EMagin ‘On Track’ by Q4 to Reach 10,000 Nits in Consumer OLED Microdisplays

Q1 revenue at eMagin increased 10%, exceeding expectations, due to “the additional contract work of designing a display for a tier one customer in the consumer space,” said CEO Andrew Sculley on a Thursday investor call. The company manufactures OLED microdisplays for augmented and virtual reality headsets for consumer and military applications. It’s "on track" with its new direct-patterning OLED technology to achieve 10,000 nits of peak brightness by Q4 and expects to reach 28,000 nits “for production of full-color displays by 2023,” said Sculley. “This is five to 10 times higher than any competitor.” The new consumer contract is “going to be a significant project for us” because it involves eMagin’s new “backplane design,” he said. It showed a prototype at last year’s Display Week conference, “and this one company saw it and said, ‘Wow, you guys can do this,’ and that's why we kicked off the design,” he said. “More companies talking to us is a very good thing.” It “generates interest” when eMagin showcases new prototypes, he said. “The consumer world thinks that our technology is the way to go.” If COVID-19-induced telework persists post-pandemic, that could speed adoption of VR headsets, he said. “If I'm sitting at the office and I'm a stock trader or something like that, I may have six screens in front of me.” There’s “talk” out there of replacing the six screens with a single VR headset, he said. “If we continue to work at home, that would make it very convenient instead of requiring me to have six screens on my dining room table.”