirror is fabricated on a transparent substrate, leaving an air gap of a few hundred nanometers between the thin film and the substrate such that when ambient light enters this cavity and reflects off the thin-film mirror, it interferes with itself, producing a resonant color determined by the height of the cavity. A MIRASOL display produces
iridescent color, similar to what you would observe in a butterfly’s wings. Depending on the electric field applied between the substrate and the thin film, the film can be positioned in one of two states. Because MIRASOL displays are bistable, they don’t require a refresh until the image is changed. As a result, they consume very little power, providing extended battery life for the user."
"Inspired by Nature" (tm) indeed :)