France-based microLED developer Aledia announced some breakthrough advances. The first one is a new <1.5 um microLED device that has the world's highest EQE of 32%. Aledia says that this new device leads to a Wall Plug Efficiency (WPE) of 320 milliwatts of visible light output per watt of electrical power input. 

As you can guess from the first subject, Aledia has successfully reduced its microLED pixel size to 2 um, or even below. Finally, Aledia says that it has reached a 99% DCI-P3 color gamut. 

Last week during Touch Taiwan 2024, AUO demonstrated several new (and not new) microLED display prototypes. The company released this short video showing the displays in action:

AUO showed its large-area (60") microLED displays, its automotive microLED solutions (including transparent automotive displays), a 30" real-depth 3D microLED display for entertainment applications, medical-grade displays and a 31" microLED display that is a single panel (not a tiled display) - which AUO says is the world largest.

In February 2024, ams-Osram announced that it's cornerstone customer (Apple) cancelled its microLED project, which will have dire implications for Osram's own $850 million 8-inch microLED epiwafer factory in Malaysia. Back then ams-Osram estimated that it will have impairment charges of $650 to $900 million and it will also likely to cancel or delay some of its investments in Malaysia.

ams-Osram now announced its plans and strategy following Apple's decision to cancel its project. It seems as if the company has decided to pretty much withdraw from the microLED display market, and the only remaining microLED development efforts will focus on automotive lighting products. ams-Osram now believes that microLED displays will primarily play a role in several smaller applications that also will scale slower and later than previously expected. We also believe that microLED displays will take a longer time to mature than some in the industry have expected.

Aixtron reports strong results for its recent quarter, with both revenues and profit significantly higher than last year, driven by strong demand for SiC production systems for power electronics.

Aixtron reports revenues of 19.6 million Euro (up from 6.9 million last year) for LED and microLED systems. There's a strong new momentum for microLED production systems, which accounted for 37% of the equipment order intake. This development was boosted by the continued development activities of Micro LED customers, who are continuing to invest in development and pilot lines for the commercialization of Micro LED technology.

Germany-based Singulus Technologies announced that it has adapted its modular high-vacuum sputtering TIMARIS STM system for microLED production. The first TIMARIS STM system has already been sold and delivered.

The TIMARIS platform has a modular structure and can be equipped with various process and add-on modules for a wide range of requirements. 

MicroLED display developer VueReal announced a strategic partnership with Toray Engineering. As part of this collaboration, VueReal will integrate Toray's TASMIT 3000SR-Ⅲ300 PL inspection tool into its turnkey MicroSolid Printing platform. The announcement mentions several customized and optimized tools, but does not provide more details.

VueReal and Toray say that the PL inspection tool 3000SR-Ⅲ300 seamlessly integrates with VueReal's MicroSolid Printing platform to further reduce surface inspection device review time and contribute to greater inspection efficiency. This system acquires images of defects with a high level of magnification and categorizes defect types.

Perovskites are a family of materials with the same basic structure that can have an impressive array of interesting properties, including unique optical properties. Metal halide perovskites offer several advantages for use as components of LEDs and displays. They are direct-bandgap semiconductor materials that possess high photoluminescence quantum yield (PL QY) reaching 100%, they have narrow and symmetric PL peaks (full width at half-maximum about 15–30 nm, which is even better than for the traditional QDs) that enables wide color gamuts and they can easily be synthesized and processed at room temperature, or vapor-processed at low temperatures (typically <180°C) using inexpensive precursors.

Perovskite materials can benefit the MicroLED industry in two ways: as materials for color conversion (using perovskite-based QDs) and in perovskite-based LED emitters. Much R&D work is taking place on both these fronts, and interest seems to be growing.

Last month Apple decided to cancel its microLED Watch project, which had very bad consequences for many microLED developers. Ams-Osram is still considering its options and it estimates its loss at $650-900 million, while Singapore-based electronics assembly solutions provider Kulicke & Soffa announced that it was also effected, to the tune of $110-130 million as it cancelled its own project with Apple.

KLA Corporation recently announced that it is withdrawing from the FPD market altogether. The company entered this market when it bought Israeli Orbotech for $3.4 billion, developer of inspection equipment for the semiconductor and display industries. 

US-based Q-Pixel announced that it has developed a new 3K x 1.5K, a 1.1x0.6 cm (6800 PPI) microLED microdisplay. Q-Pixel says that this is the world's highest resolution color microdisplay - but they actually mean the highest density full-color microdisplay.

Q-Pixel's technology is based around a single-pixel color-tunable microLED device, and the company's displays are produced using a monolithic process. In May 2023, the company announced a 5,000 PPI full-color microdisplay. In fact, later in 2023 the company announced a 10,000 PPI microLED microdisplay, but the 10,000 display was a passive-matrix microdisplay, and the newly announced display is an active-matrix one. 

Toray Engineering announced a technical partnership with semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation, to promote efficient combined production systems for miniLEDs and microLED displays.

Toray Engineering will able to offer a combined inspection, transfer, and mounting systems, by data linking its systems with Advantest's inspection equipment. The company says that these integrated systems will enable the acceleration of microLED R&D and production.