Modos Paper Dev Kit helps users create an open-hardware E-Ink monitor with a fast 75 Hz refresh rate and low latency thanks to a Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA driver board, and compatibility with a wide and of E-Ink displays between 4-inch and 42-inch in size.
The resulting grayscale or color E-ink monitor can be connected through HDMI or USB and works on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Modos Paper driver board specifications:
- FPGA – AMD/Xilinx Spartan-6 LX16 FPGA running Caster gateware
- Memory – DDR3-800 framebuffer memory
- MCU – STMicro STM32H750 Arm Cortex-M7 microcontroller for USB communication, firmware upgrades, and standalone applications. Processing rate up to 133 MP/s when error-diffusion dithering is enabled, and 200 MP/s when disabled
- Supported Displays – 4-inch to 42-inch E-Ink displays without integrated TCON; See long list on GitHub
- Video Input
- USB Type-C DisplayPort Alt-Mode with on-board PTN3460 decoder
- microHDMI connector for DVI video input with on-board ADV7611 decoder
- Power Supply
- E-paper power supply with up to 1 A peak current on the ±15 V rail
- VCOM kick-back voltage measurement support
- Dimensions – TBD
The board runs Caster open-source FPGA-based electrophoretic display controller engineered for low-latency performance. The gateware can divide the screen into multiple update regions to process and display new images or text almost instantly.
Highlights of Caster:
- Supports electrophoretic display panels with parallel interfaces (E Ink, OED, and DES)
- Compatible with monochrome and color-filter-array screens
- <20 µs processing delay
- Supports binary, 4-level grayscale, and 16-level grayscale output modes
- Latency-optimized binary and 4-level grayscale driving modes
- Hybrid automatic binary and 16-level grayscale driving mode
- Host software runtime controllable regional updates and mode switching
- Hardware Bayer dithering, blue-noise dithering, and error-diffusion dithering with no additional latency
While users can choose from a list of displays, Modos Tech also offers two kits with either a 6-inch or a 13-inch monochrome display with the following highlights:
- 6-inch E Ink with 1448 x 1072 resolution
- 13.3-inch E Ink 1600×1200 resolution
- Common features
- Refresh Rate – 75 Hz
- Interfaces – HDMI and USB-C ports
- Programmable modes, APIs for Display controller (Rust, Python, C)
The comparison table below for the 6-inch Paper Dev Kit shows that the refresh rate is much higher for the FPGA-based solution than competing E Ink solutions at the cost of having a higher power consumption. Waveshare e-Paper HAT, Inkplate 6 MOTION, and EPDiy are used for the comparison.
You’ll find all resources for Glider (KiCad hardware, STM32H750 firmware, extensive documentation) and Caster (gateware for the FPGA) projects on GitHub.
Modos Tech has launched the project on Crowd Supply with a $110,000 funding target. There’s no reward with the Modos Paper driver board only, and instead, you can pledge $199 for the 6-inch Modos Paper Dev Kit or $599 for the 13.3-inch model. The kits are pre-assembled with a screen, a mainboard, an adapter, and a ribbon cable, plus a USB-C cable is added to the package. The prices given include worldwide shipping. Backers will have to be patient since shipping is scheduled for the end of January 2026.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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