Aveso: Low-Cost, High-Volume Printed Electronic Displays

What does Aveso do?
How are Aveso displays different from other technologies?
How does Aveso’s display technology work?
How are Aveso displays printed?
What is Aveso’s financial position?
Where did the Aveso name come from?

What does Aveso do?
Aveso, Inc. is the leading provider of flexible displays suitable for high volume, cost-sensitive mass consumer applications. The company’s paper-thin, rugged display products are designed for applications where it has been impossible or impractical to integrate displays in the past, due to cost, form factor or scalability.

How are Aveso displays different from other technologies?
Aveso offers the following key advantages over competing technologies:

Ease of manufacture. Aveso flexible displays are comprised of a single layer of its electroactive ink sandwiched between a conductive backplane and transparent conductive frontplane. The simple display structure can be produced and scaled to high volume on globally-available assets used today to produce standard membrane switch assemblies and electroluminescent lamps.

Rugged and reliable. Aveso plastic display products are specifically designed to withstand real-world operating and production environments involving high temperature, pressure, shock and vibration. The ability to withstand temperature and pressure is a key source of competitive advantage for Aveso in the electronic display card market, where the industry seeks to qualify components that can drop into standard hot lamination card production processes involving temperatures greater than 125ºC and pressures in excess of 300PSI.

Simple silicon. Aveso’s low voltage displays can be driven via off-the-shelf, general purpose 1.5V and 3.0V microprocessors. Aveso’s display drive code requires digital logic only and can be added easily to customer specific microprocessors or designed into secure silicon for cost effective, single chip solutions.

Low cost. Aveso produces quality displays at lower costs than competing flexible display technologies, while delivering comparable or better performance in such areas as contrast, response time, and end product integration. The company’s cost advantage is tied to its fabless manufacturing model, low cost material set, and simple electronics requirements. The company’s technology roadmap calls for launch of even lower-cost, multiplexed display modules and integrated inlays featuring printed display, power and circuitry.

Versatile product design. Aveso’s high contrast, paper-thin displays can be fabricated in any shape or size, enabling unparalleled product design options.

Compatibility with printed components. The emerging printed electronics industry is driven by the promise of reducing manufacturing costs by printing discrete in a high speed, roll to roll environment. The ability to eliminate costly attach steps and improve manufacturing throughput by printing has the potential to create improved economics for integrated devices. Aveso has the potential to unlock the value of the printed electronics, providing the missing visual outlet for other printed components such as RFID antenna, logic, circuitry and power.

How does Aveso’s display technology work?
Aveso display technology is based on a patented electrochromic chemistry engineered into a robust, printable ink. When low voltage is applied, a pH gradient is created in the ink; a pH indicator dye then changes color in response to the shift in pH. Aveso’s ink technology provides the foundation for a highly reversible, high contrast display system that has been scaled using low cost print manufacturing processes at established outsourced electronics print companies.
The company’s current monochrome products are based on ink chemistry that switches from yellow to blue. A range of pH indicator dyes can be utilized to create future additional color sets. The company’s intellectual property portfolio includes multiple issued and filed patents covering its enabling chemistry, device architecture, and manufacturing processes for producing integrated devices based on high speed printing and lamination.

How are Aveso displays printed?
Depending on display type, Aveso displays are manufactured via screen printing (both sheet-fed and roll-to-roll), gravure and flexography.

What is Aveso’s financial position?
A spin-out from The Dow Chemical Company, Aveso is a private company founded in July 2004 with venture capital financing from ARCH Venture Partners, Frazier Technology Ventures and Dow Venture Capital. Each of the company’s original investors participated in Aveso’s Series B round, together with The UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund.

Where did the Aveso name come from?
The Aveso name is a play on the Spanish word “aviso” or “avisar,” meaning to notify, inform or warn – a link to the critical nature of the information Aveso displays deliver.