MicroLED-Info is happy to announce the 2025 edition of The MicroLED Handbook. This book is the industry's trusted and comprehensive guide to MicroLED display technology, industry and market. MicroLED displays are thin, efficient, bright and flexible and are on track to revolutionize the display industry. The handbook is now updated to January 2025 and lists recent developments and new companies, initiatives, products and research activities.

Reading this book, you'll learn all about:

• MicroLED technology, materials and production processes
• How MicroLEDs compare to LCDs and OLEDs
• What are the challenges towards commercial production
• LED technology and manufacturing processes
• MicroLED driving and full-color architectures
• The MicroLED displays currently on the market

The book also provides: an in-depth guide to MicroLED Microdisplays, potential applications of MicroLED displays, a comprehensive list of MicroLED companies, an introduction to other emerging display technologies (such as quantum dots and OLEDs), a current overview of the MicroLED market, market and industry forecasts and much more!

Plessey Semiconductors, together with Meta Platforms, announced that they have developed a native red microLED microdisplay that achieves up to 6 million nits with a chip size of 5 um. Plessey says that this is world's brightest microLED device at this size.

In March 2020, Meta signed a deal with Plessey to dedicate all of Plessey's microLED manufacturing operations to support Meta with its own product development. Facebook pretty much acquired Plessey's microLED operations with this exclusive deal. 

AUO collaborated with Sony Honda Mobility and demonstrated a microLED "media bar" mounted on the exterior of Sony Honda's AFEELA 1 car, at CES 2025. AUO says that this is a groundbreaking application that connects the cockpit to the world outside the vehicle, inspiring innovative car designs. 

This is indeed the first application of Micro LED displays on a vehicle’s exterior. The two companies explain that the Media Bar can be used to show a diverse range of information, including charging status and vehicle details with unobstructed visibility. Vehicle occupants could engage with the outside world from within the cockpit by displaying personalized content on the media bar, such as videos, pictures, and unique messages.

Hisense has unveiled the 136MX MicroLED TV, a 136-inch tiled microLED TV that it said to be "consumer ready". This is a 4K 120Hz TV that offers high brightness (up to 10,000 nits) and is powered by Hisense's flagship Hi-View AI Engine X. Other features include Variable Refresh Rate, Auto Low Latency Mode, and support for FreeSync Premium Pro. The 136MX runs on Hisense's own VIDAA smart OS platform.

Hisense did not yet reveal whether it plans to release this TV anytime soon, and at what price. But we can expect this to be an ultra-premium product, like all other microLED TVs.

At CES 2025, Samsung is showing an interesting microLED application, a smart mirror device. The idea is to provide a mirror with a display on top, that can scan your face and recommend treatment solutions to tailor your skin. 

Samsung said that it employed a "aluminum and niobium micro-patterned mirror structure" to provide a 80% mirror-level reflectance. The mirror (and display) is 21-inch in size. It seems as if this is just a demonstration project, it is not likely to turn into a commercial product anytime soon.

Samsung is showing an interesting new TV prototype at CES 2025, a 98-inch 8K microLED-backlit LCD TV. Moving forward from miniLED backlighting to microLED backlighting enables even more dimming zones (at least 3X as many LEDs as its miniLED TVs) - and so increase energy efficiency and contrast.

Samsung calls the new TV an "RGB MicroLED", which continues the company tradition of unfortunate LED TV naming, although what samsung tries to say is that it uses RGB microLEDs as opposed to its miniLED platform which uses blue LEDs with QD color conversion. These new native RGB microLEDs are also supposed to be brighter than Samsung's miniLEDs, another advantage.

France-based microLED developer and MicroLED Association member Aledia announced that it has finished the construction of its $200 million microLED production line in Grenoble, and the company is now starting to produce AR microLED microdisplays based on its 3D Nanowire platform.

The new microLED microdisplays are full color displays, based on monolithically grown native red, green and blue devices. The company says that is 3D GaN Nanowire material platform is more efficient and bright than regular (2D) LEDs. The company grows the LED on 8-inch and 12-inch silicon wafers, and can currently ramp up to almost 20,000 monthly wafers.

Samsung Display is demonstrating its first microLED wearable display prototype, at CES 2025. The company did not share many specifications, beyond saying that the brightness is 4,000 nits peak, which makes it brighter than the 3,000 nits Apple Watch OLED display.

Samsung started developing wearable microLED displays back in 2023, hoping that Samsung Electronics will release a first product by the end of 2025. This was delayed, but it is great to see SDC showing this display publicly for the first time.

AUO is showcasing its latest microLED technologies at CES 2025, focusing on automotive solutions, under the Smart Cockpit 2025 platform. The company is demonstrating several novel applications, enabled by the transparent and flexibility of microLED displays.

So first up we have the Virtual Sky Canopy, and XR Interactive Window technology - both of these adopt the use of tiled transparent microLED displays to embed within the car windows and windows, and extend the display beyond the normal instrument cluster and information displays.

MicroSolid Printing pioneer VueReal is going to unveil several new technologies and products at CES, as the company gets ready for microLED display commercialization. VueReal wants companies to take advantage of the unique properties of microLED displays (mainly the customized production process and the high transparency and high brightness) and this year it will focus on new applications that can be enabled only by microLEDs.

First up, VueReal is launching new microLED Design Reference Kits to enable product designers to buy display samples and integrate into new designs. The first kit will provide microLED-powered lighting panels. These resemble OLED lighting panels - area lighting that is uniform. But unlike OLEDs, microLEDs will provide high brightness, long lifetime, and reduced costs. These are basically monochrome simple displays, and VueReal will offer either in native colour (R, G, B) or phosphor coated (white, red, amber).