MICROOLED Raises $23M: Week in Brief: 07/14/23

MICROOLED, a manufacturer of high-resolution, low power consumption OLED microdisplays, raised €21 million ($23.6 million) in a fundraising round. MICROOLED is targeting microdisplay applications in augmented and virtual reality and other near-eye display applications.

BOSTON — Metalenz and 3D-sensing system supplier Dilusense partnered to bring the performance and small form factor of Metalenz meta-optics to the next generation of smartlocks and payment kiosks to enable ultrasecure facial recognition. The smartlocks are designed for high-end residential and commercial building access solutions and the payment kiosks will be used by retailers and in vending machines across China, enabling ultrasecure biometric facial authentication in compact form factors.

KYOTO, Japan — ROHM reached an agreement Solar Frontier KK to acquire the assets of Solar Frontier’s former Kunitomi plant. The Miyazaki facility has approximately 230,000 sq m of floor space. The acquisition is scheduled to take place in October and will belong to the ROHM Group’s main production bases. The ROHM Group intends to expand its production capacity continuously, particularly for silicon carbide power devices.

EDINBURGH, Scotland — Skylark Lasers was awarded £2.34 million ($3 million) from Innovate UK to help develop the next generation of quantum-enabled navigation and time-keeping systems. The money will be invested in establishing and scaling the production of quantum gravity sensors to accelerate advancements in the autonomous navigation of shipping vessels and provide next-generation navigational precision to tankers on the open seas, where GPS and satellite navigation are poor.

SYDNEY — Q-CTRL, a developer of quantum technologies, partnered with Australia’s Department of Defence to develop quantum sensors for military navigation applications. The program will provide quantum enhanced positioning and navigation capability built on Q-CTRL’s software-ruggedized quantum sensing technology.

EDINBURGH, Scotland — Global LiFi technology firms pureLiFi and Fraunhofer HHI detailed the release of IEEE 802.11bb, the latest global light communications standard alongside IEEE 802.11 WiFi standards. The bb standard provides a globally recognized framework for deployment of LiFi technology. The IEEE 802.11bb standard defines the physical layer specifications and system architectures for wireless communication using lightwaves. The new standard sets the foundation for the widespread adoption of LiFi technology and paves the way for the interoperability of LiFi systems with the successful WiFi standard. Ratification of the standard concluded in June.

Professor Eamon Scullion, a solar physicist at Northumbria University, is leading a freshly funded project to develop the world’s first commercially available system that allows satellites to communicate with each other via lasers rather than radio frequencies. Courtesy of Northumbria University.

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, England — Northumbria University received a £5 million award from the UK Space Agency to bolster its research efforts in satellite communications. The university will continue work on its prototype of a laser-based system geared toward satellite communication applications. The UK Space Agency had already awarded over £1 million to Northumbria to fund the earlier phases of this inter-satellite communications research through its National Space Innovation Programme.