China-based microLED microdisplay developer JBD announced that it has completed a major upgrade of its microLED microdisplay mass-production architecture, and has shifted from 4-inch manufacturing to a 12-inch reconstructed wafer platform. This is a sort of medium step before full 12-inch LED epiwafer deposition.
JBD says that the current wafer mismatch between the 4-inch LED wafer and the 12-inch silicon backplane wafer has become a key factor limiting cost efficiency and substrate utilization. JBD has integrated its "die-to-carrier-to-wafer" bonding scheme into its volume production architecture. Under this process, small-format epitaxial wafers are diced into individual dies, followed by pre-bond inspection and sorting to identify and remove defective chips at an early stage. Qualified dies are then reconstituted onto a temporary 12-inch carrier substrate with high placement accuracy and uniformity, creating a reconstructed epitaxial wafer for subsequent wafer-level bonding with a matching 12-inch silicon backplane.
JBD says that its new approach and architecture enable significantly more efficient utilization of silicon backplane wafers, mitigates the impact of epitaxial defects before they are carried into finished devices, reduces variability in downstream processing, and materially improves yield. More importantly, it combines the proven process maturity of small-format epitaxy with the scale advantages of advanced 12-inch backplanes.
This provides a practical pathway to upgrade the manufacturing system before native 12-inch epitaxy becomes commercially viable at scale. It also establishes a more stable manufacturing foundation for high-precision hybrid bonding. As pixel pitches continue to shrink, MicroLED microdisplays will increasingly depend on advanced-node silicon backplanes.
Towards the end of 2025, JBD launched a new color projector module, branded as Roadrunner I. The Roadrunner I projector utilizes JBD's latest 10,160 PPI (2.5 um pitch) Hummingbird monochrome microLED microdisplay, that JBD announced some months ago. Built on an X-cube architecture, "Roadrunner I" is engineered down to just 0.2 cubic centimeters in volume and only 0.5 grams in weight. It could be that in the future JBD will extend the Griffin platform to also include a color projector built from 3 monochrome panels. JBD also recently launched an automotive-grade microLED projection system.
In October 2025, JBD completed its Series B2 financing round, raising $140 million only a few months after JBD completed its series B1 round. In 2024, JBD raised its A4 round, which was also said to be in the range of "hundreds of millions of Yuan". The company's previous investors include Alibaba, Samsung, BYD and Geely. BYD is said to be working with JBD to develop MicroLED automotive applications.
In 2023 JBD announced that its $92 million production line in Hefei is starting production. The production line's total capacity is 120 million 0.13" panels, but it hasn't yet reached its full capacity.
JBD is the first company that has been mass producing microLED microdisplays. The company reported several design wins, including with Xiaomi, TCL, Alibaba, Vuzix and likely Meta for its Orion glasses. In 2023, JBD started shipping engineering samples of single-panel RGB microLED microdisplays, branding these as the Phoenix series, while its monochrome panels are now branded as Hummingbird. The Phoenix series is designed to be used with 50+ degree FOV waveguides.
