The prospect of uLED microdisplays that combine single substrate, full color and high brightness with exceptional power efficiency has been a dream of the mass-market AR industry for years. As head worn AR devices like smart glasses start to hit the mainstream, one of the central challenges preventing the mixed reality renaissance is the lack of ultra-compact RGB uLED microdisplays.

The current market technology approach, primarily using GaN and GaAs material systems, is cost-prohibitive due to low yields resulting from fundamental materials’ characteristics. At the same time, there’s a lack of power efficiency across the color spectrum resulting from the inescapable reality that, in using these material systems, as the uLED diameter approaches the single digit micron size, efficiency plummets. Efficiency is a very different metric than how bright something can be – to be very bright yet only for short periods of time is contrary to a fundamental requirement of AR.

The complexities involved in producing a monolithic display with red, green and blue subpixels on a single silicon backplane, and the consequent lack of high-volume manufacturing capabilities, contribute to the list of issues plaguing current development paths.