Lumens

Last year we reported that India's Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) is considering supporting the construction of a microLED production line in India, or to support the establishment of a supply chain for microLED development and production.

Yesterday the Indian government has approved a new project in Gujarat, by Crystal Matrix Limited, to establish a microLED and mini-LED production facility. The new fab, to be located in Dholera, Gujarat, will produce 6-inch GaN microLED and miniLED wafers, and will also produce mini-LED and micro-LED displays. The project's total cost is estimated at 3200 Cr INR (or about $336 million USD).

Redefining Automotive Illumination

ShangHai JingHe Photoelectric Technology Co., LTD. (JHETECH), a leading Chinese innovator in specialized Micro-LED chip solutions for the automotive headlamp, is proud to announce the launch of its groundbreaking Micro-LED chip, the HuaXin™.

JHETECH HuaXin™ Micro-LED Chips

The advancement of assisted driving technology is transitioning automotive headlamps into a digital era, allowing them to project critical safety alerts and interactive information onto the road. However, current projection headlamps face two key constraints: their projection modules lack primary illumination capability, and the requirement to integrate separate low-beam and high-beam units leads to structural complexity and high cost. Micro-LED is an emerging digital light source, currently prominent in display and general projection. The next generation of Micro-LED automotive light sources, characterized by high pixel density, high power, and superior brightness, will not only offer advanced projection functions but also possess the capability to fully replace conventional high and low beam illumination. The ECE has released regulations concerning automotive lighting projection recently. Several leading automotive brands, including Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, and China's NIO, have already adopted or plan to integrate Micro-LED headlamp projection into their high-end models.

The HuaXin™ Micro-LED chip is the definitive core component for high-resolution front-lighting. Engineered for unmatched precision, it directly enables adaptive, glare-free high beams and high-definition road projection capabilities, driving the future of automotive safety and design. To further accelerate customer Design-in, JHETECH also offers the ultra-precise HuaQing™ Onboard Projection System as a comprehensive reference platform.

Specialized Korea-based LED developer Lumens announced that it has developed a Monolithic RGB epitaxial wafers for micro-LED display production. The new technology stacks the three color LEDs on on top of the other on the wafer.

A comparison between Lumen's stacked RGB transfer process (bottom) and the standard process (top)

A stacked microLED architecture improves the performance, while also making the transfer process more productive. The company says that its design will offer a dramatic reduction in the production costs - especially the transfer process, which is reduced to a third (in terms of number of transfer steps), while also doing all the process from a single wafer.

Chinese LED producer ShineOn has unveiled a new MicroLED display prototype branded as IconiView at the Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition (GILE 2019). The display is a 139" 4K panel developed jointly by ShineOn and Korea-based MicroLED developer Lumens.

The IconiView display utilizes a Flip-Chip-On-Module (COM) LED technology and features a brightness of over 2,000 nits and a contrast ratio of 3000:1. ShineOn says that the product "has been verified" and can be mass produced.

Korea-based Lumens demonstrated a new monochrome-green FHD (1920x1080) micro-LED microdisplay (silicon substrate) at CES 2019.

Lumens is collaborating with the Korean Institute of Machinery & Material to develop Micro-LED production technologies and had plans to release its first monochrome 720p microdisplays by the end of 2017. but we do not know if these microdisplays are now available.

Korea-based LED developer Lumens is developing a Micro-LED based HUD for the automotive aftermarket, and at CES the company demonstrated two prototypes, a Direct-HUD and a project-based one.

Lumen's HUDs use three monochrome (RGB) Micro-LED panels, which combined can reach 100,000 nits. The project one uses a projection lens for the image magnification. The smaller HUD uses the Micro-LED directly as the output to the combiner.

According to LEDsInside, Korea-based LED developer Lumens has begun to produce small and large-area micro-LED display prototypes, and it plans to demonstrate these prototypes at CES 2018 (January 2018).

Lumens focuses on automotive HUD displays and digital signage. The small HUD display is a 0.57-inch VGA (640x480) display (either VGA or 720p, it's not clear) that uses 8 μm LED chips while the signage display is a 100" panel that uses LEDs which are 300x100 μm.

The Korean Herald posted an interesting interview with Jung Tae-hong, the president of Korea-based LED developer Lumens. Jung reveals that the company is developing an HD Micro-LED based automotive Heads-Up-Display (HUD), with plans to release its first such display by the end of 2017.

Lumens believes that Micro-LED displays are very suitable for HUDs as they can offer better usability under direct sunlight compared to LCD or OLED displays, and they can withstand high temperatures. In 2017 Lumens will launch a combiner-type HUD for the automotive aftermarket, and will introduce a built-in version within 2-3 years.