XR光学技术开发人员希望加速推出
我所包含的一轮融资超过5000万美元n new investments, says the company, valuing it at over $530 million and solidifying its waveguides as a de facto standard for smartglasses and allowing the company to strengthen its licensing business model and extend its global offerings. Corning joins a list of investors in this round that includes Samsung Electronics, Optimas Capital Management, Diamond Edge Ventures (the strategic investment arm of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation), Alsop Louie Partners, 37 Interactive Entertainment, UDC Ventures (the corporate venture arm of Universal Display Corporation), and Dolby Family Ventures.
“随着下一个计算类别的轮廓开始在行业参与者中获得更好的定义，您会看到核心技术行业标准持有投资者通过其公司和商业投资活动的赌注，” Digilens首席执行官克里斯·皮克特（Chris Pickett）说。“本系列圆形为我们在新兴XR部门中的强大战略基础展示了。我们来自多个不同行业和背景的多样化的合作伙伴正在迈出另一步，将Digilens与其他所有人分开。”
Pickett说：“我们今天正在开展项目，这些项目使用我们的行业领先的Bragg光栅技术，明年将以物质方式进入市场。”“这些进步将展示我们是考虑效率，统一性和成本时唯一起作用的解决方案。然后，借助我们的下一代技术，我们将在绩效方面发挥一步功能，这将使我们的领先优势更大。”
The company says its next-generation waveguide technology is proving to have a significant gain in performance at an even lower cost point, and represents a breakthrough in diffractive grating technology, effectively broadening the design space that dictates how the technology can be used for near-to-eye displays. The novel surface relief structures themselves have no residual bias layer between the gratings and the supporting substrate and are made up of a strong polymer – instead of a messy resin.
使用公司当前的全息录制过程，光栅结构很容易制作，这使它们可以轻松地倾斜以满足各种要求，并有效，有效地使其具有成本和高效，同时仍然支持高对比度，锋利的图像。该公司说，与传统的表面浮雕光栅相比，这种下一代波导技术不仅限于较小的光栅高度与宽度纵横比。这为面对制造和设计挑战提供了灵活性。结果，提供了下一代技术，可以通过波导或减少的底物为有效而均匀地提供更大的视野，以创建全彩波导镜头。
该公司表示，扩展现实（XR）设备有望成为下一个移动技术平台，并且是计算机中曾经是一代的战略拐点。XR被视为在从行业到医学，教育和娱乐的广泛领域中具有深刻的应用和潜在用途，也是笔记本电脑，平板电脑和智能手机计算的下一个进化步骤。
The company says its volume Bragg gratings are positioned to become the de facto optical standard for smart glass experiences because its technology is 4x better than the closest competitor for eye glow and provides the best balance of thin, lightweight, high performance, low cost, and highly manufacturable waveguide displays for all types of XR devices.
Alastair Grant, DigiLens’ SVP of Optical Engineering says, “With our volume Bragg gratings, DigiLens has a scalable and cost-effective optics offering ready today, and with the promise we have seen with our next generation waveguide technologies we’re set to provide the needed wide field of view and thin optical solutions of tomorrow. With partners like Corning for glass substrates and Mitsubishi Chemical for plastic substrates, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) in the personal computing industry now have the ability to create smartglasses tailored for enterprise, government, and consumer use cases.”
The series D close follows the company’s announcement at CES 2022 of the next iteration of its near-to-eye optical technology, the full-color Crystal30 2nd generation waveguide. The new Crystal30 waveguide is offered as the most efficient diffractive waveguide on the market today, enabling DigiLens partners to create XR experiences that are compatible in both indoor and outdoor bright environments.
