MicroLED-Info.com: the Micro-LED experts

Market research company IHS expects MicroLED display shipments to reach 15.5 million units in 2026, as sharp production cost improvements will enable micro-LED technology to achieve mass market success. The increase in shipments will be fast, but in 2026 micro-LEDs will still amount to only 0.4% of the total display market.

Shipments in 2019-2020 will be virtually nono-existance (less than 1,000 units, in fact), but the new emerging display technology will find markets in wearables, TVs, AR and also smartphones.

Chinese LED producer ShineOn has unveiled a new MicroLED display prototype branded as IconiView at the Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition (GILE 2019). The display is a 139" 4K panel developed jointly by ShineOn and Korea-based MicroLED developer Lumens.

The IconiView display utilizes a Flip-Chip-On-Module (COM) LED technology and features a brightness of over 2,000 nits and a contrast ratio of 3000:1. ShineOn says that the product "has been verified" and can be mass produced.

At the InfoComm 2019 US trade-show, LG Display unveiled a new 8K Micro-LED display. We do not have a lot of information about this display, only that the pixel pitch is 50 microns.

LG Display unveiled its first Micro-LED TV prototype in August 2018, a 173" TV. The company did not yet discuss the technology readiness of its Micro-LED displays.

As promised last year, Samsung is set to launch the world's first consumer micro-LED TV. According to the company, in July 2019 it will start shipping (or accepting orders?) for the new TV, which (in a similar way to "The Wall Professional") will be made from tiled and seamless Micro-LED modules. The TVs will come in sizes ranging from 73" (2K resolution) to 292" (8K).

Samsung says that its Micro-LED TVs will offer unparalled viewing experience, and will offer a 2000 nits peak brightness, high contrast and 100,000 hour lifetime. The price will probably be very expensive, but Samsung did not reveal it yet.

AR developer Mojo Vision announced that it developed a 14k sub-pixel PPI (1.8µm sub-pixel pitch) Micro-LED microdisplay, to power its upcoming AR platform. The microdisplay is a monochrome green one, that the company says is the smallest display ever developed at 0.48 mm diameter.

This prototype, according to Mojo Vision, demonstrates the capability that MicroLEDs have to create more seamless AR experiences. The company did not say how close it is to commercialize the display, but did say that it will release more details on its MicroLED displays and technology development at a "future date".

US and Sweden based Micro-LED developer Glo has partnered with Japan-based display maker Kyocera to demonstrate a 1.8" Micro-LED display that features a resolution of 256x256 (200 PPI). For this demonstration panel, Kyocera provided the LTPS backplane and driving technology while glo provided its InGaN RGB micro-LEDs and its transfer technology.

Glo says its micro-LED technology enables the production of displays ranging from micro-displays to smartphone-sized panels, and have demonstrated several such panels at SID DisplayWeek 2019.

In November 2017 we reported that Taiwan's Electronic and Optoelectronic System Research Laboratories (EOSRL, part of ITRI) has launched a project that brings together PlayNitride, LED driver IC designer Macroblock and PCB maker Unimicron with an aim to develop production technologies for high-density Micro-LED displays.

Digitimes today reports that EOSRL has achieved a breakthrough in its mass transfer technology, and is now able to transfer 10,000 micro-LED chips from an sapphire-based epitaxial wafer onto a substrate within an hour. EOSRL demonstrated the process with PCB, Polyimide and glass substrates. Trial production runs will commence in Q4 2019.

Earlier this week China-based Tianma unveiled a new 7.56" 720x480 (114 PPI) transparent Micro-LED display prototype at SID, and the display won SID's people's choice award - the best new display technology.

Tianma today revealed that the Micro-LED prototype was co-developed with Taiwan's PlayNitride. In 2017 PlayNitride started to sample micro-LED panels and shipped samples to 10-20 potential customers. The company's chairman and CEO, Charles Li, said in June 2018 that 5-6 of these customers are continuing the developing of micro-LED modules based on these panels. Apparently CSoT is one of these customers.

Taiwan-based PMOLED display maker RiT Display announced a strategic partnership and share swap with MicroLED developer PlayNitride. RiTDisplay will have access to PlayNitride's technology and will be able to produce and sell micro-LED panels.

According to the Taipei times, RiTDisplay aims to produce small displays for wearable applications. The article says the display size will be around 3-inch, which actually sounds rather large for wearables.

In June 2018, UK-based GaN-on-Si MicroLED developer Plessey Semiconductor and AR developer Vuzix announced a partnership to develop advanced Micro-LED display engines for Vuzix waveguide optics to enable next generation AR Smart Glasses by 2019. Today Plessey announced it has entered into a long-term micro-LED supply agreement with Vuzix.

The new agreement will support the development and production of next-generation AR products that utilize Plessey's micro-LED light source. Vuzix say that the agreement includes an exclusive display device design.