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n-tech Research says that the Micro-LED lighting will experience very fast growth, with revenues exceeding $1.4 billion by 2028 with 170 million lighting units shipped.
n-tech says that some industry analysts say that micro-LED lighting will always remain a tiny niche and only cater for novelty lighting. n-tech, however, sees several advantages of micro-LEDs compared to conventional HB LEDs and expect that these will be enough to earn micro-LEDs a healthy share of the LED lighting market.
We are happy to announce the eighth edition of The OLED Handbook, the most comprehensive resource on OLED technology, industry and market - now updated for 2019. The OLED industry grows and changes very fast, and the new edition include new details on the OLED mobile display market, new production fabs in China, OLED TVs, flexible OLEDs and more.
The OLED handbook has been read by hundreds of display engineers, business developers, researchers, equipment vendors, OLED material companies, private investors and others who wished to learn more about OLEDs today and in the future. I truly believe that it is the best introduction to OLED displays and lighting!
Researchers from the Rochester Institute of Technology managed to vertically integrate nanowire gallium nitride (GaN) field-effect transistors (FETs) and indium gallium nitride (InGaN) LEDs. Such technology could be useful for future Micro-LED displays.
The researchers say that this integration could provide to enable smaller structures and more cost-effective processes compared to alternative light emitting architectures - such as high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) combined with LEDs.
Display signage company Daktronics introduced its first mini-LED display, branded as the Optica. The company says that it achieved a resolution "similar to LCD display resolution" but at much higher brightness levels (6,000 nits) while drawing half the power. Daktronics actually calls this a Micro-LED display, but as the pixel pitch is 0.9mm, it cannot really be called a micro-LED.
It is not clear whether Daktronics produces the display panel itself, and how close it is to commercialize this technology. Daktronics says that it is possible to scale up its Optica displays (to pretty much unlimited sizes) - a Full-HD (1080x1920) Optical display will be 1.037 x 1.8434 meter in size, while a 4K one will be 2.074x3.686 meters.
US and Sweden based Glo has been developing Micro-LED displays on both LTPS and CMOS (microdisplay) backplanes for many years. The company has been rather queit until now (even though the 2017 investment from Google created some buzz).
Glo has now started to disclose its technology and achievements. At CES 2019, Glo demonstrated two displays. First up is the 1.5-inch smartphone type display you can see in the image above. The 264 PPI 120Hz display is produced on a LTPS backplane and produces 4,000 nits brightness - you can see how it is much brighter compared to the LGD OLED in the Apple Watch next to it (1,000 nits max).
Korea-based LED developer Seoul Semiconductor announced it will soon introduce its innovate offering of Micro LED products for next generation displays.
Seoul Semiconductor says it is the world's second-largest LED maker (excluding the captive market) and it holds over 12,000 patents.
AU Optronics announced that it will accelerate its development of Micro-LED products. AUO started to ship mini-LED based LCD gaming monitor panels in Q4 2018, and will continue to develop mini-LED LCDs for other niche markets in 2019.
In July 2018 AUO said that micro-LEDs are still too expensive and not ready for mass production yet - even after years of R&D. Hopefully the company's views have now changed. AUO did say in 2018 that it plans to introduce micro-LEDs in "niche products" in the future.
Samsung Electronics reported its financial results for Q4 2018 - with revenues of $53 billion USD down 10% from Q4 2017, and an operating profit of $9.6 billion (down 29% from 2017).
Samsung says that its display innovation in 2019 will include launching foldable OLED displays - and MicroLED TVs.
Korea-based Lumens demonstrated a new monochrome-green FHD (1920x1080) micro-LED microdisplay (silicon substrate) at CES 2019.
Lumens is collaborating with the Korean Institute of Machinery & Material to develop Micro-LED production technologies and had plans to release its first monochrome 720p microdisplays by the end of 2017. but we do not know if these microdisplays are now available.
Fuji Chimera Research Institute says that the global microdisplay market reached $161 million in 2018, led by LCoS panels (59.7%) and OLED panels (27.8%).
While some analysts expect Micro-LED to take over the AR microdisplay market, Fuji Chimera says that the technology is not mature enough and there are some technology challenges to overcome still - including those in epitaxial wafer process, mass transfer, defect detection and current drive.