Microdisplays

Next week, on March 6-7, MicroLED Connect will be hosting a two-day virtual event focused on MicroLED and AR/VR innovations, technologies, manufacturing, markets and more. The online event will be an excellent opportunity to learn the latest microLED and AR/VR updates and connect with industry professionals on our excellent online event platform.

The virtual 2-day conference will include over 25 exciting talks by leading microLED developers, AR/VR developers, supply chain companies and top-edge researchers. This will be an excellent opportunity to learn and connect with the microLED industry, on an easy to access virtual event. You can register here, with a yearly pass to MicroLED-Connect (with an option to also include entry into our September on-site event in Eindhoven, The Netherlands). Our members also gain access to past event recordings.

The MicroLED Industry Association published the second edition of its soft-standard document, that focuses on microLED microdisplays. The new edition adds to the original document, with a discussion on system performance and more system considerations.

Most analysts and developers agree that the AR market is one of the targets for microLED displays. MicroLED microdisplays offer many advantages for AR developers – mainly very high brightness and high efficiency. In this soft-stsandard document, the MicroLED Industry Association provide guidelines for microdisplay developers and device makers, identifying the different properties of microLED microdisplays and microdisplays-based systems and suggesting how to disclose display metrics and performance.

According to Bloomberg, Apple has established a secretive facility in Santa Clara, to develop microLED microdisplay technologies for future AR headsets.

The report suggests that Apple is not looking to launch its microLED AR headset before 2028, or likely even before 2030. This coincides with the MicroLED Association's own industry and market roadmap.

Halliday launched their first AR glasses, called simply the Halliday Glasses. These enable a rather unique AR solution, that uses a monocular direct projection into the eyes without waveguides. The display engine is a green monochrome microLED microdisplay - likely produced by JBD.

The Halliday Glasses launched in a crowdfunding campaign, with a price tag of $400 (including a $90 discount for early supporters). The company aims to deliver the first products by April 2025. The company already has over 3,500 supporters and has raised over $1.4 million (with 41 days left to the campaign). 

RayNeo announced its latest AR headset, the RayNeo X3 Pro, powered by full color microLED displays. The company says that the optical engine is ultra compact - and is in fact the world's smallest mass-producible full-color micro-LED optical engine. It is based on three monochrome microLEDs and can deliver up to 2,500 nits of brightness. 

The RayNeo X3 Pro is based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 Platform, and it features a dual-camera system, one for high-definition photography and AI applications, and the second, lower power and with a wide field of view, for perception (such as SLAM and hand tracking).

Plessey Semiconductors, together with Meta Platforms, announced that they have developed a native red microLED microdisplay that achieves up to 6 million nits with a chip size of 5 um. Plessey says that this is world's brightest microLED device at this size.

In March 2020, Meta signed a deal with Plessey to dedicate all of Plessey's microLED manufacturing operations to support Meta with its own product development. Facebook pretty much acquired Plessey's microLED operations with this exclusive deal. 

France-based microLED developer and MicroLED Association member Aledia announced that it has finished the construction of its $200 million microLED production line in Grenoble, and the company is now starting to produce AR microLED microdisplays based on its 3D Nanowire platform.

The new microLED microdisplays are full color displays, based on monolithically grown native red, green and blue devices. The company says that is 3D GaN Nanowire material platform is more efficient and bright than regular (2D) LEDs. The company grows the LED on 8-inch and 12-inch silicon wafers, and can currently ramp up to almost 20,000 monthly wafers.

MicroSolid Printing pioneer VueReal is going to unveil several new technologies and products at CES, as the company gets ready for microLED display commercialization. VueReal wants companies to take advantage of the unique properties of microLED displays (mainly the customized production process and the high transparency and high brightness) and this year it will focus on new applications that can be enabled only by microLEDs.

First up, VueReal is launching new microLED Design Reference Kits to enable product designers to buy display samples and integrate into new designs. The first kit will provide microLED-powered lighting panels. These resemble OLED lighting panels - area lighting that is uniform. But unlike OLEDs, microLEDs will provide high brightness, long lifetime, and reduced costs. These are basically monochrome simple displays, and VueReal will offer either in native colour (R, G, B) or phosphor coated (white, red, amber).

A year ago Foxconn announced a strategic partnership with Porotech to co-develop microLED microdisplays, targeting AR, wearable and other applications. Foxconn said that this partnership will utilize Porotech's Dynamic Pixel Tuning color-tunable GaN-on-Silicon microLED technology and Foxconn's technologies in semiconductor wafer manufacturing, packaging, IC drivers, CMOS backplanes, module assembly and system assembly.

According to a new report from China, Foxconn plans to build a microLED epiwafer production line in Taichung, Taiwan. Foxconn aims to start mass production by the end of 2025.

China-based MicroLED microdisplay developer Jade Bird Display have developed a full-color microLED microdisplay that achieves a brightness of 2 million nits (white-balanced).

JBD says that its Phoenix series RGB microdisplays offer a pixel pitch of 5 micron, an ultra-thin stack of less than 5 micron, native RGB emitters and high color fidelity. JBD hopes to commercialize its full color microdisplays in Q3 2025.