Micro LED: The Future Display Technology for AR Glasses

Micro LED technology is a display technology that miniaturizes LED display screens down to the micrometer scale. It utilizes a high-density, two-dimensional addressable and independently-driven Micro LED pixel array. This technology combines the advantages of new display technologies and LED technology, possessing characteristics such as self-luminescence, high efficiency, low power consumption, high integration density, high stability, and all-weather operability, making it one of the most promising next-generation display and lighting solutions.

The advantages of Micro LED are particularly prominent in AR applications:

High Brightness: The brightness of Micro LED far exceeds other display technologies, able to well meet the needs of outdoor use. In comparison, Micro OLED displays can only reach 1,000-6,000 nits, with actual observed brightness of only 200-300 nits, while Micro LED can reach a peak brightness of 3 million nits and an average observed brightness of 1,400 nits, far exceeding the current Micro OLED products.

Low Power Consumption: The power consumption of Micro LED is only 10% of LCD and 50% of OLED, which is a key advantage for AR devices that need to run for long periods.

• High Efficiency and Integration: The high efficiency and high degree of integration of Micro LED allow it to provide higher performance within the limited device space, which is an important improvement for the miniaturization and portability of AR devices.

  
  

• High Stability: Micro LED has extremely high stability, able to operate stably under various environmental conditions, including extreme temperatures.

  
  

• All-Weather Operability: Micro LED can work in various lighting environments, whether indoor or outdoor, providing clear and stable display effects.

Furthermore, the display design concept of Micro LED is to directly use the Micro LED chips as display pixels, as the basic unit of imaging. This design allows Micro LED to be adapted to sizes without limitation, enabling application from the smallest to the largest display scenarios.

Compared to LCD, OLED, and QLED, Micro LED displays have significantly higher brightness and a wider operating temperature range, making it the ideal choice for the AR field.

Since Google introduced the first consumer-oriented AR glasses in 2012, AR hardware has been constantly updating and iterating. The optical solutions for AR glasses have evolved from prisms, free-form surfaces, and BirdBaths to waveguides. In terms of display technology, current solutions include LCoS, DLP, and Micro OLED, while the next highly promising direction is Micro LED.

Given Micro LED's outstanding characteristics of high resolution, high brightness, and long lifespan, it is undoubtedly the ideal display technology for future AR glasses. Tech giants like Apple, Snap, Meta, and Google are accelerating their Micro LED deployments, hoping to gain a foothold in the future AR market.

Although Micro LED is still in its early development stage, with a complex industrial chain and strong cross-disciplinary technology (involving fields such as optoelectronics, integrated circuits, and semiconductors), it is not easy to ultimately reap the benefits of this technology. However, we have seen more and more pioneers quietly working hard, investing in or acquiring Micro LED-related companies, in the hope of standing out in the competition for the next computing platform.