MicroLED-Info.com: the Micro-LED experts

PlayNitride says that in order to meet mass production goals, microLED chip prices will have to be reduced drastically. The company aims to reduce the production cost of microLED chips by 95% within five years.

PlayNitride's CEO, Charles Li, says that the main challenge right now is to reduce the cost and size of microLED chips. In addition microLED makers will have to integrate the entire supply chain - from LED wafer production and process to transfer technology, backplane production and display module fabrication. Good technologies are available for all these steps, but integration is now key.

This is a sponsored article by Dr Xiaoxi He, Principal Analyst, IDTechEx

MicroLED, believed by many to be the next generation of display technology, has been pursued by players of LED, display, OEM, materials and so on. Differentiated from LCD and OLED, microLED is considered to be the only display technology that has no size limitation. What are the potential applications? What are the hypes and realities? These are questions addressed in the brand-new IDTechEx report, “Micro-LED Displays 2020-2030: Technology, Commercialization, Opportunity, Market and Players”.

Various Motivations Are Driving the Progress of MicroLED Displays

Samsung Display has announced it is ending the LCD business and will focus on its QD LCD & OLED businesses. LG Display has halted its domestic production of LCD panels. Korean vendors tend to reduce their LCD panel production and shift to QLED & OLED. In addition, Panasonic and JDI are also getting out of the LCD business. AUO, Innolux and a few other Taiwanese companies are slowing down investment in LCD or OLED. As a comparison, LCD manufacturing is shifting to mainland China due to cost competence, new line production efficiency and industry chain support.

Epistar and Lextar announced plans to establish a joint holding company, effectively merging the two companies.

The plan is to delist both companies from Taiwan's stock exchange and list the new company by the end of October 2020. The two companies will continue to operate independently, but the holding company's main focus for its future revenue growth will be on mini LEDs and microLEDs products and technologies.

Helio Display Materials, based in the UK, was spun-off from both Oxford and Cambridge University, to commercialize photoluminescent and electroluminescent perovskite-based materials for the display industry - with solutions for the OLED, LCD and Micro-LED markets.

Our sister site, Perovskite-Info, posted an interview with Helio's CEO, Simon B. Jones, discussing the company's technology and business.

Samsung Electronics launched a new The Wall experience zone at the Galleria Department Store in Suwon, Korea. The company is showcasing a 146-inch microLED The Wall TV.

This is the first time Samsung is showcasing its microLED TVs to the public. The company said that it will expand this exhibition to other Galleria Department stores in Korea.

China-based MicroLED microdisplay developer Jade Bird Display announced a new 0.13" VGA microdisplay, which it says is the world's smallest microdisplay. This is a monochrome (red) display.

JBD did not yet share any details on this new display, but it says it will be launched by the end of 2020.

According to a report from Taiwan's Economic Daily news, a new mini-LED and micro-LED display factory is under planning in Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park. The new fab is built by Apple (who will invest $334 million) in collaboration with AU Optronics and Epistar.

According to the report, the Science Park Administartion approved Apple, Auo and Epistar's plan on February 18. The new fab will act as an expansion of Apple's existing display center in Taiwan.

Researchers from Seoul National University (SNU) in collaboration with KAIST, SAIT and the Korea Photonics Institute developed a new method to deposit MicroLEDs on sapphire nano-membranes which enables chip singulation without an etching process. This method can enable higher efficiency MicroLED devices.

The researchers say that this method improves the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) of the microLEDs by 44% compared to standard GaN microLEDs produced on regular planar substrates. The microLEDs also featured a reduced dislocation density (by 59.6%). According to their tests, the microLEDs provided 3.3X the photoluminescence compared to regular microLEDs.

Compound Photonics (CP) announced that its high-performance digital backplane is available for microLED developers to integrate into complete microdisplay subsystems. CP re-engineered its existing LCoS backplane to drive microLED pixels. The backplane supports 0.26" FHD displays.

microLED developers can utilize this backplane and also use CP’s monolithic integrated display module that supports a direct MIPI input and 240Hz refresh rates, packaged into a compact subsystem.

In April 2019, Korea-based driver IC developer MagnaChip announced it is starting to develop driver ICs for Micro-LED TVs, based on the company's 28-nm process.

During the company's Q1 2020 financial report, MagnaChip updated that its microLED TV DDIC is now expected to enter production in the first of 2021. MagnaChip believes Micro LED "represents an untapped market opportunity for growth".