
Coherent looks to smart glasses as it ships over 200bn VCSEL lasers
Coherent has reached a key milestone by shipping over 200 billion vertical-cavity surface-emitting semiconductor laser (VCSEL) emitters for sensing.
This positions the company for a boom in sensing in cars, LiDAR and smart glasses says Coherent.
“In 2013, we began working on two-dimensional VCSEL arrays for 3D sensing in smart phones,” said Dr. Giovanni Barbarossa, Chief Strategy Officer and President of the Materials Segment at Coherent, which was formed after the takeover by II-VI last year.
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“We scaled our production capabilities from 3-inch to 6-inch wafers in 2017, just in time to help enable the market launch of the first smartphones with facial biometrics. We believe sensing applications based on semiconductor lasers will continue to expand into new and exciting applications such as in smart watches for health monitoring and in smart glasses for extended reality. VCSELs will also continue to enable a growing market for in-cabin sensing and LiDAR in automotive.”
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The company recently announced a new VCSEL module technology that enables ultracompact pattern projectors, flood illuminators, and tightly integrated sensing subsystems. This patented module technology relies on an innovative flip-chip assembly of backside-emitting VCSEL arrays on application-specific integrated circuits and supports the integration of photodetector arrays.
