Vuzix® Corporation announced it has signed a series of agreements with Atomistic SAS. These agreements provide for an exclusive license of key µLED technology, the design of a custom backplane and, dependent upon achievement of various technical stages, the ability to acquire the enterprise. Atomistic's technology is based on a novel materials science innovation with specific attributes that are key enablers to solve the main challenges for µLED devices for AR applications: emmitters for red, green and blue spectral wavelengths based on a single epitaxial structure transferred to a CMOS backplane; high brightness; and greater efficiency at small pixel pitches.

The potential benefits of this new approach would result in one of the smallest form factors with the highest performance and lowest power solutions on the market, and could provide a cornerstone piece of technology focused on the AR markets that are expected to demand hundreds of millions of units annually. For the AR and heads-up display (HUD) markets, there is a clear need for self-emissive ultra-small microdisplays that are high in brightness and efficiency, full color, compact and scalable to support low-cost and high-volume manufacturing. For the wearable display/AR glasses markets specifically, µLED displays as contemplated by Atomistic combined with Vuzix' see-through waveguides provide the technical solution which is so pivotal to developing fashion forward, ergonomic AR glasses.

This market is expected to ultimately be as large as the current smart phone market with many expecting AR smart glasses to be the future mobile computing platform for consumers and enterprises globally.