"There are two paths before humanity. One is outward, leading to the sea of stars; the other is inward, leading to virtual reality. Science fiction writer Liu Cixin said.
After the culmination period of 2014-2016 and the trough period of 2017-2019, the AR/VR industry has re-ignited in the past 2 years.
From the perspective of development potential, this is indeed a rapidly growing and large-scale industry. China Merchants Securities expects that by 2025, the global AR/VR industry space will reach nearly 2 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of about 54%.
It is also because of the large market and rapid development that the AR/VR industry has become a popular track for investment and financing. According to the Minsheng Securities Research Report, from January to September 2021, the investment and financing amount of the global VR/AR industry reached 40.709 billion yuan, which has exceeded the total amount of investment and financing in 2020 (24.4 billion yuan), and the number of investment and financing mergers and acquisitions reached 248, of which 158 were foreign and 90 were domestic, a significant increase over the same period last year. The amount and amount of investment and financing in the VR/AR industry at home and abroad have reached a record high.
At the same time, technology giants have accelerated the pace of laying out the virtual reality industry. In foreign countries, after years of brewing, Apple is scheduled to release the first AR headset product in 2022, and plans to gradually replace the iPhone with AR devices within 10 years; Facebook has released a number of VR and AR products while changing its name to Meta; Qualcomm has launched a new generation of XR chips. In China, ByteDance acquired VR equipment manufacturer Pico for 9 billion, iQiyi VR completed hundreds of millions of yuan of B round financing, and Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO and others have released AR glasses.
The latest news is that at the just-concluded CES 2022 (Global Consumer Electronics Show), VR/AR is once again in the spotlight. For example, Panasonic released the VR glasses "MeganeX", Sony brought the PlayStation VR2 virtual reality headset product, and Thunderbird Innovation from China released two self-developed new smart glasses products: NXTWEAR AIR and LEINIAO AR.
Among the many AR glasses, LEINIAO AR has attracted attention with its major breakthroughs in technology.
People familiar with the augmented reality industry should know that full-color MicroLED + optical waveguide technology is a technical problem that has been difficult to break through in the AR industry for many years, and it is also the best technology implementation path recognized by microsoft, Apple and other technology giants. As the industry's first binocular full-color MicroLED holographic optical waveguide AR glasses, LEINIAO AR pioneered the full-color micro-display engine, which balances efficiency, dispersion and mass production, and takes the lead in achieving full-color highlighting of the picture in the form of thin and light glasses, so it has made the most critical breakthrough in the industry's technical bottleneck. The successful development of this AR glasses not only effectively solves the experience problems such as low comfort and poor display when using AR glasses, but also provides a reference technical demonstration for the development of the AR industry.
It is also because of this technological leadership that overseas famous comprehensive media or authoritative scientific and technological media intensively report on LEIINOAO AR. Among them, the Washington Post said: "Unlike other wearable headsets in the early days, this glasses use holographic waveguide technology to display images in front of your eyes without being seen by others." Because the built-in lenses are almost completely transparent, these AR glasses can be worn at any time, more like real glasses. CNET commented: "Although it is still only a prototype, they still realize the vision that other technology companies have worked hard for many years but have not yet realized." ”
In addition to the recognition of the media, it can be seen from the on-site photos that at the CES offline exhibition, LEINIAO AR also aroused the widespread attention of users, and there was even a long queue in front of the booth.
Obviously, tech giants and capital already see AR/VR as the next generation of mainstream computing platforms after PCs and smartphones, so they will compete for this big cake.
01
Technology is maturing
According to Gartner's technology maturity curve, a new technology usually goes through five stages of development: the embryonic period of technology, the period of expected expansion, the period of bubble bursting and the bottom period, the period of steady climbing recovery, and the period of production maturity. After walking through the first three phases of Gartner's technology maturity curve, AR/VR is currently in a period of steady climbing recovery and will enter production maturity in the future.
On the demand side, driven by the longer stay-at-home time brought about by the new crown epidemic, the pursuit of quality of life, and the concept of meta-universe, VR/AR products are on the mandatory list of more and more consumers' social, entertainment and other content consumption scenarios.
On the industrial side, the industry's technical infrastructure is improving, the high bandwidth of 5G can allow AR/VR devices to transmit tens of gigabytes of high-definition video, and low latency allows users to wear AR glasses to obtain a more timely and sensitive experience in virtual and real operations, reducing the dizziness caused by caton.
More importantly, the core technology of the entire industry has ushered in a new breakthrough.
Taking AR as an example, display and optics are the two key technologies that affect the user experience of AR glasses.
Among the mainstream display technologies of current AR hardware, MicroLED has the best effect and the highest difficulty coefficient. The best results are because MicroLED is integrated by the high density of the LED array, and the pixel spacing is only 10 microns, which not only makes the device lightweight, wide color gamut, high imaging resolution, and does not require the help of backlight, so the imaging effect is brighter and more contrasting.
The high difficulty coefficient is due to the addition of technical problems such as high size requirements, low red light efficiency, and difficulty in full color for AR products. For example, the red grain is limited by its own material characteristics, the quantum efficiency is low, and the luminous brightness under the same current is less than one-tenth of that of blue and green, thus seriously limiting the brightness and color effect of MicroLED.
Optical technology is similar. Among the three mainstream optical solutions used in AR glasses, optical waveguide technology has the best performance, but it is also the most difficult to mass produce.
Optical waveguide technology is to let the light refract back and forth in the waveguide, and then transmit the light to the front of the eye, forming a distant virtual image, the user finally sees an image transmitted by a transparent lens. This technology can make AR glasses thinner and lighter, greatly reducing the size and weight. When manufacturers design AR glasses, there is no need to put the display and imaging system in front of the eyes, but can be distributed to other parts such as the spectacle frame and the top of the forehead, which not only improves the penetration rate of external light, but also makes it more comfortable for users to wear.
However, optical waveguides face higher technical difficulties. First of all, the transmission efficiency is low, only about 20%. This leads to extremely high brightness requirements for optical light sources, but it contradicts the requirements of small size and low power consumption. Secondly, it is easy to produce many problems such as uneven brightness and rainbow patterns.
Because MicroLED+ optical waveguides face many technical difficulties, whether it is domestic or overseas release of products, the vast majority of them can not meet the requirements of wearing thin and light, high brightness and full color, either bulky, or can only achieve monocular monochrome.
However, the technical bottleneck of the industry has still been broken. In October 2021, the industry's first binocular full-color MicroLED holographic optical waveguide glasses - Thunderbird Smart Glasses Pioneer Edition was officially released, which is also the domestic version of THE LEIIAO AR exhibited at CES. In addition to the many technological innovations mentioned at the beginning of the article, this glasses also has a strong enough scene advantage, and will be online in the future, such as information prompting, photo sharing, photo translation, intelligent control, multi-screen presentation, real-life translation, car mirror linkage and other functions.
In addition, NXTWEAR AIR, which debuted globally at CES 2022, successfully solved the contradiction between portability and large screens as a consumer-grade XR glasses. It adopts dual 1080p MicroOLED panels and polarized BirdBath optical technology to achieve a 140-inch equivalent large screen at a distance of 4 meters and supports 2D and 3D viewing. With only 75 grams of standard front lens, the lightest in the industry in the same form, the glasses also won the "Most Innovative Product Award" from the authoritative organization IDG during the exhibition.
As a new company that was only established last year, why does Thunderbird Innovation have so much energy?
02
Thick and thin
It has never been a casual success, especially for technological innovation. Thunderbird innovation seems to have come out of nowhere, but in fact, it is also a thick accumulation.
In fact, the Thunderbird innovation team has a deep presence in semiconductor display, human-computer interaction, AIxIoT, software, content, user scenarios, operations, globalization and other fields. And as early as three years ago, Thunderbird's innovative technology team began to engage in technology research and development in AR-related fields, and has enough first-mover advantages in the AR industry.
Not only that, throughout the research and development process, the Thunderbird innovation technology team is not afraid of difficulties and has the courage to make breakthroughs. Taking the Pioneer Edition of Thunderbird Smart Glasses as an example, in order to cross the mountain of optical waveguide, the Thunderbird team spent three years, joint display optics experts to explore and experiment together, and finally achieved a breakthrough in self-developed light wave coupling analysis and optimization algorithm. In the research and development of optical waveguide technology, Microsoft and other industry players use a compromise scheme of multilayer waveguide technology, but Thunderbird Innovation has chosen another more difficult path, that is, on the basis of a single layer of grating, using high refractive index glass wafers, coupled with self-developed light wave coupling analysis algorithms. The effort pays off, Thunderbird Innovation has taken a different path, successfully enabling the large-angle light that has plagued the industry for a long time to achieve waveguide transmission, thereby solving the problem of the field of view of the diffraction waveguide scheme and greatly breaking through the technical bottleneck of the optical waveguide process.
Although there is no shortage of AR glasses on the market that use MicroLED+ optical waveguide solutions, they are mostly monochromatic solutions, sacrificing the imaging experience effect to a certain extent. For example, AR hardware, including Xiaomi smart glasses and OPPO Air Glass, can only emit green light.
In order to make the color imaging effect of AR glasses more excellent, Thunderbird on the basis of optical waveguide and MicroLED, after years of research and development experiments, to create a full-color micro-display engine, the brightness, color, product energy consumption for a high balance, and finally to achieve the combination of full-color MicroLED and single-layer ultra-thin holographic optical waveguide, which has the industry's first binocular full-color MicroLED holographic optical waveguide AR glasses.
In addition, most of the AR products on the market are very heavy. In order to achieve wearing comfort, the Thunderbird team from theoretical research to repeated proofing, after repeated experiments, finally found a feasible solution, the overall weight control at about 60 grams.
At present, Thunderbird's AR new product research and development is constantly advancing at the rate of sales generation, preparation generation, and pre-research generation.
It is also because of the breakthrough of the industry's technical bottleneck and the rapid speed of product development, Thunderbird Innovation has won many awards in the selection of third-party institutions: in November 2021, it was listed as the 36 Kr High Growth New Consumer Brand; in December 2021, it was awarded the VR Gyro "XR Cutting-edge Enterprise of the Year". At this year's CES, NXTWEAR AIR, developed by Thunderbird Innovation, won IDG's "Most Innovative Product Award".
Write at the end
Since entering the 21st century, information technology has taken the ten-year time cycle as the time cycle and constantly iterated on the form of society and people's lives.
In the first decade, the PC Internet changed the way people access information, read news, find information, and connect; in the second decade, smartphones and mobile Internet made it easier and faster for people to socialize, shop, and entertain every aspect of their lives.
In the next decade, with the evolution of the metaverse and the evolution of VR/AR, 5G, AI and other technologies, people will enter a virtual world parallel to reality, and all kinds of life, work and entertainment scenarios will be further digitized. This is bound to further promote the iterative upgrading of the virtual reality industry, vr/AR field will also usher in a more rapid development, belongs to the thunderbird innovation and other industry innovators of the story, in fact, has just begun.
*The above does not constitute investment advice and does not represent the views of Wall Street Insights, please make independent judgment and decision-making.