The LiveLens combines established semiconductor and LCD manufacturing to form a unique electro optical device containing photo-sensitive and Liquid Crystal elements. Over 80 LiveLens devices are contained on this transparent wafer (above) manufactured for Live Technologies at X-FAB semiconductor, Germany. The wafers are inspected and tested prior to conversion to liquid crystal cells. This LiveLens prototype (above right) was converted from the semiconductor wafer into individual liquid crystal cells at the Liquid Crystal Institute Advanced Materials Department, Kent State University, Ohio USA. Live Technologies holds US patent 5,953,082 and other international patents for the LiveLens technology.
The CAD drawing above shows a small section of the LiveLens pixel microcircuit. Each pixel is an independently acting integrated light sensing and attenuating circuit, requiring only an external common voltage supply to operate. The pixels react instantaneously to the brightness regions within an image enabling the filter surface to act as a spatial aperture. Spatial aperturing of the subject image enables the darker shadow regions of a scene to be captured in full detail without the overexposure in bright areas that would normally occur.