Plastic Logic, flexible e-paper display company, cut the ribbon today on its own factory in Dresden, Germany. This will be the factory that manufactures its e-reader device which will compete with Sony's Reader and Amazon's Kindle.

Just as the company announced at the debut of its own e-book reader at DEMO in San Diego last week, the Plastic Logic facility opened today.

The company's focus is "plastic electronics" -- most notably the polymer substrate it has designed for E Ink's trademark VizPlex imaging film which renders it flexible and highly shock resistant. Naturally, the company is excited that it will be able to begin production of its e-reader, which is expected to ship in the first half of 2009.

Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta announced that his company's has become the world's first "commercial-scale plastic electronics manufacturing facility." Indeed, many of the processes and technologies used to make Plastic Logic's products have not been used anywhere outside of Cambridge's R&D lab.