VR / AR - Page 12

France-based 3D GaN LED developer Aledia announced its Series-C Financing round, totaling $36 million. Its existing investors participated in this round, and Aledia also announced that Intel Capital has joined as a new investor.

Aledia also says that it is developing next-generation Micro-LED displays with several large industrial partners. Aledia is developing both mobile displays (for smartphones, tablets, etc) and micro displays for AR/VR applications.

UK-based optical thin-film developer Artemis announced a partnership with Plessey Semiconductor to co-develop HUD displays that use Plessey's GaN-on-Si MicroLEDs and Artemis' thin-film coatings for HUDs.

Plessey recently announced its new licensing platform and also its intentions to bring a monolithic MicroLED display to the market in H1 2018. Plessey demonstrated an HUD prototype powered by its MicroLED display.

Taiwan's Jasper Display Corp (JDC) unveiled its new silicon micro-LED backplane, the eSP70, which reportedly features high brightness and contrast possible. JDC's eSP70 is capable of FHD (1920x1080) resolution using a pixel pitch of 8 um and JDC says that it offers excellent current uniformity via a proprietary current source pixel (uniformity is better than 1% across the array).

JDC demonstrated the eSP70 using micro-LEDs provided by glō. The company says that this is the industry's first specialized micro-LED ready silicon. JDC's technology can be customized and it can be suitable for a wide range of applications, from AR headsets to automotive headlights. JDC's eSP70's 8" are now shipping.

Digitimes posted an interesting article, stating that AU Optronics is set to adopt mini-LEDs in its LCD display backlighting units in 2018 (mostly for higher-cost applications such as gaming notebooks and professional displays). The company, however, still sees many challenges towards the commercialization of micro-LED displays.

AUO's chairman and CEO, Paul Peng, estimates that Micro-LED will still be in the development stage in 2018-2019, and while we will starting seeing many prototypes and even product samples, real commercial displays will take longer to appear. Peng says that Micro-LEDs, with their higher cost, will initially be adopted for AR and VR devices which will enable to pay a premium for the advantages over OLEDs (resolution and efficiency, probably).

Earlier this month we reported that Taiwan's Electronic and Optoelectronic System Research Laboratories (EOSRL, part of ITRI) has launched a project that aims to develop Micro-LED displays for large-area signage indoor displays.

LGD VR prototype, March 2017

According to a new report from Taiwan, EOSRL's new line, which will begin operation in Q3 2018, will be also used to produce small displays for VR applications. EOSRL reveals that the pilot line is already able to handle 2500 (50x50) chips per transfer, and by the time it is ready it will be able to handle 100,000 chips (100x100).

Google was granted a new patent that describes a micro-LED based AR glasses device. This is a patent from March 2016 that was now granted.

According to the patent description, the Micro-LED active area is aligned to an array of collimating reflectors that reflect a display image back towards a user's eyes. The patent also describes a similar VR device (in which the displays are not see-through).

A few days ago Apple was awarded with 52 different patents, covering a wide range of technologies that include 3D glasses, in-air gesturing, fingerprint sensing and more.

One of these patents details a Micro-LED device that is able to both emit and sense light. We have seen similar solutions based on OLEDs - in that case the photo-diodes were placed between the OLED pixels, to create a micro-display that can sense light (possible applications are for example eye-tracking in a VR headset).

Digitimes posted an interesting interview with Epistar's president, Jou Ming-Jiunn. Jou says that the most optimistic scenario is for micro-LED displays to enter production by the end of 2018, with real devices appearing in 2019. There are still challenges ahead though, and Epistar's customers have not yet committed to anything.

According to Jou, there are two main routes to the market for Micro-LED makers: VR/AR or wearable displays and large-area TV panels. It is not clear yet which will route will arrive first.