Plessey uses GaN-on-silicon for 4Mpixel microLED display
Plessey claims to have produced a record-breaking 2.5-micron pixel pitch, high resolution microLED display, using its propriety monolithic GaN-on-silicon (GaN-on-Si) technology.
The display uses microLEDs, a technology used in the development of next-generation wearables, AR/VR hardware, and heads-up displays (HUDs). They require approximately 20 per cent of the power of typical liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) or digital light processing (DLP) displays and can achieve five times brighter images than OLEDs, allowing comfortable outdoor viewing.
“Pixel pitch is key to the physical size of large field displays and to the resolution of the viewed image,” explained Clive Beech, senior director, business development, at Plessey. “The 2k2k display scale can be realised in a compact physical form factor and the 2.5 micron pixel pitch achieves image features with smooth borders and fine detail,” he added.
The microLED displays use Plessey’s scalable pixel architecture, and are expected to enable innovations and exciting applications in both augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) smart glasses, continued Beech.
Plessey’s GaN-on-Si technology provides low thermal resistance of the silicon substrates to allow efficient heat extraction for lower junction temperatures with high reliability, says the company. The technology also allows impressive energy efficiency, high resolution and unsurpassed contrast, claims Plessey. It is similar to large scale silicon IC processing and can be scaled to progressively larger wafers, improving cost, uniformity and yield for volume IC production.
Plessey provides full-field emissive microLED displays that combine very high-density RGB pixel arrays with high-performance CMOS backplanes to produce very high-brightness, low-power and high-frame-rate image sources for head-mounted displays (HMDs), AR and VR systems.
The company operates 150mm and 200mm wafer processing facilities to undertake design, test and assembly of LED products and a comprehensive suite of photonic characterisation and applications laboratories.
Plessey has already announced that it is on track to produce a full RGB display all on one wafer by CES 2020.
