On September 22, JBD announced that it has recently achieved a key breakthrough in the display quality of full-color waveguide AR glasses in collaboration with Applied Materials (AMAT) and Thunderbird Innovations, and has first applied it to the Thunderbird X3 Pro AR glasses.
It is understood that, for a long time, color waveguide AR glasses have been constrained by bottlenecks such as color distortion, uneven brightness, and insufficient image quality. This collaboration integrates JBD's strengths in Micro LED microdisplays, Applied Materials' strengths in etched waveguide manufacturing, and Thunderbird Innovations' strengths in overall design and system integration, achieving a leapfrog upgrade in display technology.
Compared with earlier LCoS and DLP solutions and second-generation Micro LED solutions, the third-generation solution uses a single-layer etched waveguide paired with a high-brightness Micro LED light engine and introduces system-level image quality correction, which greatly improves image uniformity and color accuracy, effectively suppresses stray light and rainbow effect, and makes the display effect closer to the real perception of the human eye.
Image source: JBD
The third-generation full-color waveguide technology solution has been applied to the Thunderbird X3 Pro glasses released by Thunderbird Innovations in May of this year. With the single-layer etched waveguide technology provided by Applied Materials, the glasses' light efficiency is improved by 25%, the rainbow effect suppression efficiency reaches 95%, and key performance aspects such as stray light and resolution are also improved.
JBD provides the Thunderbird X3 Pro with a high-brightness, low-power, small-size Micro LED microdisplay, as well as an ARTCs system-level image quality engine. With ARTCs correction and optimization, global brightness uniformity can be improved to >80%, color difference ΔE is reduced to 0.02, effectively eliminating color distortion and graininess, and improving image purity and visual comfort.
With the application of the third-generation full-color optical waveguide technology solution, the Thunderbird X3 Pro achieves a peak brightness of 6000 nits for eye viewing.
Image source: JBD
According to available information, JBD was founded in 2015 and focuses on the research and development and mass production of Micro LED microdisplay technology. This year, JBD completed a B1 round of financing worth hundreds of millions of RMB, which will be used for Micro LED microdisplay technology research and development, capacity expansion, talent acquisition, and ecosystem cooperation. In terms of technology research and development, at the recent 2025 China International Optoelectronic Exposition, JBD showcased its latest "Hummingbird II" color light engine, which boasts a smaller size and superior display quality.
Applied Materials, headquartered in California, USA, is a leading global supplier of semiconductor and display manufacturing equipment. It has developed a new method for creating full-color Micro LED displays using innovative quantum dot (QD) technology, combining UV Micro LEDs with red, green, and blue quantum dots to achieve full-color displays.
Thunderbird Innovation is a consumer-grade AR brand incubated by TCL Industries, focusing on the R&D and mass production of AR smart glasses, primarily targeting the consumer electronics market. Since its inception, it has released several AR glasses, including the Thunderbird X3 Pro, Thunderbird Air 3s series, and Thunderbird V3/V3 Slim, all equipped with Micro LED and Micro OLED technologies. (Compiled)
