San Jose, CA--JDS Uniphase has announced its acquisition of Advanced Digital Optics Inc. (ADO) for approximately $12 million in cash. ADO designs and develops projection-display systems for theaters, high-definition TVs, avionic displays, and other uses. The acquisition follows the collaboration between the two companies in developing two microdisplay light engines for the fast-growing large-screen segment of this market. ADO employees will join JDS Uniphase in its Santa Rosa facility.
One of the two light engines resulting from the collaboration, JDS Uniphase's UltreX, is designed for use with the liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCOS) microdisplay technology used by Brillian Corporation (Tempe, AZ) and others. The other, the DefiniTV light engine, is designed around the Digital Light Processing (DLP) microdisplay imagers developed by Texas Instruments (Dallas, TX). UltreX and DefiniTV, which have both gained industry acceptance for their performance in rear projection televisions (RPTV), are now in production.
"High definition requires high-performance optics and this acquisition is an important step toward delivering the advanced technology needed for the large-screen-display market," said Hoss Christensen, head of JDS Uniphase's Laser, Optics and Display Products Group.
The overall market size for large screen televisions using microdisplay technology exceeds $4 billion and is expected to be a fast-growing segment of the market, while cathode-ray tubes, currently the dominant technology, are expected to decline, according to leading display-industry research firm iSuppli Corporation (El Segundo, CA).
Recent praise for JDS Uniphase's light engines include a favorable review of image quality on both UltreX- and DefiniTV-driven displays and a "Good Buzz" award at the May 25-27 Society for Information Display conference from Chris Chinnock of Insight Media. Key image-quality attributes were described as excellent by David Mentley of iSuppli in his review of the Brillian 1080p RPTV, which uses the UltreX light engine.