eMagin Corporation, a leader in the development, design and manufacture of Active Matrix OLED microdisplays for high-resolution, AR/VR and other near-eye imaging products, has unveiled a new prototype for a widescreen ultra-extended graphics array (WUXGA) (1920×1200 pixels) that uses the Company’s Direct Patterning Display (dPd™) technology to achieve 10,000 candela per square meter (cd/m2) of maximum luminance, becoming the world’s brightest high-resolution, full-color OLED microdisplay.
“This is a historic moment for eMagin and the industry and is our greatest achievement to date in advancing our proprietary dPd technology,” said eMagin CEO Andrew G. Sculley. “By applying direct patterning to WUXGA displays, we have reached more than 10,000 cd/m2, or nits, in maximum luminance and vivid RGB full color. This represents a 20-fold improvement over our typical white with color filter XL microdisplays, with brightness three- to four-times greater than our new XLE microdisplays, and we believe it is the brightest high-resolution, full-color OLED microdisplay in the world. We are working with a tier-one consumer company to develop this technology, including ways of manufacturing it at commercial scale. Higher brightness and improved resolution will enable our customers to overcome inefficient optics and implement new and advanced features that to date have simply not been technically feasible.
“10,000 cd/m2, full-color brightness is an important milestone on our roadmap to full-color displays of more than 28,000 cd/m2 brightness by mid-2023,” added Sculley. “By comparison, a typical laptop monitor achieves a brightness of 250 cd/m2 while a quality smartphone approaches only 1,000 cd/m2. Furthermore, our dPd displays contain more than 2,500 individually addressable pixels per inch (ppi), which generate remarkable clarity and resolution compared with typical laptop screens of 330 ppi, and OLED smartphones screens of 600 ppi.”
“eMagin’s new full-color OLED micro display prototype, with high-brightness, high-contrast and high-resolution, will be sought by consumer, industrial, medical and military customers for the next generation of AR/VR headsets and devices,” said Robert J. O’Brien, co-founder of DSCC, a leading display industry analyst firm. “Displays are the key enabling component for both AR and VR, so I was very excited to witness the demonstration of this much-anticipated development in the advancement of this technology.”
“Our dPd is a process technology that can be applied to every resolution and form factor of OLED microdisplay,” said Dr. Amal Ghosh, eMagin’s chief operating officer. “High-brightness microdisplays based on our dPd technology can be made to alleviate motion artifacts and allow the use of advanced optics in AR/VR applications. Further, such inherently high-efficiency OLED microdisplays reduce power consumption and image burn-in under identical driving conditions. As we develop this technology, future dPd milestones will include the addition of tandem OLED structures and other enhancements that we believe will take the performance of the AR/VR headsets to even greater heights.”
About eMagin Corporation
eMagin is the leader in OLED microdisplay technology, enabling the visualization of digital information and imagery for world-class customers in the military, consumer, medical and industrial markets. The Company invents, engineers and manufactures display technologies of the future and is the only manufacturer of OLED displays in the United States. eMagin’s Direct Patterning Technology (dPd™) will transform the way the world consumes information. Since 2001, eMagin’s microdisplays have been used in AR/VR, aircraft helmets, heads-up display systems, thermal scopes, night vision goggles, future weapon systems and a variety of other applications.
