Qualcomm Pulls The Plug On Mirasol Screen Production

Back when PixelQi was still all the rage and ereaders still came in flavors other than Kindle and Nook, Qualcomm was pushing a fairly revolutionary screen technology called Mirasol. Designed to be read in direct light and display (albeit muted) color, Mirasol was supposed to be the next big thing in ereaders.

Well Qualcomm just pulled the plug on Mirasol production and is instead licensing some of the know-how.

Quoth CEO Paul E. Jacobs:

With respect to QMT, we’re now focusing on licensing our next-generation mirasol display technology and will directly commercialize only certain mirasol products. We believe that this strategy will better align our updated roadmap with the addressable opportunities.

According to The Digital Reader, Mirasol screens were very hard to manufacture and install and OEMs lost half of the screens in production. Chinese manufacturers sold many Mirasol devices in Asia but few in the U.S.

Qualcomm cancelled their first ereader product a year ago and has done little with the technology since.