February 20, 2023, Espoo – Lumineq Oy, a leading manufacturer of transparent displays, announced its 2M€ investment in new machinery for mass production and further development of see-through displays. The new equipment is optimized to bring the display quality and productivity to a new level, enable faster prototyping and testing of creative ideas, and create new R&D opportunities. This new process has proven to be particularly beneficial for micro displays in optics applications, such as riflescopes, microscopes, night vision devices, and rangefinders.
The laser exposure machine and laser ablation machine have been up and running since summer 2022. The UV bonding machine, for attaching the flexible printed circuit to the display, has just arrived at Lumineq’s headquarters in Finland.
The laser exposure machine has made the lithography process much more precise and efficient by using laser beams to pattern the ITO thin film. This new maskless method allows much more precise, reliable patterning and accurate alignment between two ITO layers, enabling customers to design display content more freely. Additionally, the enhanced lithography accuracy allows the displays to support rich segmented content with fine details down to 4 µm.
As a result of this new capability, LUMINEQ can extend its digital reticle offering and serve customers who want to build more complex and versatile First Focal Plane scopes with unique features. It significantly benefits customers in the optics industry who demand high precision and accuracy in their displays.
The laser ablation machine automates the process of contact opening by removing excess material of the protection layer on the display glass. It takes only 1-2 minutes per substrate, eliminating ten steps of manual work that would take 1.5 weeks with the old process. This machine opens new opportunities to test out other materials that can be used for improving the quality and durability of LUMINEQ transparent displays, such as anti-reflection, extra protection, etc. It can deal with 160 glass substrates at a time within seven hours, working 24x7.
“As we see increasing demand for transparent displays for the vehicle and optics markets, we realize how important it is to support our customers in the best and fastest manner from conception, prototyping to high-volume mass production,” says Jarmo Sukanen, Head of Technology at Lumineq Oy. “The pandemic caused delays in some of our customer projects, but it allowed us to look into the whole manufacturing process and make it more efficient and well-prepared for the future. With the brand-new equipment and process, we have great confidence in serving our customers quicker and better and enabling more innovations.”
The technology team behind this significant change has verified its benefits for production in general and especially for optics applications. The new machinery has dramatically improved manufacturing, resulting in high quality and efficient production.
Overall, the investment in new machinery has been a great success, and Lumineq Oy looks forward to further investments in the future to better serve its customers.
About Lumineq Oy
Lumineq Oy is a market leader in cutting-edge transparent display technology, serving optical device and vehicle manufacturers with the world’s most transparent displays. LUMINEQ transparent displays can be integrated into optical products such as scopes, night vision devices and range finders, bringing dynamic information to the line of sight, enabling guided operations and improving situational awareness for users. LUMINEQ in-glass displays offer robust heads-up-display (HUD) solutions and enable vehicle makers to convert idle glass surfaces into usable information displays with optional touch capability.
