Partial refresh solves the power and flicker problem. It doesn’t solve the “feels abrupt” problem — the display just snaps from one state to the next with no transition. MyGica’s custom TCON architecture was built to fix that second problem without giving back the gains of the first.
Anyone who has watched an e-paper display update knows the two options it usually comes with. Full refresh clears and redraws the entire panel — clean, but it flashes the whole screen, even to update one field. Partial refresh only touches the changed region, avoiding the flash — but the change itself just appears, instantly, with no transition at all. Neither option looks like a scene shifting on a normal digital screen; both look distinctly like e-paper.
MyGica’s proprietary TCON architecture was developed to close that gap: applying an actual transition — a fade, a wipe, a ripple — to a partial-refresh update, without falling back to a full-screen flash to do it.
The Problem With Standard Partial Refresh
Partial refresh works by only redrawing the pixels inside the region that actually changed, which is what keeps power draw and flicker low compared to a full refresh. But standard partial-refresh implementations only support a direct, one-step swap: old content off, new content on, in a single update. There’s no intermediate motion — nothing that reads as a transition to the eye, the way a dissolve or a wipe does on a normal screen.
For static information — a departure time changing, a price updating — that’s usually fine. But for content that’s meant to draw attention or feel intentional rather than mechanical, the abruptness is a real limitation, and it’s one that most e-paper hardware simply doesn’t address, because the underlying driving electronics weren’t built to.
How the Custom TCON Handles It
MyGica’s TCON architecture is built on an FPGA platform, using an 8-bit grayscale template combined with phase-offset control and a dual-dimension lookup table (LUT) algorithm to drive the transition itself — not just the before-and-after states, but the visual path between them. In practice, this means a changed region can transition through a shutter/blinds effect, a ripple, or a gradient fade, rather than switching instantly, while every other part of the panel that hasn’t changed stays completely untouched — no full-screen flash, no unnecessary refresh of static content.
The effects are graphically configurable rather than fixed, so integrators aren’t limited to one hardcoded transition style across every deployment.
What This Actually Achieves
In testing, this approach has held to the following, on mid-to-large e-paper panels used in digital signage and transit signage deployments:
- Flicker held under 4 Hz — well below the threshold where screen updates read as jarring to the eye.
- Ghosting under 0.8% — a meaningful improvement over standard partial refresh, which typically accumulates visible ghosting faster the more frequently a region updates.
- Local power consumption reduced by more than 40% compared to full-screen refresh approaches used to achieve a comparable visual transition.
The architecture also supports driving multiple irregular regions independently within a single refresh cycle — not just one rectangular window, but several non-rectangular areas updating with effects simultaneously, which as far as we’re aware is not something standard partial-refresh implementations in the market support. This is the same flexible, region-based refresh control behind MyGica’s color e-paper display line.
Where It’s Actually Useful
This isn’t a feature that matters for every e-paper deployment — a static price tag that updates once a day doesn’t need a transition effect. It matters for content that’s meant to hold attention or feel deliberately designed, which is why it’s currently deployed in:
- Digital signage — promotional or informational content transitioning between states without the jarring full-panel flash that makes e-paper signage look distinctly different from a normal screen.
- Transit and bus-stop signage — where a departure-time field updating with a subtle transition, rather than an instant snap, reads as more polished without adding the power cost of a full refresh. This builds on the same partial-refresh, region-based logic behind the bus-stop signage example we’ve written about previously — the difference here is that the update itself now has a visual transition, not just a smaller refresh area.
Why This Matters for OEM Projects
For OEM and ODM partners building products around e-paper, this is the kind of capability that’s genuinely hard to source off the shelf — most panel and driver combinations on the market only expose the two standard modes (full refresh, basic partial refresh), because the waveform and timing engineering behind a smooth, region-specific transition effect isn’t trivial to build. It’s a case where the driving electronics — not just the panel itself — end up defining what’s actually possible in the finished product, which is worth factoring into any OEM display sourcing decision, not just the panel spec sheet.
FAQ
Is this a different panel technology, or a different way of driving the same panel?
It’s the latter. The underlying e-paper panel is unchanged — the difference is entirely in the TCON and driving electronics, which control how a refresh is executed rather than what the panel itself is physically capable of.
Does adding a transition effect increase power consumption compared to standard partial refresh?
No — it’s still a partial, region-limited update rather than a full-screen refresh, so it retains the core power advantage of partial refresh. Testing shows local power consumption reduced by more than 40% compared to achieving a similar visual transition via full refresh.
Can this be used with non-rectangular content areas?
Yes — the architecture supports refreshing multiple irregular-shaped regions independently within a single cycle, rather than being limited to one rectangular update window.
Is this available as a standard feature, or does it require custom development?
It’s part of MyGica’s proprietary TCON architecture and is available on products built around it; specific effect configurations can also be customized for OEM projects with particular transition or branding requirements.