Aledia, a developer and producer of 3D LEDs for display applications using the company’s gallium-nitride-nanowires-on-silicon technology, announced the closing of the firm’s Series C financing round as we reported earlier. (Ref. Coverage). Intel Capital became a new investor during the funding round.
In addition to Intel Capital, existing Aledia investors participated in the €30 million round, including Sofinnova Partners and Supernova Invest, Ikea Group, the Ecotechnologies Fund of Bpifrance (the French national industrial bank), Demeter, and Braemar Energy Ventures.
Aledia is working with several large industrial partners including Intel on utilizing its nanowire LED technology in next-generation displays. The company pointed out that it is developing large/existing displays (smart phones, laptops, tablets, etc.) in addition to newer displays for VR/AR/MR and smartwatch applications, employing its megapixel integrated silicon nanowire LED chips. Anania said this Series C financing will support the company’s plans to significantly accelerate the speed of its LED technology development, including acquiring critical equipment.
ALEDIA pointed out that the company is developing two major platforms for innovative displays, both based on the same patented, low-cost nanowire technology on large-area silicon substrates. Aledia says its first platform Nano1 will be ready for market introduction the soonest. Nano1 can be used in displays with up to 2000ppi and 100,000 nits. In addition offering much higher brightness, Aledia says that the technology brings a wider color gamut and significant energy efficiency improvement over existing technologies.
The company says that the second platform Nano2 can deliver extra-high resolution (up to 5000ppi) and brightness of (5 to 10 M nits). The company intends to bring Nano2 to the market later.
Aledia developed this nanowire technology on 200mm silicon wafers and the company says it is readily scalable to 300mm silicon substrates at a lower cost than that of current LED pixelized products.
“Energy efficiency, display quality and cost are three critical characteristics of mobile consumer electronics displays, and we feel Aledia’s 3D LED technology, based on large-area silicon fabrication, can impact this space,” said Gregory M. Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of the Client Computing Group at Intel Corporation. “We’re excited to work with Aledia to innovate display technologies across client platforms.”
