Technology: Manufacturing

Our proprietary manufacturing equipment and material science innovations, combined with our integrated production systems, enable us to produce high-quality AR optics at scale.

Magic Leap has spent years honing manufacturing processes and developing specialized equipment that allows the production of devices in a wide range of form factors. Our scalable optics manufacturing can be used as the foundation for AR devices that integrate digital content into the real world in different ways depending on the intended use case and desired form factor.

In depth: Manufacturing technology

Quality at scale	Patented manufacturing equipment	Material science breakthroughs	Vertical integration
We are the first to use inkjet-based imprint process (Jet and Flash Imprint Lithography) for AR waveguides, which along with our other proprietary in-house processes and equipment deliver unparalleled quality, yield, and cost efficiency at industrial volumes. While other companies have followed us and adopted JFIL, our proprietary technology and manufacturing processes are simple, delivering high quality, cost efficiency, and efficacy in waveguide and eyepiece development.	With our in-house equipment team, we build proprietary equipment specifically made to address the unique challenges of XR optical technology production. Our team creates both physical equipment like our LithoFlex350 machine and metrology tools, as well as the software that controls them. This allows us to produce high-quality eyepieces for a fraction of the cost of others in the industry, even while on accelerated timelines, and all with less waste.	We're constantly improving our glass substrate materials to deliver higher performance, more efficiency, and lighter weight devices. Beyond the use of traditional glass, we're creating one of the industry's first polymer substrates, offering exceptional image quality at half the weight and cost of a glass waveguide—enabling lighter, less costly AR devices.	Our vertically integrated manufacturing systems give us the ability to rapidly design, develop, test, troubleshoot, and scale production in-house to meet demand. We can quickly adapt and support a range of different AR devices, optimized for the desired FOV, and at a cost efficient price point.
We control the entire eyepiece fabrication process: from waveguide design, to materials, process, and equipment, to factory operations. Rigorous quality controls allow us to achieve over 90% yield and cost efficiency. We're the only company to incorporate a high efficiency metallized incoupling grating. Our proprietary Jet and Flash Imprint Lithography (JFIL) process and equipment has a low cost of ownership over other types of lithography for waveguide manufacturing. Our manufacturing team has developed proprietary tools for metrology and quality control to check parameters, detect defects, and ensure quality.	We have in-house tools for every step of the production process, from planning and cleaning, to dispensing and imprinting, to performing metrology. We're the only company that builds the waveguide imprinting and stacking equipment and SRG materials—imprint resin, stacking adhesive, edge blackening material, and high index polymer. Our unmatched JFIL equipment dispenses materials into drop patterns with pico-liter (1 trillionth of a liter) precision. Our custom defect inspection ensures quality across the entire manufacturing line, from pre-imprint to post-imprint to the full stack, down to the micro-scale.	Our proprietary high index glass provides superior optical performance, extended shelf life, and manufacturing efficiency. We are the first to use high index polymer (nd>1.7) to support free-standing AR diffractive waveguides. Our polymer waveguides are 50% lighter, 50% cheaper, and more durable than glass equivalents, while maintaining exceptional image quality. Our current polymer model is a single layer, full color, 30° diagonal FOV waveguide. By curving the polymer waveguide, we can further reduce the complexity, weight, and cost. The streamlined polymer casting process takes a fraction of the time to form compared to a glass wafer. We can quickly adapt and support a range of different AR devices, optimized for FOV options, cost, and other needs.	By controlling the entire manufacturing process, we gain greater design flexibility and a rapid feedback loop. Doing it all in-house allows us to quickly adapt, iterate, design, and troubleshoot to bring designs to market at scale, faster. Our proprietary design tools enable us to "design in the cloud," with highly accurate modeling of how designs will perform in real life. This capability accelerates the design process and enables rapid iteration for new products or needs. Our versatile nanostructure fabrication process allows us to combine different types of 1D, 2D, and 3D structures for waveguides, unlocking designs and maximizing waver utilization. We currently have the capability to mass manufacture hundreds of thousands of eyepieces per year. We have the ability to modify and scale our capabilities in-house. With a low cost imprint process, thin waveguides, large diagonal FOV capabilities, and rapid adaptability, we offer a cost efficient option for manufacturing AR eyepieces at scale.

Magic Leap is advancing what’s possible for AR with industry-leading optics and highly scalable manufacturing

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