Jan. 15, 2018 – At CES® 2018 in Las Vegas, Jasper Display Corp. (JDC) unveiled details about their new silicon backplane, the eSP70, which demonstrates the high brightness and contrast possible with µLEDs. For the first time, the µLED industry can take advantage of silicon tailored for the needs of µLED devices. JDC’s highly-developed expertise in digitally modulated pixel arrays is the key to their lead in µLEDs and their latest offering gives augmented reality (AR) and heads-up-display (HUD) customers an early look at how µLED-on-silicon technology can revolutionize their product offerings.

The full-color capable eSP70 panel features a resolution of 1920 x 1080, a pixel pitch of 8 um and offers excellent current uniformity via a proprietary current source pixel. Uniformity is better than 1% across the array. The µLEDs on the eSP70 were provided and integrated by glō, a Google-backed, leading µLED device maker headquartered in Sweden.

OLEDs may be dominant right now, but the benefits of µLEDs make them a strong contender for next-gen displays. JDC’s Director of Applications Jeffrey Li has anticipated the rise of µLEDs and is well-positioned to help customers to develop a wide variety of new products.

“Our eSP70 demonstrates our ability to deliver on the promise of µLEDs. We’re excited to offer what the industry has been waiting for – silicon that has been designed with their µLED needs in mind. Our µLED backplane technology can be customized on a per-project basis, allowing us to make specialized silicon suiting needs ranging from low-power AR headsets all the way to automotive headlights.”

The high brightness µLEDs offer solves a key problem that AR glasses and HUDs are facing, namely that the brightness of sunlight makes images look dim and washed out. With the display technologies preceding µLEDs, getting enough brightness required a high power output which is a serious limitation for today’s compact, mobile, battery-powered systems that have strict power, space, and cooling budgets. With the eSP70 there’s the flexibility to have very high brightness with moderate power consumption or run with low power while maintaining a reasonable brightness level.

The fundamentally high contrast available with µLEDs makes a seamless AR or HUD experience possible. A low contrast display is not able to appear completely off; the display still has off-state brightness that partially blocks out the view of the environment. Conversely, when a µLED is off, no light is emitted and the view of the environment is not blocked by unwanted light.

Besides increased brightness and contrast, JDC’s patented, per-pixel pulse width modulation technology is ideally suited to µLEDs because digital switching allows for precise and consistent coloring; a single on-state current will deliver a single, stable color. Conversely, an analog drive scheme puts different current levels through the µLEDs which is undesirable because wavelengths vary and color shifting occurs.

The eSP70 is software configurable which allows hardware developers to easily and precisely set their pixel current and voltage levels.

JDC’s DFM methodologies enable high-yield volume production of their 8” wafers. eSP70 wafers are now shipping.

Jasper Display Corp. (JDC) is a fabless semiconductor company based in Taiwan with R&D in Santa Clara, California and offers leading Spatial Light Modulators (SLM), LCoS and μLED microdisplays, and digital modulation controller ICs. JDC provides their X-on-Silicon partners with the back-
planes and expertise required to create the next wave of optical innovation.