Microvision Unveils Advancements In Its Ultra-Miniature PicoP Display Engine at SID Display Week 2008

Microvision Unveils Advancements In Its Ultra-Miniature PicoP Display Engine at SID Display Week 2008

REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As consumers look for new ways to experience better and bigger visualization of data and video from their tiny mobile device screens, an ultra-miniature full-color projection display called PicoP™ is expected to bring home-cinema sized viewing to cell phones and even fashionable eyeglasses as well as projection displays into cars.

Microvision, Inc. (NASDAQ:MVIS), a global leader in innovative ultra-miniature projection display and image capture products for mobility applications, announced today that it plans to unveil advancements in its proprietary ultra-miniature display system, called PicoP™, at the Society for Information Display (SID) annual conference in Los Angeles, California, May 20 - 22, 2008, booth 849. Microvision expects to showcase multiple PicoP-enabled pre-commercial prototypes and engineering demonstrators representing recent developments it has made in collaboration with the Company’s manufacturing and supply-chain partners. Microvision’s President and CEO Alexander Tokman is also scheduled to present at the SID/Cowen 2008 Display Investors Conference on Wednesday, May 21st at 10:00 a.m. PT.

At the SID 2008 exhibition, Microvision plans to publicly demonstrate a palm-sized, self-contained, battery-operated, full-color pico projector, called SHOW™. The SHOW device is a prototype of a stand-alone pico projector intended for simple plug-and-play integration with mobile devices, such as cell phones, MP3 players, laptops and gaming devices.

Microvision also plans to introduce at SID its SD3000, an advancement in its see-through, full-color wearable display technology platform. Compared to existing wearable display technologies, which partially occlude the user’s surrounding environment or have low brightness levels, the SD3000 demonstrates bright, unobstructed see-through capability, allowing content to be clearly readable in full daylight. According to Dr. Aris Silzars, former President of SID, who recently previewed the SD3000, “Microvision’s transparent display solution surpasses the quality threshold for viewers to read messages, watch videos, or track their surroundings with GPS while still seeing the outside world. This development is really quite impressive.”

Additionally, Microvision plans to demonstrate its first full-color vehicle head-up display (HUD) based on the PicoP technology. A result of recent developments with one of Microvision’s global Tier 1 automotive partners, the HUD demonstrator shows automotive designers a full-color, configurable head-up display with high-contrast and brightness levels that are fully readable—even in bright daylight.

Alexander Tokman, Microvision president and CEO commented, “It was only a year ago at Display Week 2007 that we first unveiled our wide-angle PicoP engine. Since then, we have made tremendous progress towards commercializing the PicoP for several different applications. To capture the growing global demand, we are actively building the infrastructure for a high-volume, high-quality delivery of PicoP-enabled products. We have announced aggressive goals to further advance PicoP miniaturization, power reduction, and image quality. This is an exciting time for Microvision and the display industry.”

About PicoP

Microvision’s PicoP display engine is based on a modular, flexible architecture, comprised of directly modulated light sources, custom-drive electronics and software, optical combiners and Microvision’s MEMS single scanning mirror. The tiny scanning mirror itself is less than one square millimeter in area—or about the size of the head of a pin. The single scanning mirror is designed to scan in both horizontal and vertical directions so that a single beam of light can be precisely steered, in a raster-like fashion, at very high speeds to project a complete video image.

The inherent advantages of this architecture include small form factor and low power requirements, while delivering very good image quality. PicoP uses a collimated beam of light to achieve very efficient full-color, hi-resolution, high-contrast images. Additionally, PicoP does not require any projection lenses and is therefore “focus-free” at any distance, which is another huge advantage inherent in the PicoP architecture.

About Microvision (www.microvision.com)

Microvision provides the PicoP display technology platform designed to enable next generation display and imaging products for pico projectors, vehicles displays, and wearable displays that interface to mobile devices. The company also manufactures and sells its bar code scanner product line which features the company’s proprietary MEMS technology.

Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer

Certain statements contained in this release, including those relating to future demonstrations, product introductions, applications and business prospects, as well as statements containing words like “could,” “expect,” “plan,” and other similar expressions, are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the Company’s forward-looking statements include the following: our ability to raise additional capital when needed; the risk of market acceptance of our technology and products, our financial and technical resources relative to those of our competitors; our ability to keep up with rapid technological change; our ability to enforce our intellectual property rights and protect our proprietary technologies; the timing of commercial product launches and delays in product development; the ability to achieve key technical milestones in key products; our ability to secure needed third party manufacturing and sales resources, dependence on third parties to develop, manufacture, sell and market our products; potential product liability claims and other risk factors identified from time to time in the Company’s SEC reports, including the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC. Except as expressly required by the federal securities laws, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in circumstances or any other reason.