News: LEDs
12 March 2024
MICLEDI raises Series A funding to expand team, design and build active backplane ASIC, and create micro-LED display module for AR glasses
MICLEDI Microdisplays B.V. of Leuven, Belgium — a fabless developer of micro-LED display modules for augmented reality (AR) glasses that was spun off from nanoelectronics research center IMEC in 2019 — has announced a first closing of its Series A funding round with participation from imec.xpand, PMV, imec, KBC and SFPIM, demonstrating support for the firm’s commercial and technological progress achieved in the seed round. The seed round award plus additional non-dilutive funding in the form of grants and other vehicles from VLAIO brings total funding to date to nearly $30m.
“Our door is open to engagements with some of the world’s largest and most innovative electronic product manufacturing companies, most of whom are working on their own internal development projects for augmented reality displays in such diverse use-cases as smart wearable devices and automotive HUDs,” says CEO Sean Lord. “This level of total funding to date is almost unheard of for a four-year-old startup.”
MICLEDI used the seed round to validate a unique 300mm wafer manufacturing methodology, which is claimed to be the first in the world at 300mm. Seed funding also enabled the firm to prove best-in-class blue and green gallium nitride (GaN)-based micro-LED arrays with pixel-by-pixel micro-lenses in its unique 300mm flow. The company also demonstrated solid red performance using red GaN material with early proof of superior performance based on red aluminium indium gallium phosphide (AlInGaP). All three colors (R, G, B) were demonstrated to large audiences at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2024) and SPIE AR-VR-MR 2024.
“This newest round of funding will be used to expand the team, design and build an active backplane ASIC, and create a fully functional micro-LED display module that can be used in glasses for AR displays,” says Lord. “In addition, the new funds will help support collaboration agreements with customers and ensure that we keep pace with the growing demand for increasingly immersive video applications from tier-1 customers and partners in the rapidly growing AR market.”
Industry experts agree that GaN-based material technology is the only pathway to RGB micro-LED displays that are bright enough to meet the demands of AR as well as other related applications of micro-displays. In conjunction with key customers, MICLEDI has launched specialty displays to serve these applications while continuing its primary focus on AR for consumer applications. MICLEDI and GlobalFoundries (GF) have agreed to transfer the company’s unique micro-LED manufacturing flow into GF’s CMOS fab in conjunction with backplane ASICs designed in GF’s advanced CMOS process nodes, which is also reckoned to be a first in the micro-LED industry as part of the enablement of cost and volume demands of the burgeoning AR market.
In 2024, MICLEDI will have available full-color modules with an active backplane, and the firm is developing configurations of all three basic intrinsic color arrays with quantum dot filtering on already brilliant green and blue arrays. In addition, in the first half of second-quarter 2024 MICLEDI will introduce its first demo glasses.
MICLEDI demos device-ready micro-LEDs with micro-lenses at SPIE AR-VR-MR
MICLEDI demos red AlInGaP micro-LEDs at CES, completing portfolio of RGB micro-LEDs
MICLEDI collaborating with GlobalFoundries on manufacturing micro-LED displays for AR glasses
