Plastic Logic

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Plastic Logic is a spin-off company from Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory and specializes in polymer transistors and plastic electronics.

The firm was founded in 2000.

The main product the firm claims it has developed is a flexible A4-size and robust plastic electronic display the thickness of a credit-card.^{[citation needed]} The headquarters of Plastic Logic is in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

First mini-fabrication plant of Plastic Logic was opened on November 11, 2003 in Cambridge, UK^[1][1]. A factory for the mass-production of the display units was opened on September 17, 2008 in Dresden, Germany.^{[citation needed]}

Plastic Logic announced its first plastic screen device on November 30, 2004, these screens were to be used by Siemens Communications in their mobile devices.^[2] This was followed by the announcement of an ereader called the QUE proReader. However by August 2010, they had cancelled their QUE proReader,^[3]. In September 2011 the company announced Plastic Logic 100 aimed to bring e-textbooks to Russian schools ^[3].

In January 2011 it was announced that Plastic Logic will receive another $280m in venture capital: $230m into the equity of Plastic Logic from Rusnano and $50m from Oak Investment Partners, a multi-stage venture capital firm. ^[4]. In May 2012 Plastic Logic revealed a ‘Plastic Inside’ strategy – selling its plastic back-planes, sensors and tags for customers to incorporate into end products. ^[5].

The QUE proReader

The QUE proReader was an intended but cancelled first generation e-reader product from Plastic Logic. It was launched during a public event at CES January 2010.^[6]

It is based on an electrophoretic display, allowing electronic documents to be transported and read just like paper documents with the advantages of electronic paper (e-paper) like decreased eye-strain and low energy use.

It was intended to have a thickness of less than 7 mm, a form factor of 8.5" x 11" and a mass of less than 16 oz (453 grams).

It was intended to be able to display documents in formats for Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word), PDF, and others.^[7]

After multiple delays, the product was cancelled on August 2010 without ever shipping, with the firm noting that "We recognize the market has dramatically changed, and with the product delays we have experienced, it no longer make sense for us to move forward with our first generation electronic reading product." ^[8]

Plastic Logic 100

Plastic Logic 100 is an "electronic textbook" which is intended for educational use. Its availability was announced by Plastic Logic on September 12, 2011. Beginning later that month, a shipment of devices is scheduled to be used on a trial basis in selected schools in Russia which will be pioneering the electronic textbook program.

Plastic Logic 100 uses the same plastic-based e-paper technology as was intended for the QUE reader. The device boasts a 10.7" glare-free, shatterproof, and anti fingerprint display, as well as a touch-based UI.

The storage limit is 4GB and the device will be running Windows CE on a 800 MHz processor. The battery is intended to last a week under regular use, which includes reading, underlining, and annotation of text.

On May 17, 2012, Plastic Logic announced that they were abandoning plans to market their own e-reader, shut down their US office in Mountain View, California, and reduced staff elsewhere^[9].

See also

• E Ink
• List of e-book readers

Notes

External links

• Official website
• QUE proReader official website (Link redirects to Plastic Logic homepage.)
• Plastic challenge to silicon microchip, Peter Marsh, Financial Times
• Plastic Logic will make flexible polymer displays and launch its product in January 2009 (Technology Review)
• Plastic Logic Reader video demo

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