Nichia to make green and blue laser diodes for automotive head-up displays

As noted in Tech-On! on July 9, 2014, Nichia Corp. (Tokushima, Japan) revealed that it is planning to commercialize blue and green semiconductor laser diodes for automotive head-up displays (HUDs). The emitters are the first blue and green laser-diode products especially designed for automotive applications, notes Nichia. The company plans to start shipping samples in October, 2014 and to begin volume production in October, 2015. According to Nichia, by using red, green, and blue laser diodes rather than white-light LEDs as the light source for HUDs, it becomes possible to improve brightness, color reproducibility, contrast ratio, angle of view, and power efficiency. Nichia says it boosted the luminous efficiency of the lasers (in terms of wall-plug efficiency, or WPE) in comparison to existing general-use semiconductor laser diodes. The WPE for the blue-emitting laser diode was improved from 17% to 26%, and for the green emitter was improved from 5% to 8%. The diodes are packaged in 5.6-mm-diameter cans.