[News] JBD and XPANCEO Collaborate on Custom MicroLED Microdisplay Architecture for Smart Contact Lenses

JBD, the brand name of Hue Inc. (the “Company”) and a global leader in MicroLED micro-display technology, today announced its collaboration with XPANCEO, a deep-tech company developing smart contact lenses as the ultimate interface for the AI era, to co-develop a specialized MicroLED microdisplay architecture designed for smart contact lens applications.

This project marks the second phase of the companies’ collaboration and builds upon a series of successful milestones achieved during the earlier proof-of-concept stage. During that phase, the XPANCEO team integrated a microdisplay with a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) platform and validated a custom optical system capable of projecting images directly onto the human retina from an extremely short viewing distance. The teams also demonstrated the feasibility of fully wireless system operation, an important milestone for future smart contact lens platforms.

Compared with conventional AR glasses, smart contact lenses impose significantly stricter requirements on size, thickness, power consumption, and system integration. To ensure long-term wearability and user comfort, many of the electronic and optical components must be engineered at dimensions approaching the thickness of a human hair.

To address these challenges, JBD and XPANCEO are co-developing a purpose-built MicroLED microdisplay architecture optimized for ultra-compact form factors and ultra-low-power operation. The resulting display is expected to measure only fractions of a millimeter in diameter while maintaining sufficient image quality and brightness for smart contact lens applications.

A key technical challenge for smart contact lens displays is balancing brightness, safety, and energy efficiency. Because images are projected directly onto the retina, the required brightness level can be significantly lower than that of conventional AR wearable devices. This enables substantially lower power consumption — a critical requirement for smart contact lenses, where space for onboard energy storage is extremely limited.

In conventional displays, the backplane electronics are engineered to support the high electrical currents required for extremely bright LEDs, resulting in inherently higher baseline power consumption. For smart contact lens applications, however, the backplane must instead be optimized for minimal current operation. XPANCEO and JBD are therefore co-developing a specialized MicroLED microdisplay architecture designed to minimize unnecessary power loss and achieve exceptionally low power consumption.

Through this collaboration, JBD is further extending the capabilities of MicroLED microdisplay technology into next-generation ultra-miniaturized wearable platforms, opening new possibilities for future AR computing applications.

(Photo credit: JBD)

TrendForce 2026 Micro LED Display and Non-Display Application Market Analysis
Release: 30 September 2026
Format: PDF
Language: Traditional Chinese / English