On October 30th, the 7th Gasgoo Award Ceremony was grandly held in Shanghai, China. Hardstone won the "2025 Best Technical Application Award" for its outstanding technical achievements in the automotive smart cockpit field, particularly its LCoS PGU dedicated to optical waveguides.
The Gasgoo Award holds significant prestige in the field of intelligent vehicles. Adhering to principles of fairness and objectivity, the Award aims to identify those with leading technology, strong delivery capacity and significant market share. After over 200 days and more than 1 million votes, Hardstone distinguished itself among numerous contenders, highlighting its industry-leading technology and exceptional market impact.
Traditional HUD systems based on geometric optics face a structural dilemma between virtual image distance (VID), field of view (FOV), and system volume—a larger FOV or longer VID inevitably requires a larger optical module.
LCoS + waveguide solution introduces a physical-optics approach, precisely controlling polarization and phase through micro-nano diffractive structures and waveguide transmission. This enables uniform imaging, spatial light-field expansion, and compact integration, fundamentally resolving the long-standing conflict between volume and performance.
Hardstone’s latest Waveguide-Based LCoS PGU delivers 4K resolution, 120% sRGB color gamut, 2000:1 contrast ratio, and 400lm brightness, setting new benchmarks in visual performance. Through the deep integration of LCoS and waveguide optics, Hardstone’s new generation AR-HUD achieves a revolutionary reduction in size — down to one-quarter of traditional HUDs — while offering 4K resolution, 15000nits brightness, 20m projection distance, and a 223-inch virtual image.
In addition, the core components of the LCoS PGU are independently developed and manufactured by Hardstone, ensuring supply chain stability while laying a solid foundation for future cost optimization and large-scale commercialization.
Hardstone began R&D on LCoS PGU in 2020, followed by pre-development in 2021. After multiple rounds of technical iteration and on-road validation, the project achieved platform-level mass production in 2024.
From early 0.37" 720P, 50lm modules to today’s 4K, 400lm, 2000:1 contrast optical engines, Hardstone has achieved a breakthrough leap in performance. Along the way, it solved key challenges in polarization control, thermal management, and system integration, securing over ten invention patents and establishing a robust engineering validation framework.
The LCoS Waveguide AR-HUD has now completed multiple prototype verifications and entered vehicle integration testing, with outstanding customer feedback, signaling readiness for industrial-scale adoption.
Boundless Market Potential and Expanding Industry Opportunities
As AR-HUD becomes a core interface in intelligent cockpits, display technology is shifting from “visual information” to “intelligent perception.” The integration of LCoS and waveguide optics is now seen as the key path for next-generation AR-HUDs.
With installation rates projected to multiply in the next few years, LCoS solutions—balancing performance and cost—are expected to dominate. Hardstone’s continued innovation will accelerate this evolution.
Looking ahead, Hardstone will advance LCoS performance and mass production while expanding applications across light field displays, virtual assistants, in-vehicle projection, etc., —building an optics-driven intelligent cockpit ecosystem.