First LCoS light engine with adaptive LED illumination
Avegant's Spotlight display technology delivers up to 90 percent illumination power savings
Next generation AR display firm Avegant, collaborating with Applied Materials and Lumileds, has developed Spotlight technology – described as the world’s first adaptive LED illumination architecture for LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon).
By dynamically illuminating regions of a LCoS microdisplay, Avegant says it has enabled the benefits of APL (average pixel level) to achieve illumination power savings up to 90 percent while simultaneously improving contrast by over 10x.
The company demonstrated the Spotlight display technology at SPIE Photonics West 2024.
According to Avegant, customers have been waiting for microLED displays to mature to take advantage of APL. Spotlight display technology provides a manufacturable, low-cost LCoS-based solution that is available today, enabling the power-saving benefits of APL, including persistent content, while still providing efficient full screen content.
“We are pleased, but not surprised, that our innovative LED architecture supports Spotlight display technology’s never before possible Augmented Reality power savings,” said Brendan Moran, Sr. director of Display Technology Development at Lumileds.
“Spotlight marks a leap forward in display technology for lightweight AI smart glasses,” said Ludovic Godet, MD and head of R&D and engineering for Applied Materials’ Photonics Platforms Business . “When developing a display system, the best results come from full system-level co-optimisation. We are excited to work closely with Avegant to combine these advances with our industry leading and scalable waveguide solutions to deliver improved consumer AR experiences.”
