Qualcomm’s Mirasol displays to reduce gadget CO2 emission by 94%

Qualcomm says its Mirasol displays, which use reflective technology to display the spectrum of colours instead of active lights, can reduce the carbon emissions from gadgets over their life time of use.

The Mirasol display technology works by mimicking the wings of a butterfly, which basically have no colour on their own, but reflect specific wavelengths in the light spectrum that show up as colour to your eye. In that way, it doesn’t require power for illumination, but uses ambient light to form the images.

As such, the technology dramatically reduces power consumption of mobile devices, hence extending the battery life during use, as well as the lifecycle of the physical battery itself.

According to Cheryl Goodman, director of marketing at Qualcomm’s MEMS Technologies, the application of Mirasol technology in a device such as the iPad would extend the battery life from 10 hours to up to 30 hours. Power consumption of a Mirasol displays is as little as 1mW, compared to TFT-LCD, which require 202000mW.

Her assertions are backed by a study by Pike Research cited on Mirasol’s website, which found that reflective display technologies such as interferometric modulator displays (IMOD) provide a significant energy efficiency advantage over incumbent technologies such as LCD or OLED.

“In Pike’s analysis, a mobile device using an IMOD display would consume 33.7% less energy, which extends the battery life by 51%, when compared with a similar mobile device that uses a conventional LCD display. Based on a simple lifecycle analysis, this would result in 94% less carbon dioxide emitted in the use phase for the display. In addition, this efficiency advantage results in about 58 fewer recharge cycles over the course of a year and would extend the life of the battery for an additional 1.25 years,” Mirasol said.

Goodman says that the first colour Mirasol displays will ship later this year to manufacturers, who will then commercialise products using the technology.

But don’t hold your breath for the Mirasol-based iPad or netbook. Instead, Goodman says Qualcomm’s strategy is to focus on displays no more than 5.7-inch in size, to ensure the portability of the devices, such as e-Readers.

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Tags: display, display technology, e-readers, LCD, Mirasol, Qualcomm

Category: Applications, Green ICT, Mobile