eMagin

eMagin
Information
Industry	OLED microdisplays
Founded	2000
Headquarters	Hopewell Junction, New York, United States
Notable Personnel	Amal Ghosh (President and CEO)
Products	OLED microdisplays
Parent	Samsung Display
Website	https://emagin.com

eMagin is a company that makes microdisplays. Its products are active-matrix OLED microdisplays built on silicon, used in military, consumer, medical and industrial products such as aircraft helmets, night vision goggles, thermal scopes and AR and VR systems. The company was formed in March 2000 through the merger of Fashion Dynamics Corporation and FED Corporation, and its first commercial microdisplay was introduced in 2001.

eMagin was sold to Samsung. Samsung Display, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, agreed to buy the company in May 2023 for about 218 million US dollars in cash and completed the deal in October 2023. The company still operates under its own name from Hopewell Junction, New York, as a subsidiary of Samsung Display.

In consumer VR, eMagin sold the Z800 3DVisor, a PC head-mounted display with two OLED microdisplays and head tracking that began shipping in 2005. Its later work on direct-patterned color OLEDs (dPd), which drop the color filter used in most OLED microdisplays, was the technology Samsung Display said it wanted to accelerate when it bought the company.

Reviewed 27 September 2026. Checked the formation, Land Warrior, Z800, 2015 prototype, dPd, Samsung Display acquisition, 2022 market and revenue figures, current leadership, facilities and product catalog against the cited SEC filings, press releases, trade press and eMagin's website. About review dates.

History

Formation and military displays

FED Corporation was a developer and manufacturer of optical systems and microdisplays. It merged with Fashion Dynamics Corporation in 2000, and the combined company took the name eMagin Corporation. Its first commercial product was the SVGA+ OLED microdisplay (800x600 picture elements plus 52 added columns of data), which the company first offered for sampling in 2001.

In February 2002, eMagin's OLED microdisplay was selected for the helmet-mounted display of the US Army's Land Warrior program (Version 1.0). Kaiser Electro-Optics, a Rockwell Collins company and the principal contractor for the Land Warrior HMD, integrated eMagin's full-color SVGA+ (852 x 600 triad pixels) microdisplay into its compact monocular HMD. At the time, the Army planned to equip more than 40,000 soldiers with the system. eMagin's displays are in the ProView SO-35.

According to its annual report for 2006, eMagin's principal executive offices were in Bellevue, Washington, while its OLED fabrication, research and development took place in Hopewell Junction, New York, where it leased about 40,000 square feet from IBM at the Hudson Valley Research Park. eMagin's microdisplay manufacturing and R&D operations were co-located with IBM on its campus in East Fishkill, New York. Hopewell Junction later became the company's headquarters.

Z800 3DVisor

On 7 January 2005 eMagin announced the Z800 3DVisor, a head-mounted display with two 800x600 (SVGA) OLED microdisplays, 360-degree head tracking, earbuds and a noise-canceling microphone. eMagin described the picture as equivalent to a 105-inch screen viewed from twelve feet. The launch price was 899 US dollars, with shipping planned for the second quarter of 2005. The company called it the first personal display system to combine OLED technology with head tracking and 3D stereovision, and it first shipped in mid-2005.

In May 2006 eMagin cut the Z800's price from 899 to 549 US dollars. Susan Jones, eMagin's executive vice president and chief marketing officer, attributed the cut to improved OLED display production and to game developers starting to adopt the company's SDK.

2K x 2K VR headset prototype

In May 2015 eMagin announced a VR headset prototype built around its own square OLED microdisplays at 2K x 2K resolution per eye. Road to VR reported an 80-degree horizontal and vertical field of view, a flip-up visor, adjustable IPD and diopter settings, and electronics housed in a wearable puck. Demonstrations were scheduled for the SID expo and Augmented World Expo 2015.

UploadVR tried the prototype in June 2015. The demo unit's displays had only red and green emitters, with no blue, and ran at 2K resolution at 60 Hz; eMagin said the displays could reach 85 Hz on suitable hardware. The headset had an IMU for rotational tracking only, 15 mm of eye relief and a DisplayPort 1.2 input. According to UploadVR, the design was adapted from Air Force pilot training hardware, which explained the missing blue light. Dan Cui, eMagin's vice president of business development, said updated hardware with blue pixels would follow and that the company was in talks with the major headset makers about its displays.

Direct patterning (dPd)

eMagin's direct patterning technology, branded dPd, builds full-color displays by depositing each primary color material directly onto its own sub-pixel, without color filters. The company contrasts this with conventional microdisplays that pair a white OLED with an RGB color filter, which it says absorbs 80% of the light. In 2021 eMagin demonstrated WUXGA dPd displays at over 10,000 cd/m2, and its 2022 annual report set a goal of full-color displays above 22,000 cd/m2 ready for mass production by 2024. Its full-color 10,000 cd/m2 WUXGA dPd display won the People's Choice award for "Best New Display Technology" at Display Week 2022, the Society for Information Display's annual trade show.

On 4 May 2023 the company reported a single-stack, full-color WUXGA (1920x1200) dPd microdisplay at 15,000 cd/m2, up from the 10,000 cd/m2 record it had set about 18 months earlier. CEO Andrew Sculley said the company aimed to reach even brighter displays using tandem architectures and other techniques, and chief operating officer Amal Ghosh said production-capable equipment based on the R&D system had been shipped to eMagin, with installation expected by the end of 2023. eMagin's technology page now states that dPd has the potential to produce full-color microdisplays brighter than 28,000 cd/m2.

Acquisition by Samsung Display

On 17 May 2023 eMagin, then listed on NYSE American as EMAN, signed a definitive merger agreement with Samsung Display. Samsung Display agreed to pay 2.08 US dollars per share in cash, valuing the deal at about 218 million US dollars. The price was a premium of about 10% over eMagin's closing price of 1.89 dollars on 16 May 2023 and about 24% over its six-month volume-weighted average price. Holders of eMagin's Series B convertible preferred stock, with about 98% of that class's voting power, committed to support the deal. Samsung Display president Joo Sun Choi said the company expected XR devices to have significant growth potential. OLED-Info reported that Samsung Display had begun its own OLED microdisplay development in 2022, aimed for mass production in 2024 or 2025, and that Samsung's main interest in eMagin was likely its direct-emission dPd technology, which it could adopt in later panel generations.

The acquisition closed in October 2023. eMagin's shares stopped trading and were to be delisted from NYSE American. The company kept its name and its Hopewell Junction facilities and continued to serve military, medical and commercial customers, and Samsung Display said it would accelerate eMagin's dPd development.

Business and markets

eMagin's OLED microdisplays were designed and manufactured in America. In its 2022 annual report the company said it believed it was the only U.S. manufacturer of OLED microdisplays.

Military customers provided most of the company's revenue. In 2022, military applications accounted for 74% of eMagin's revenue, commercial (including industrial and medical) for 13%, consumer for 1% and multiple markets for 12%. Fielded products using its microdisplays included the Enhanced Night Vision Binocular, Enhanced Night Vision Goggle II and III, thermal weapon sights, laser targeting locator modules and the command launch unit of the Javelin anti-tank missile system. During 2022 eMagin also received orders under a prime contractor's program supporting the F-35 Lightning II helmet mounted display system. Commercial OEM customers used its displays in products such as ocular surgery visualization, mobile ultrasound and augmented reality applications. At the end of 2022 the company had 109 employees, 107 of them full-time.

eMagin reported revenue of 30.5 million US dollars for 2022, up 17% from 26.0 million US dollars in 2021, with a net loss of 1.1 million US dollars.

Facilities and leadership

As of 2026, eMagin's Hopewell Junction site has over 42,000 square feet of manufacturing space, including a 17,000 square foot Class 10 clean room, and the company also lists an office in San Jose, California. Amal Ghosh, who was chief operating officer in 2023, is President and Chief Executive Officer. Andrew G. Sculley was chief executive when the acquisition was agreed and completed.

Products

• eMagin SXGA-096 OLED-XL
• Z800 3DVisor

eMagin's microdisplays range from 9.3 to 15 micron pixel pitch and from 300,000 to 4,000,000 color pixels per display. Its established XLE technology uses a white OLED with an RGB color filter, rated at a nominal luminance of about 1,500 cd/m2 and a maximum of about 3,000 cd/m2. The company's product catalog lists the following microdisplays:

Model	Resolution	Image diagonal	Pixel pitch	Interface
WUXGA	1920x1200	0.85 in	9.6 µm	LVDS
SXGA120	1280x1024	0.77 in	12 µm	24 bit parallel
SXGA096	1280x1024	0.62 in	9.6 µm	LVDS
DSVGA	800x600	0.59 in	15 µm	24 bit parallel and BT-656
VGA	640x480	0.47 in	15 µm	24/30 bit parallel

Earlier product lines named in the company's filings include the SVGA+ (852x600), introduced in 2001, and a 2K x 2K color OLED-XL active array of 2072 x 2072 square color pixels.

See also

• Micro-OLED
• Kopin