Oculus, the virtual reality headgear developer owned by Facebook, has newly acquired an Irish micro-LED company InfiniLED, reported Venture Beat.
Founded in 2010, InfiniLED was spun out from Tyndall National Institute, the same research hub that elastomer stamp micro-assembly technology company X-Celeprint is currently based.
Tyndall National Institute has a strong background in photonics and micro and nano electronics, and is aligned with University College Cork.
InfiniLED specializes in inorganic LED (ILED) that it claims is only one tenth the size of human hair and also refers as micro-LEDs, which can be used in next generation smart displays and can replace OLED, plasma and current LCDs.
Micro-LEDs are able to be driven at higher brightness than OLEDs and typically have longer lifetimes, and can be directly applied onto a TFT or CMOS blackplane in a similar way as OLED. .
Rumors about the acquisition emerged in Irish media after some individuals noted the InfiniLED office sign was being replaced by Oculus, according to SiliconRepublic.
VentureBeat confirmed with Oculus that InifiniLED has joined the Oculus research team in Cork, but did not reveal further details about the acquisition.
VentureBeat report analyzed the acquisition made by Oculus was not surprising and mainly aimed at increasing the VR headsets efficiency to bring down costs.
Facebook acquired Oculus for US $2 billion in 2014, and has made many acquisitions over the span of two and half years, including Carbon Design Group, a Seattle-based company that was behind the design of Microsoft Xbox 360 controller, as well as gaming networking engine RakNet, VR firms Nimble VR and 13th Lab, and more.
LEDinside has pointed out in previous reports that industry experts noted micro-LEDs will first be found in wearable applications and headgears before being applied in larger displays. Ivan-Christopher Robin from leading French research institute LETI, for instance has spoken about this trend at previous forums. It seems Oculus will be betting on micro-LED screens for its VR headsets rather then OLED screens in the long run.
