Exclusive interview: Cellid’s development strategy for resin and glass optical waveguides

As AR glasses gradually penetrate into the consumer market from industrial applications, lightweight and high-quality display solutions have become the key to the competition among major technology giants. Among many optical solutions, optical waveguides are recognized as the mainstream technology path to realize consumer-grade AR glasses due to their advantages of being thin, high-penetration, and resembling ordinary glasses.

Cellid is an optical waveguide design company founded in 2016. It is currently headquartered in Tokyo and also has offices in California, USA and Taoyuan, Taiwan. Cellid focuses on the research and development, production and sales of optical waveguide technology and simultaneous positioning and mapping (SLAM) solutions. Its optical waveguide components are mainly manufactured by GIS. Recently, TrendForce had the honor to have an in-depth exchange with Takeshi Kawahara, Director of Hardware R&D Department, to discuss the latest optical waveguide technology developed by Cellid and the company's development blueprint.

Cellid offers two types of optical waveguides, resin and glass, manufactured using Nano Imprint Lithography (NIL) technology. Cellid mainly specializes in surface relief grating (SRG) technology in diffractive optical element (DOE) technology, and this technology also has high mass production, lightweight design, relatively mature supply chain, and price competitiveness.

In response to common optical challenges in optical waveguides, such as rainbow patterns and dispersion, Cellid also uses optical design technology and materials independently developed in cooperation with development partners to deal with them. The glass optical waveguide currently provided by Cellid supports a viewing angle (FOV) of up to 60°. At the same time, its resin optical waveguide prioritizes ultra-lightweight design to keep the component weight below 4 grams. The current goal is to further reduce the weight of the optical waveguide to only 3 grams while maintaining the current efficiency. ''

Cellid has so far demonstrated a variety of binocular AR glasses prototypes, and has also cooperated with industry partners such as Zozhen, Pegatron and Jig.jp. Cellid displayed two different models of products, demonstrating the company's in-house research capabilities. The first monocular resin optical waveguide is equipped with a single green light source, with a resolution of 640×480, a viewing angle of 30°, and a luminous efficiency of the optical waveguide of 3000 nits/lm. The second model is a new generation color model designed for high-end applications. It also supports a 30° viewing angle through a monocular glass optical waveguide. The current resolution is 500×380 and the optical waveguide luminous efficiency is 1200 nits/lm.

Cellid’s two AR glasses modules

Zozhen will display its HJ1 AI smart glasses at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). This is a single-eye full-color AR device developed in cooperation with Cellid. It is equipped with Zuzhen’s patented AI technology and the glass optical waveguide supplied by Cellid, providing 640×480 resolution and 25° viewing angle. Industry sources pointed out that Zozhen plans to start mass production as soon as this year.

Jorjin HJ1AI

For future development, Cellid expects that AR glasses will be seamlessly integrated into a variety of application scenarios, including shopping, transportation, medical care, remote support and translation. In order to realize this vision, Cellid is actively establishing cooperation with major enterprises across these industries.