Highlights: Various client needs may now be fulfilled by allowing in-house fabrication of laser diode chips for all three basic colors (RGB).
speeds up the creation and marketing of goods with greater production and efficiency so they may be used in more applications.
Investments made up front guarantee manufacturing capability to satisfy high demand.
Japan's Tokushima, November 22, 2023: The biggest GaN-based LED/LD producer in the world and the creator of high-brightness blue and white LEDs, Nichia, has begun producing a high-power red laser diode (LD) chip internally. Starting in the spring of 2024, the company will market laser packed goods that include this high-power red LD chip.
Context:
Laser projectors with the three fundamental hues of red, green, and blue have the benefit of a far broader color reproduction range than those that use traditional lamps or LED light sources. They can also attain great brightness while being small and efficient. The need for these projectors has grown significantly in recent years, not just for high-luminance movie theaters but also for personal use, such as compact smart projectors and laser TVs1.
Projector specs are mostly determined by LDs, and Nichia has had to adapt to different client needs about the functionality of each RGB color LD. The red LD chips were purchased from outside vendors, while Nichia had been producing the blue and green LD chips internally. As a result, providers controlled the red LD chip's quality, price, and supply; the difficulty was in satisfying the diverse demands of consumers.
Specifics:
Nichia began working on watt-class high-power red LD chips and was able to manufacture them internally. In order to satisfy the high demand for RGB LDs, Nichia has also made significant upfront investments in mass manufacturing facilities and obtained production capacity. This in-house manufacturing will allow Nichia to produce all three main color LD chips, in addition to blue and green LD chips, which are Nichia's strong technologies. This will allow Nichia to flexibly assess and react to a variety of client needs.
Beginning in the spring of 2024, Nichia will begin offering LD packages using its own red LD chips. Additionally, domestically manufactured chips will eventually replace the red LD chips seen in current goods rather than ones that are purchased from outside vendors. One example of an LD product is the QuaLasTM RGB from Nichia, which has many RGB LD chips packed tightly in a compact box. Using in-house red LD chips, it will be one of Nichia's primary offerings. Each RGB color of QuaLasTM has an optical output power of 8.3W for blue (wavelength: typ. 465nm), 4.8W for green (wavelength: typ. 525nm), and 10.0W for red (wavelength: typ. 643nm). These values indicate a desirable combination for giving the display a proper white balance. (Figures 1 and 2)
Through in-house manufacturing, Nichia will expedite the development and commercialization of red LD products with enhanced efficiency and output power in order to meet the growing market demand and performance advancements for laser projectors, as well as investigate additional application possibilities.
