Researchers from the Fraunhofer IPMS have developed a semi-transparent high resolution OLED microdisplay, that is significantly lighter than conventional combiner-based optical see-through near-to-eye systems. The specification of the display was not disclosed, but one can see it's a monochrome yellow panel.
The Fraunhofer researchers developed a new semi-transparent OLED-on-silicon microdisplay technology, which enabled the new display. The technology is based on modern and advanced silicon CMOS processe, applied to silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. The new wafer technology can be used to implement very thin circuitry layers. With the help of a specific IC design and an appropriate transfe-to-glass process flow, the transparent OLEDs were enabled.
Depending on the design approach, microoptics can already be directly integrated on the chip. The transparent microdisplay itself becomes an optical combiner element, significantly reducing the size of the optical system and improving optical efficiency significantly. Further internal technology studies indicate that transparencies of over 50% are achievable.
