Lasers threaten LEDs for picoprojectors

Picoprojectors will drive the green laser market and the ideal light emitting device would be lasers due to their capability to deliver highly saturated colours in the widest possible gamut.

According to a report by Yole Développement, the green laser market will reach about US$500 million in 2016 with more than 45 million devices. The report focuses on green laser devices for projection applications.

The study provides an analysis of the projection applications targeted by green laser diodes along with key market metrics. It describes the involvement of the major laser device manufacturers and gives a snapshot of the GaN material industry playground.

The green laser market today is highly segmented in numerous niche applications from medical to military applications and laser shows. Those applications can work with existing solid-state lasers or the more recent combinations of semiconductor lasers with nonlinear crystals (SHG: second harmonic generation).

In the emerging market of picoprojectors and other display techniques such as head mounted display (HMD) or head up display (HUD), the light-emitting device would be lasers due to their capability to deliver highly saturated colours in the widest possible gamut.

Additional features are focus-free operation and expected improved wall-plug efficiency which will affect the power consumption for battery operation.

Last year, the first LED-based picoprojectors became available but were only slowly taken up. No more than 300,000 units were sold. The poor brightness (10 1m) for a relative high price might be a reason for this.

Some progressive progress was published on the capability to shift the blue laser diodes towards the green wavelength.

The direct-emission semiconductor laser should be available in the coming years (2011-2012) to serve the projection display applications.

Green laser diode market size will reach about US$500 million size by 2016 and should represent more than 45 million devices.

On stand-alone projectors the forecast is for this market to really take off this year with a sales volume between 0.5 to 1 million units. During this first phase, most of it will be LED based but the company forecasts 10-20% will be laser based by 2011 and that ratio will grow to 50-75% by 2016.

Yole envisages a natural move from stand-alone to embedded devices as the technology will, little by little, be compatible with size and costs constraints.

In the mobile phone market, this year sees high-end devices (eg, Samsung Android).

Laser-based systems will be slowly implemented along with the cost reductions but Yole stays very conservative saying that LEDs will strongly dominate at least until 2016.

According to the small size requirement, direct-emission green laser will be highly recommended.

Media players are seen as the perfect device for embedded picoprojectors. Their ultimate function is to diffuse and share media. There are fewer cost constraints and size issues compared with mobile phones.

The boom should occur by 2012 with 2.6 to 5 million units equipped with projection functionality. SHG green lasers should dominate, first waiting for direct emission to be price and performance compatible.

For cameras and camcorders there is likely to be a slow market penetration for laser-based technologies as the battery lifetime and cost can become critical parameters.

LED technology is expected to dominate in these applications.

Portable computers are probably the most unclear segment to forecast, says Yole, as it is hard to accurately predict the behaviour of consumers. Will they go for an all-in-one solution (PC plus projector) with an embedded projection device that will probably be less efficient than desktop projectors?

Green laser diode technology is a move from SHG to direct-emission sources and only SHG laser diodes are available.

Corning, Osram and QD Laser each have their proprietary solution to green light generation.

However, given the complex package of these lasers, it seems difficult to reach a reasonable target price.

Moreover, these components seem to be in short supply. Sumitomo SEI, KAAI (UCSB) and Osram are the most advanced players for direct-emission green laser diodes.

If performance meets the minimum requirements for optical power, wall-plug efficiency and lifetime, some of them could possibly offer products in limited quantities as soon as the middle of 2011.

The battle for direct-emission green source will also take place at substrate level where non-polar and semi-polar GaN crystal can play a positive role in green wavelength emission.

The light engine module, a combination of light source and image management (LCD, micro-mirrors, LCOS) is expected at a target price of US$40; this implies a price target of US$10 per colour. Red will not be a problem; however, GaN blue lasers have not reached that price target yet despite their maturity. Green lasers will also have to stay in the US$10 range to penetrate the market.

LED and HBLED are serious competitors since some picoprojectors are already claiming a brightness of up to 30 lumens. The capability of lasers to deliver bright images becomes less ‘unique’.

If the green and blue lasers from GaN-based materials are not delivered in the expected target price, the market share for lasers could be limited to high-end products.