On the afternoon of December 30, 2025, Moldnano and Weiyun Technology held a strategic cooperation signing ceremony. The two sides will work together to deepen the field of slanted grating etching, jointly develop high-performance reactive ion beam etching equipment, and promote the industrialization and upgrading of AR etching optical waveguide technology.

Before the signing, the first prototype jointly developed by the two parties has achieved stable operation on the Moldnano production line, and its 8-inch etching uniformity index has reached the industry's advanced level of 2%, laying a solid foundation for subsequent mass production and promotion.

With the accelerated penetration of AR products, etched optical waveguides, as the core optical components of AR devices, directly determine the development process of the industry. As a key structure in the manufacturing of AR diffractive optical waveguides, slanted grating etching has the advantages of high optical  efficiency and low light leakage, but it has long-term bottlenecks such as etching accuracy, mass production capacity, and cost, and the development of high-performance equipment has become a key factor restricting the breakthrough of the AR industry.

The strategic cooperation between the two sides aims to address this industry pain point and carry out precise research. Relying on complementary advantages - Moldnano is deeply involved in the field of micro-nano optical devices and has a mature industrialization experience; Weiyun Technology focuses on the R&D and manufacturing of semiconductor equipment, and has key technological breakthrough capabilities - the jointly developed reactive ion beam etching equipment is specially customized for slanted grating etching scenarios, with the advantages of high precision, high stability and large-scale mass production, and has a great potential to reduce costs in the mass production of TiO2 and SiC slanted gratings etching in the future. The first prototype has not only achieved 24-hours continuous and stable operation after multiple rounds of testing and verification, but also made a breakthrough in core performance indicators, as the 8-inch etching uniformity has reached less than 2%. This data far exceeds the conventional requirement of  ≤ 3% industrial-grade etching equipment, which means that the equipment can accurately control the etching consistency of large-area wafers, providing core equipment support for the high-quality mass production of AR etching optical waveguides.

On the basis of the 8-inch equipment, the two parties will launch a 12-inch reactive ion beam etching (RIBE) equipment with more advantages in mass production in  2026. In the future, the two sides will further open up key technology links, accelerate the mass production of equipment, promote localization and substitution in related fields, reduce manufacturing costs, and accelerate the arrival of the AI+AR era!