MicroLED developer VueReal announced that it has raised $14.4 million in its latest (series B) funding round, led by Cycle Capital VC and joined by TDK, Vitro, Economic Development Canada and BDC Capital. VueReal says it will use the funds to enhance its production facility, expand the team, and gain new customers.

VueReal says that the new financing round will also enable it to offer a broader range of custom display products, for AR, smartwatches, smartphones, automotive, signage and transparent displays. Last year VueReal demonstrated high-brightness and high-transmittance transparent microLED displays which it is now offering to customers.

According to reports from Taiwan, PlayNitride is planning to IPO in 2022. PlayNitride started to sample micro-LED at the end of 2017, and in 2018 PlayNitride demonstrated its first Micro-LED prototypes. PlayNitride has a pilot production facility at Hsinchu Science Park. In 2020 PlayNitride started constructing a second production line that will start mass producing in H2 2021.

The company is also showcasing new microLED displays at Opto Taiwan 2021, which started today. The most interesting display is a 1.58" 256x256 Passive Matrix display. The company collaborated with Solomon Systech to develop the IC for this display. PlayNitride says that this display could be commercialization in 2022. PlayNitride have demonstrated PM-MicroLED displays before, together with RiTDisplay.

Tianma Microelectronics held its first "2021 Micro-LED Ecosystem Alliance Conference" in Xiamen, China, during which several producers and researchers gathered to discuss microLED technologies and challenges.

During the conferences, Tianma showed several new microLED prototype display, including some new ones. The first display is a 9.38" 960x480 (222 um pixel pitch) transparent LTPS panel. Tianma's second-gen transparent panel features higher transparency (>70%), larger size and a refined TFT process compared to the company's first-gen transparent microLEDs shown in 2019.

VueReal announced that it has received volume orders for its transparent displays from automotive and aerospace customers. The company is producing custom displays at its pilot production line in Canada.

Back in June VueReal demonstrated its first transparent microLED display. The display is between 3 and 4 inches in size, with high brightness (over 3,000 nits) and very high transparency (85%). Vuereal says that its microLED cartridge- and printing- based production process enables the production of custom displays with high yield and high throughput.

AUO Optronics is showing its latest microLED ALED display prototypes at SID DisplayWeek 2021. Most of these aren't new display (AUO already demonstrated these last month) but it's the first time we got these on video:

You can see the 1.39" 472x472 (338 PPI) full-circle microLED display, developed together with PlayNitride. You can also see AUO's 12.1-inch 169PPI microLED display it first demonstrated in SID 2020, and the 9.4-inch 228 PPI flexible microLED prototype it also developed together with PlayNitride.

AU Optronics released this nice video that shows its latest microLED display prototypes. First up is the company's 12.1" automotive display. This one features a 1920x720 (169 PPI) resolution, and is made on an LTPS backplane. This display was shown first in 2018.

The second display in the video is the flexible microLED developed in collaboration with PlayNitride. This is a 9.4" 228 PPI display, again driven by an LTPS backplane.

PlayNitride introduced several new display technologies at SID DisplayWeek 2020. First up we have the PixeLED Matrix, which is a tiled microLED display module based display, each produced on its own PCB.

Each PixeLED module is made from 16 pixels (4X4), and can reach pitches of 0.3-0.4 mm. PlayNitride says that this technology can compete with mini LED displays, and says that it achieves a superior contrast and can also be fitted on curved surfaces. PixeLED displays can be used for TV displays, for commercial signage displays and also for automotive lighting. The display can currently achieve a maximum brightness of 2,000 nits.

AU Optronics and PlayNitride announced that the two companies have developed a 9.4" 228 PPI flexible microLED display. The new display is driven by an LTPS backplane and the two companies say it delivers a large color gamut, is weather resistance and it is suitable for automotive applications.

AUO and PlayNitride has been collaborating on microLED display technologies for many years. In early 2019, AUO announce it plans to accelerate its development of Micro-LED products. The company previous prototype was a 12.1" 1920x720 (169 PPI) panel. In September 2019 AUO's president said that he expects Micro-LED displays to enter the market within 1-2 years, starting with large-area signage and small-sized VR displays.

USA-based eLux was established in 2016 as a spin-off from Sharp Labs of America, to commercialize a unique MicroLED production technology. The company was in stealth mode for a few years, and is now finally discussing its technology and business. We talked to the company's president and CEO Jong-Jan Lee, who explains the company's technology, status and plans.

eLux's technology is based on a unique approach that moves microLEDs from wafer to the target substrate without the need of a pick-and-place process. The so-called fluidic process uses microLEDs dispersed in liquid and wells built onto the substrate. The microLED dispersion is spread over the substrate and the LEDs simply fall into place - a sort of self-assembly process, which can be seen in the video above.

Rohinni demonstrated its latest technology and prototypes at CES 2020, and this interesting video shows the company's booth and provides an interview with the company's CEO.

On display you can see some flexible lighting prototypes, an LCD display backlighting unit that uses mini LEDs, automotive solutions developed by the Rohinni and Magma JV, keyboard backlights from its Luumii JV and finally some microLED display prototypes made by the BOE Pixey JV.