New plant in Taiwan allows for higher-volume production of light-reflecting handset screens

Qualcomm is shifting its nanotechnology project Mirasol into high gear, announcing a partnership with Foxlink to break ground on a new fabrication plant in Taiwan that will manufacture the reflective ambient-light displays in volume.

Qualcomm currently has a manufacturing deal with Prime View International to make black and white displays for the handful of devices that currently use Marisol technology. The complexity of manufacturing the Micro-Electrical Mechanical Systems (MEMS) screens—which use thousands of tiny mirrors to reflect surrounding light—has limited the size and capabilities of the first Mirasol devices. The screens have been embedded into budget phones and Bluetooth headsets, all of which have nothing near the resolution or depth of the typical color handset screen.

The agreement with Foxlink will allow Qualcomm not only to ramp up production of the MEMS devices but to scale the screens to larger sizes as well as add depth and color, making them suitable for the average handset or even high-end devices. Qualcomm isn’t revealing any specific production goals or details on the types or sizes of screens it will manufacture, but the dedicated plant will allow it to scale qualitatively and quantitatively if it so chooses. “We have seen a strong response to Mirasol displays and have made significant traction in the last year,” said Jim Cathey, vice president of business development for Qualcomm MEMS technology.

Though displays are traditionally outside of Qualcomm’s radio chipset core business, the vendor began pursuing nanotechnology solutions to screens as a means of tackling the power drain problem in mobile phones. As phones gain more multimedia capabilities, both the size of the screens and the growing use of wireless data have placed increasing demands on a phone’s power, but battery technologies have not been able to keep up. Power drain was one of main reasons Apple cited for not adding 3G capabilities to its first iPhone. Traditional light-emitting diode (LED) screens use a backlight as an illumination source, which constantly taxes battery power. The MEMS screens, however, require no back light. Instead the actuating mirrors reflect ambient light, either opening or closing to render an image.

Scaling MEMS screens to larger sizes have proved problematic: as screens grow larger, the number of mirrors increases exponentially, and adding color dramatically increases the complexity of the component. That’s why Qualcomm’s initial implementations have been in low-end phones with 1-inch black-and-white screens such as Hisense’s C108. Targeted at developing markets, the phone is designed to hold a long charge in areas where power supplies aren’t readily available.

The Foxlink plant is slated to go online in 2009 in Taoyuan, Taiwan, and will be dedicated toward Mirasol production. Foxlink itself uses Mirasol display technology in two consumer products: a watch with an embedded GSM phone and a stereo Bluetooth headset.