Figure 2 a cross-section through the assembled device. Figure 3 and 4 show examples of a planarised and non-planarised 256 X 256 device and it can be observed that the optical efficiency of the planarised device is considerably improved. The array of applications areas for these devices is enormous. The most obvious and probably the largest market in terms of device numbers is in displays. These devices are not only of high pixel count but also very small and light in comparison with competing technologies.
Niche markets being targeted include projection displays and head mounted displays.
Figure 6 demonstrates how the picture is built up from 3 bit planes. More information on the hardware driving the display is available. The latter are likely to be of use in fields such as medicine and surgery, the emergency services and, of course, recreational virtual reality. Each new generation of devices puts further demands on the crucial post processing, which is performed in-house, on commercial wafers. Shrinking feature sizes and larger die sizes require continual refinement of all of the microfabrication techniques involved in post-processing of SLM wafers.