Requirements and Market Demand

Pico-projectors devices are certainly the most promising new application in volume whether in standalone configurations or integrated in mobile phones. Mixing solid state lighting and MOEMS require innovative solutions mixing optics, thermal management, electrical power conversion, electronic drive circuitry.

• Cost -- LED and LDs must compete with lamps on price
• Performance -- projectors require very high lumens/mm²
• Availability for green LEDs in high volume to meet cost
• Safety Certification of LDs

Virtuality® Solutions have developed many optical architectures which deliver customer solutions that provide true market differentiation. As this is a highly active emerging market sector, we would like to showcase just one of our Pico design portfolio.

• Optical Efficiency -- Bonded Surfaces reduce losses
• Cost -- Injection Molded , Planar Construction
• Quality -- Despeckle, High Precision Alignment
• Laser Regulation Safety -- Bonded Anti-Tamper Enclosure
• Thin Pocket Design -- including batteries
• Durability -- All Solid State Construction

Criteria for Sucess

Imagine a miniature laser projector built into your cell phone. Stood up on end, it can project down a TV or Movie display the size of a sheet of paper onto the desk in front of you. Now you can see that web page, or enjoy that movie, or show someone your family photos, without them having to squint. Imagine the image is now split in half where the top is the email page and the bottom is a full size keyboard. As you tap your fingers on the keyboard illuminated picture in front of you, the keys click and move -- as if you had an actual keyboard! This is the same "Virtual Keyboard" on your cell phone only full size and touch sensitive. SBG digital optics can holographically and diffractively bend light to accomplish this new image projection paradigm.

What will be the best choice of light sources for their design? Two technical solutions are competing: LED (light emitting diodes) and LD (laser diodes). The challenge is to achieve a successful integration and ask a few question: at what price? Thermal management? Brightness levels? Speckle effect for lasers?

All these technical issues have to be solved and SBG are actively working with customers on a range of near term solutions