e-readers: Making them affordable
There is no denying that e-readers are a cool piece of technology. One of the things that makes them so interesting, and popular, is the unique e-ink display. A bi-stable display that only needs power to CHANGE what it is showing. These displays use VERY little power since they only need to update content ever few minutes when say reading a book on them.
They do however require a controller to make them work, which is a seperate chip, and cost for an e-reader. A kindle, or Nook is certainly nice, but the cost is prohibitive to many.
Enter Freescale, they have developed the i.MX508 system-on-chip (SoC) combines a hardware Vizplex controller (e-ink controller) with a fast ARM Cortex-A8 applications processor and special e-reader power-savings modes.
End game? $99 E-readers, that will change the market
Source: EE Times
