Plessey Semiconductors Ltd of Plymouth, UK has announced a strategic partnership for its own monolithic micro-LED displays – manufactured on its proprietary gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si) wafers – to be driven by the silicon backplane of Jasper Display Corp (JDC).
Unveiled by JDC at January’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2018) in Las Vegas, the eSP70 silicon backplane is tailored for the needs of micro-LED devices. The full-colour-capable active matrix backplane features a resolution of 1920×1080, a pixel pitch of 8μm and offers what is claimed to be excellent current uniformity via a proprietary current-source pixel as well as flexible addressing.
Making displays brighter for portable augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) battery-powered devices is increasingly challenging, says Plessey. Using existing technologies that require high power output is a serious design limitation as the compact devices have limited space to house on-board power sources. Using JDC’s eSP70 backplane will give Plessey the flexibility to utilize its GaN-on-Si platform for micro-LEDs, delivering high brightness with moderate power consumption or run with low power while maintaining daylight-usable brightness levels.
“Plessey’s monolithic micro-LED array is a great match to JDC’s high-density silicon backplane,” believes JDC’s VP marketing & product management T.I. Lin. “Our JD27E series demonstrates our ability to deliver what our valuable partner Plessey and the wider industry has been waiting for – silicon that has been designed with their micro-LED needs in mind. Our X-on-Silicon backplane technology for micro-LED 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,” he adds.
“JDC’s micro-LED-specific silicon backplane allows Plessey to rapidly bring to market our monolithic full-colour micro-LED array at our entry-level 8μm pixel size,” says Plessey’s chief technology officer Dr Keith Strickland. “We have overcome the significant challenges involved in accurately aligning and bonding the micro-LED array with the backplane. We are looking forward to partnering with JDC as we continue our development, reducing pixel and display size.”
