Next-Generation Displays to Enhance Augmented Reality Market
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Augmented Reality (AR) systems require extreme brightness levels and high image contrast not always available in traditional display systems.
Kopin Corp., an American developer of display systems for wearable technologies and military applications, announced a new generation of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) that incorporates advanced designs and processing techniques to dramatically increase performance over prior generations of displays.
The new Brillian product line incorporates an advanced pixel structure, newly formulated liquid crystal materials and enhanced manufacturing processes to produce unsurpassed image performance in applications requiring extreme high brightness, according to the company’s announcement on businesswire.com.
The Brillian displays with the advanced pixel structure have more than double the contrast ratio of conventional displays. Full-color Brillian displays exhibit contrast ratios higher than 500:1 and brightness levels greater than 34,000 cd/m2 (10,000 foot-lamberts).
With the use of the newly formulated liquid crystal materials, switching time has been reduced by about 30% to a fraction of one frame time to eliminate any perceived symbology latency.
“The Brillian LCD is the result of a multi-year development effort to satisfy the increasing performance requirements of our customers,” said President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. John C. C. Fan. “The Brillian product line offers the extreme brightness levels only possible with an LCD, while at the same time substantially boosting image contrast and lowering switching time. This breakthrough in performance will enable the further advancement and fielding of augmented reality products throughout the growing markets that we serve.”
“This new line of LCDs is ideally suited for very high brightness augmented reality applications such as visor projected pilot displays, integrated rifle scopes, soldier tactical displays, embedded training systems and outdoor maintenance displays” stated Bill
Maffucci, the Company’s Vice President and General Manager of Government and Industrial Products. “These microdisplays far exceed emissive devices in brightness, operating life and reliability which allows them to provide easy to read display information together with a clear view of the external scene under all lighting conditions from total darkness to bright sunlight.”
The Brillian displays are manufactured by Kopin’s proprietary NanoJet process at its Westborough Massachusetts facility. The NanoJet process releases tiny drops of liquid crystal material with great precision (variation within a few nanograms) and provides for a purer, better controlled and very uniform layering of the liquid crystal material in the fabrication of displays, resulting in superior image quality and higher brightness.
