Leti demos first WVGA 10µm-pitch GaN microdisplays for augmented reality video

Extending its expertise in high-brightness microdisplay technology for augmented-reality and other applications, micro/nanotechnology R&D center CEA-Leti of Grenoble, France is demonstrating what it claims is the first wide video graphic array (WVGA) gallium nitride (GaN) microdisplay with a 10µm pixel pitch during Display Week in Los Angeles (21-26 May).

The 10µm pixel-pitch technology will help to address the growing demand for augmented-reality glasses for consumer and professional users, head-up displays for vehicle drivers, and for pico projectors and other compact projectors, says Leti.

Based on a self-emissive GaN-based technology, the prototype microdisplay is said to exhibit the highest resolution with the smallest pixel pitch (10µm) ever presented. This was achieve by patterning high-density microLED arrays and hybridizing them on a CMOS circuit, using Leti’s micro-tube technology. The demonstrator in booth 1315 features a monochrome (blue or green) active-matrix prototype with a WVGA resolution of 873 x 500 pixels.

“We will continue to work towards a 5µm pixel pitch and, beyond that, on a new technology that will take GaN LED microdisplays to less than a 5µm pixel pitch,” says project manager François Templier.

On 23 May (5pm) at Display Week, Leti is presenting the new technology in the invited talk ‘A Novel Process for Fabricating High-Resolution and Very Small Pixel-pitch GaN LED Microdisplays’, demonstrating the feasibility of LED arrays with pixel pitch as small as 3µm (a world record).

The results were obtained under a collaborative work program with III-V Lab (the joint Alcatel-Lucent, Thales and CEA-Leti industrial research laboratory).