Screen stars win at Display Week and LightFair

24 May 2017

Leti shows WVGA 10µm GaN microdisplays, Nanosys Q-dot wins Component of The Year; Soraa Laser picks up innovation prizes.

Spot on: LETI's gallium nitride microdisplay with 10-micron pixel pitch.

Display Week, the annual expo in Los Angeles, Ca, with its exhibition and conference focused on the display industries, is taking place this week (through May 26th) with a program of talks, presentations and the awarding of several prizes for innovation.

At the event, France-based research organisation Leti demonstrated what it is calling the world’s first wide video graphic array gallium nitride microdisplay with 10-micron pixel pitch. The demonstrator featured a monochrome (blue or green) active-matrix prototype with a resolution of 873 x 500 pixels.

Augmented reality market

The 10-micron pixel pitch technology is designed to address growing demand for augmented-reality (AR) glasses for consumer and professional users, head-up displays for vehicle drivers and for pico-projectors and other compact projectors.

LETI said the prototype microdisplay, which is based on a self-emissive GaN-based technology, shows the highest resolution with smallest pixel pitch (10 µm) ever presented. Patterning high-density microLED arrays and hybridizing them on a CMOS circuit, using the research company’s own micro-tube technology, has enabled Leti to achieve this result.

François Templier, project manager, commented, “With this result, our technology has reached an important milestone. We will continue to work towards a 5-micron pixel pitch and, beyond that, on a new technology that will take GaN LED microdisplays to below the 5-micron pixel pitch.”

During a conference session, Leti presented its concept for a pixel pitch as small as 3 µm in an invited talk at Display Week, in a paper entitled “A Novel Process for Fabricating High-Resolution and Very Small Pixel-pitch GaN LED Microdisplays”. The results presented by Leti were obtained in a collaborative work program with III-V Lab.

Join the dots: Nanosys's quantum dot display winner.

Nanosys quantum dot wins Display Component of The Year

Also during Display Week, quantum dot developer Nanosys received the Display Component of the Year award for its Hyperion Quantum Dot technology from the Society for Information Display. The award was presented on Wednesday, May 24th at 2017 Display Industry Awards (DIAs), during the expo.

The Hitachi Chemical-developed QD enhancement film is based on Nanosys Hyperion QD technology, and Nanosys says it will begin mass production during the second half of 2017.

Organized by the Society for Information Display, SID, the DIAs recognize innovative display products, components, and applications that hold the most promise for shaping the future of the display industry.

Wei Chen, SID's Display Industry Awards Committee Chairman, said, “We are proud to award Nanosys a 2017 Display Component of the Year honor for its Hyperion Quantum Dots. We commend the company's ongoing commitment to innovation and to helping shape the future of display performance and solutions."

Partnership

Nanosys has selected global electronic materials manufacturer Hitachi Chemical to be lead manufacturing partner for Hyperion QDEF. Hitachi will begin sampling quantum dot film using Nanosys Hyperion Quantum Dot Technology. Mass production volumes will be available to display makers during the second half of 2017.

Hyperion Quantum Dots match the color performance of the industry's best cadmium-based quantum dot materials with over 90% BT.2020 color gamut coverage. However, unlike cadmium-based materials, Hyperion Quantum Dot films do not require an exemption to the EU’s Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive.

Winning the double: Soraa Laser Diode's new generation of laser sources.

This is because Hyperion Quantum Dots are made using a novel manufacturing technique that combines a cadmium-free red emitter with an ultra-low cadmium green emitter. Hyperion Quantum Dots are fully compatible with Nanosys proprietary QDEF manufacturing process, giving the technology a clear path for rapid deployment at low cost.

SLD’s LaserLight wins top honors at LightFair

In related news, Soraa Laser Diode (SLD), a developer of visible laser light sources, was presented two prestigious recognitions at the 2017 LightFair International Innovation Awards, in May.

The company’s LaserLight SMD, reported on last week by optics.org, won both the Technical Innovation Award and the Best in Category Award for SSL Chips & Modules.

Professor Shuji Nakamura, SLD co-founder, CTO and 2014 Nobel Laureate in Physics, stated, "Laser diodes are lighting's future as they are droop-free, and can be combined with phosphors to safely produce highly directional output with superior delivered lumens per watt compared to other light sources.”