French Startup Uses Injected Inks As Alternative To Color E-Paper Display Tech (But It’s Early Days)

February 18, 2025 by Dave Haynes

A lot of the display chatter at ISE was about e-paper, and all kind of vendors big and small had demos that used E Ink’s technology as the core display tech. But there wasn’t much of the way of alternatives – except maybe these guys, who are still very early stage, but had a very different and interesting approach to low power consumption displays.

MD MicroElectronics is based in southern France, and I am safely guessing the MD is Michel Delmas, the founder – who had a teeny tabletop stand in the innovation park at ISE, aka the main corridor.

I was slowed down and then stopped because the little company had a sign that read Zero Watt Pollution (when the display is static) and referenced its use of reflective technology, which is the core approach of e-paper tech.

This company uses microfluidic display tech, and my doofus explanation of what that means is inks that fill little cells and add overlays with other base colors. So if the base is cyan, inject some yellow and you get green. And so on. Like mixing paints.

This is the more technical explanation:

Our technology, based on a reflective microfluidic display, is capable of displaying dynamic content under variable lighting conditions with very low power consumption rates. Microfluidic displays are reflective displays. By using ambient light, they do not emit light pollution, and their readability is ensured regardless of the surrounding light conditions. Pixel coloring is achieved through the introduction of pigmented (or transparent) fluids, where the relative dosage of fluids enables the display of all existing colors.

The concept has been patented in France and extended internationally.

Delmas had a couple of technical guys with him and they were just setting up the stand for the day when I wandered by, so I didn’t see a demo … and I didn’t really get a sense they had anything beyond the concept and some stuff that worked. When I went by later, the techs had ink on their fingers and I started to understand the white lab coats were not just props 🙂

But Delmas is an engineer specialized in microelectronics with 30 years of experience in video walls, including a couple of years working with Planar, so this is not mad scientist stuff.

There are a few technologies out there going after replacing print posters and billboards, and using little or no power. It’s not a thing, yet, in North America, but in Europe, low energy usage is important and getting more so.