Date: 20/05/2021

Himax launches phase modulation LCoS for automotive head-up display

Himax Technologies announced its latest LCoS tech based phase modulation LCoS for two key applications of AR Head-Up Display (AR HUD) used as holographic display for automotive and Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS)for Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM) optical communications networks.

ARHUD using holographic display offers intuitive multi-focal planes viewing experience. Himax demonstrated an ARHUD platform using its phase modulation LCoS as holographic display that claimed to offer a more better visual experience compared to conventional HUD solution.

Company says its AR HUD not only provides brighter and higher contrast images, but also displays multi-focal plane images concurrently along with less power consumption, lower cost and smaller form factor.

For the use case with two focal planes of AR HUD in automotive, the information displayed on the dashboard is projected directly on to the windshield in the driver’s line of sight with focus at 50 cm. Another long-range plane focused around 10meters fuses augmented reality information, such as navigation map and driving instructions, with far field real world images for the driver to see intuitively on windshield.

The release from the Himax further explains "The ARHUD also featuresa proprietary Computer Generated Holographic engine for real time augmented reality information fusion as well as image distortion adjustment to fit for different windshield curvatures. WSS triggers flexible high-bandwidth data manipulation Inside a state-of-the-art WSS systemof WDM network, phase modulation LCoS disperses and switches the incident laser light into separate ports without a digital de-multiplexer. The simplification of the switching architecture could achieve a better, more flexible wavelength grid to efficiently manipulate the data routing. In addition, the phase modulation LCoS panel of Himax WSS platform provides a stable 2-pi control with no ripple noise at 1550 nm wavelength. All of these features have made Himax WSS platform offering an extremely stable switching mechanism with higher bandwidth to the optical communication industry. "

“ARHUD will be one of the next key features in automotive. Himax’s phase modulation LCoS enables multi-focal holographic displays in automotive AR HUD and will disrupt the common standard of HUD today. Meanwhile, with the proliferation of 5G, our proposed WSS system,where our phase modulation LCoS is the heart of the system, is well-positioned to offer higher data bandwidthto the communication backbone,” said Mr. Jordan Wu, President and Chief Executive Officer at Himax. “We are a company who believes in innovation. Answering to the challenging requirements in automotive and communication industries, our engineers take advantage of our world-leading LCoS technology and push the technological envelop to create new and innovative solutions for our future customers. ”

Himax currently maintains an in-house LCoS production facility in Taiwan which company claims having proven shipping record of up to 300,000 units per month and could be scalable up to 2 million units per month at its current location.