September 2023

Samsung Electronics announced that it has installed a 255-inch microLED The Wall display at Lucid Motors' design studio, to enhance the collaborative design process for their future electric vehicle models.

Lucid's design managers explains that the microLED displays enables the to visualize the future of its vehicles in high resolution at all stages of development. The extremely large displays enables designers to view cars in a 1:1 true-to-life scale, with true-life color reproduction to create a realistic rendering of a new car design.  

Just Video Wall, a system integrator that focuses entirely on microLED displays, has launched a MicroLED TV design tool that aims to make the MicroLED quoting process easier. 

The company says that their patent-pending design tool enables custom display professionals to enter the MicroLED space by starting with the project parameters, not the product lines or individual specs. The system presents the best range of possible options, based on a questionnaire derived from years of experience in installation and application.

Innovation Semiconductor is a US-based early stage company that develops technologies for color-tunable vertically-integrated microLED displays. The company's CTO and co-founder Matthew Hartensveld will give a lecture at the upcoming MicroLED-Connect virtual webinar on November 2023, and was kind enough to answer a few questions we had.

Hello Matthew, can you give us a short intro to your company and microLED product/service?

Innovation Semiconductor is a pioneering microLED startup offering comprehensive monolithic display solutions. We're advancing unique technologies like GaN-based MOSFETs and microLEDs on one wafer. Additionally, we're crafting color-adjustable microLEDs all while using standard semiconductor equipment.

What will you talk about during the microLED Connect's event?

During the microLED Connect's event, I will discuss our innovative approach to color-tunable microLEDs. We utilize strain engineering to produce regions with varying Indium content, enabling red to blue emission from a singular InGaN material system. We've also fabricated prototype arrays to demonstrate the capabilities of this technology.

Researchers from Korea's ETRI institute developed a new chip packaging material, that is said to reduce the power consumption of the process by 95%, and reduce the number of required stages from 8 to 3. This could make semiconductors production much more efficient and lower in cost. 

The technology is applicable to all high-end semiconductor production - including microLED production. Indeed the team reports that they have reached out to several microLED developers to evaluate the technology, and the initial testing has been very positive. The material could be commercialized in three years.

The German federal government and the Free State of Bavaria are looking into supporting ams-OSRAM in its aim to increase its optoelectronic components R&D investment at the company's Regensburg facilities. ams-OSRAM asked for subsidies of more than 300 million Euro, which will create 400 new high-tech jobs.

ams-OSRAM will use the funds to increase its R&D efforts, build new clean rooms, labs and pilot lines. The funds will include support for several projects, including UV-C LEDs for disinfection, NIR emitters for LiDAR applications, new components to support industry 4.0 applications - and microLED display technologies. The company has already started to build a 8” wafer pilot production line for microLEDs in Regensburg. 

With summer nearing its end and the new year right around the corner, we thought a few updates were in order! It's been a busy year at MicroLED-Info.

In 2022, we launched the MicroLED Industry Association, to serve as an international industry forum to promote microLED technologies and collaboration. The association closed a successful first year, growing to over 40 companies, including leading microLED developers, supply chain companies, researchers, and more. We have organized 11 webinars and meetups, published four white papers and the microLED Library - and conducted our first onsite meeting during Display Week 2023.

We have exciting plans for the second year of the MicroLED Association, including two onsite meetings (one in Europe, and one in the US), the publication of our first roadmap, and a drafting of suggested practices as part of a first industry standards document.

Here are some recent and popular MicroLED stories featured at MicroLED-Info, in case you missed it:

• LG Electronics launches a 118-inch 4K MAGNIT MicroLED TV
• MicroLED Connect: the world's first microLED-focused industry event
• JBD starts shipping full-color RGB microLED microdisplay samples
• PlayNitride to expand its production volume to 10,000 6-inch wafers per month
• The MicroLED Association reports over 2000 downloads for its white papers
• Samsung Display developed a 0.25" Full-HD microLED AR microdisplay
• SID Displayweek 2023 - MicroLED summary
• TrendForce: the microLED chip market is set to reach $580 million in 2027
• Mojo Vision developed the world's highest density red microLED microdisplay
• TrendForce: Apple delays the launch of its microLED smartwatch further to 2026
• HC Semitek starts building a $700 million microLED production line in Zhuhai, China
• Samsung Electronics launches a $100,000 89-inch microLED TV in Korea
• AUO to convert one of its LCD fabs to microLED production by 2025
• KAIST researchers create microLEDs that are not sensitive to sidewall defects
• DSCC: LGD to build a microLED backplane line for Apple by the end of 2024

We're happy to interview GE, as part of our series of interviews with MicroLED Industry Association members. GE offers narrow band red and green phosphor technologies known as KSF and PFS, suitable for microLED color conversion.

Can you introduce your company and technology?

Rachel Cassidy, PhD, MBA: The General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational company. For more than 125 years, GE has invented the future of industry. Today, GE is best known for its work in the Power, Renewable Energy, Aviation and Healthcare industries.

GE’s Licensing team provides access to GE’s patent portfolio and technical and intellectual resources. Licensees receive world-leading technology paired with advice and guidance to accelerate their technology development and achieve market differentiation.

The GE LED Phosphors team has world class chemistry and physics expertise as well characterization capabilities that have resulted in commercial successes in both lighting and LCD display technologies. Multimillion-dollar yearly revenue, multiple awards, hundreds of patents, over 20 licensees of our patents, along with various publications and invited conference presentations show that this team is on the cutting edge of luminescent material development and can advance from concept to invention to commercialization. Our narrow band red phosphor technology known as KSF (K2SiF6:Mn) can be found in over 60 billion LEDs as well as remote films for miniLED applications sold into the display industry.  The great success of KSF phosphor in the display industry is due to the high color gamut and energy efficiency that has best in class reliability.

Visionox demonstrated a new microLED display prototype, a 58-inch tiled display, made from a matrix of 16 modules (each 14.5" in size). The display offers a 10-bit color depth, 240Hz refresh rate, and an ultra-high contrast.

Visionox says that the new display uses 25 um microLED chips, and utilizes China's first dedicated microLED driver IC and a TFT backplane (likely LTPS). From the image we have, it seems as if there are much more than 16 modules, and the seams are quite visible, this seems to be an early-stage display prototype.

Sony launches a new Crystal LED display, the VERONA, purpose-built to meet the needs of virtual production applications. Sony says that these new displays is tailored for filmmakers, bringing new levels of quality and efficiency to in-camera VFX applications.

For the VERONA, Sony developed new anti-reflection surface coating, which also enabled deeper blacks. Sony says that this innovative technology significantly reduces the difference in contrast between the image projected on the LED display and the actor(s) performing in front of it on set – blending virtual and real in a natural way, reducing time and cost required for post-shooting adjustments. VERONA displays also offer high brightness (1,500 nits), and a wide color gamut (97% DCI-P3). Most importantly the VERONA uses high performance LED drivers that support refresh rates up to 7,650Hz (!) to drastically reduce scanline artifacts on the camera.