from April 9 to April 10, 2008 in Barcelona/Spain

Booth no. 136

The Fraunhofer IPMS carries out customer specific developments in fields of microelectronic and micro systems technology in Dresden, serving as a business partner that supports the transition of innovative ideas into new products. The Fraunhofer IPMS develops and fabricates modern CMOS technology products in its own clean room facilities, up to small pilot series production. With modern equipment and about 240 scientists, the range of projects and expertise covers sensor and actuator systems, microscanner, spatial light modulators, lifetronics and organic materials and systems.

At the SSI 2008 show the Fraunhofer IPMS presents:

1. Laser projection systems in measurement and industrial applications

Ultra compact laser projection systems based on lasers as light source and micro scanning mirrors for light deflection are considered as future products with enormous market potential for the infotainment sector, because it will be possible to integrate them into mobile devices rather soon. Image generation is achieved via the Flying Spot principle: the laser beam reflected by the two-dimensional micro scanning mirror describes a dense Lissajous pattern on the projection screen that hits every virtual pixel at least once during the time available for one image frame. By modulation of the intensity of the laser beam and the driving of the scanning mirror in a strictly synchronous manner, projection of arbitrary images can be achieved. However, also measurement and industrial applications may profit from the advantages of such systems. This is proven by the demonstrator of Fraunhofer IPMS shown at SSI 2008. The system detects the continuously changing distance to one object and projects the measured value on the surface of the object. Because of the quasi unlimited depth of field, the projected image is always in focus. Concrete applications include support of maintenance and assembly tasks, augmented reality and all other industrial systems, where the job will become easier for the worker if additional information is displayed.

2. OLED-on-CMOS integration for sensory applications

One promising feature of Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) – besides other advantages like high brightness and energy efficiency – is the possibility to deposit them on different application specific substrates. For displays, typically glass substrates are used. Foils and other flexible substrates are an ongoing topic in research and development. Completely new fields of application can be targeted with integration of OLEDs into standard CMOS wafers. Fraunhofer IPMS now has several years of experience with this development theme. Besides OLED microdisplays in different variants, OLED-on-CMOS integration is very well suited for sensory applications. At the exhibition, Fraunhofer IPMS shows both a color sensor and a flow sensor. Both of them use OLED-on-CMOS for implementation of the required light source. This leads to a significant reduction of complexity for system integration and packaging, so that the use of such kind of integrated optoelectronic devices is favourable for applications like light barriers, opto couplers, chemical as well as medical sensors, and optical communication.