AN ELECTRONICS GIANT and a Massachusetts-based company are hoping an infusion of capital and a license agreement will bring "electronic paper" to market quicker.

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Officials at Lucent Technologies' New Ventures Group announced on Tuesday that the group has made a multimillion-dollar investment into Cambridge, Mass.-based E Ink and has established a minority equity position in the company. Bell Labs also has licensed its plastic transistor technology to E Ink.

The companies will work together to develop "electronic paper" -- flexible, plastic electronic displays made with a process similar to ink-on-paper printing. The final result could be plastic sheets that could be instantly updated via computer, Internet, or wireless connections. The technology could be used in cellular phones, handheld computers, and electronic books and newspapers.

"I think that through our immediate product, we have demonstrated to the world that electronic ink is viable and here today," said Jim Iuliano, president and CEO of e Ink. "It's [similar to] a piece of paper that has a printer imbedded in it. It will typeset it on demand."

Electronic ink looks similar to regular ink, but it contains millions of microcapsules. Each capsule contains a mixture of dye pigment and pigment chips. The capsules react to electronic charges.

The Bell Labs plastic transistors possess properties similar to semiconductors formed on silicon chips, but they are flexible. Necessary circuitry is printed on the transistors in a process similar to silk-screening.

The transistors will work hand in hand with E Ink's ink technology.

"For each picture element or pixel, you will have one little transistor, and it will act like the memory," said Pierre Wiltzius, project leader in charge of merging the ink and transistor technology at Bell Labs, in Murray Hill, N.J.

Each transistor will determine whether the pixel is black, white, or another color. They will be located on a sheet not much thicker than a piece of acetate film.

Bell Labs has been working on the technology with E Ink since September 1999. E Ink has raised $53 million in two rounds of financing, Iuliano said. He said that company officials believe they can bring the e-paper technology to market in a three- to five-year period.

E Ink already has utilized its ink technology to aid retailers such as JCPenney and Yahoo for in-store signs and outdoor billboards.

IBM, Motorola, and newspaper and magazine publisher Hearst are corporate partners with E Ink's e-paper efforts. Xerox, partnering with 3M, is also working on e-paper technology at its Palo Alto Research Center in California.

E Ink Corp., in Cambridge, Mass., is at www.electronic-ink.com. Lucent Technologies Inc., in Murray Hill, N.J., is at www.lucent.com. Lucent Venture Partners, also in Murray Hill, is at www.lucentventurepartners.com.