ams-osram

Apple's microLED projects and goals have been reported and rumored many times in the past, and now the respected Nikkei Asia newspaper posted an interesting article with new details of Apple's microLED plans. Some parts of this plan were already published by other reporters, note.

According to the new report, Apple is aiming to get more involved in display manufacturing, to increase its control over its supply chain, and reduce its reliance on Samsung Display specifically. Apple has decided, therefore, to handle the LED transfer (pick-and-place) process by itself, at its R&D facilities in Longtan, Taoyuan, Taiwan. 

Aixtron announced today that ams OSRAM has qualified Aixtron's AIX G5+ C and G10-AsP MOCVD systems on 200mm wafers for a Micro LED production.

ams Osram will be using Aixtron's systmes at its upcoming 200 mm mass production line in Malaysia, which is expected to begin production in 2024.

In 2021, ams Osram announced that it will expand its LED production plant in Kulim, Malaysia, with an investment of around $850 million. Osram plans to produce mini-LED and micro-LED chips on 8-inch wafers in Kulim.

ams Osram already said it regards microLED as one of its key initiatives, and in a recent conference call the company's CEO emphasized that that microLED is one of the areas in which the company has clear advantages and is a market leader - and it will direct more efforts on microLEDs. The company is on track, it was revealed, to start microLED production in Kulim in 2024.

ams Osram announced that it will expand its LED production plant in Kulim, Malaysia, with an investment of around $850 million.

The new fab will produce LED chips and microLED chips, on 8-inch wafers. ams Osram regards microLED as one of its key initiatives, but also sees the market a few years away.

In a recent conference call, Alexander Everke, the CEO at LED and sensor developer ams Osram, remarked that microLED is one of the company's key initiatives.

The microLED market, according to Everke, is "clearly a few years away", but the company plans to invest in the technology to make sure it stays ahead of the curve, as it wants to position itselff as the clear microLED leader.

Kyocera and OSRAM have jointly designed a new hybrid current and PWM driving technology for microLED displays. The two companies says that this new driving scheme can be used to avoid using lower pixel currents through microLED chips, which reduces the deviation of the luminance and the color shift at lower grayscale levels.

Kyocera has presented a 3.9" full-color microLED display on an LTPS backplane that showed excellent performances that proves the validity of the new driving technology.

German-based GaN-on-Si developer ALLOS announced that it has sold its high-power electronics and RF business to AZUR SPACE. ALLOS will now focus its business on the microLED display market.

ALLOS Semiconductors developed its GaN-on-Si epiwafer technology for both high power electronics and Micro LED applications, but the time has come to focus on one market. The company says its 200 and 300 mm epiwafer technology is crucial in meeting the uniformity, crystal quality and manufacturability requirements of the novel Micro LED display applications.

German-based GaN-on-Si developer ALLOS has applied its technology to large 300 mm epiwafers. ALLOS says that scaling up to 300 mm wafers enables higher production efficiencies and thus lower costs. ALLOS estimates that the higher area utilization alone accounts for a cost advantage of 40% compared to standard LED wafers. Standard 300 mm silicon line tools also offer higher production uniformity and yield.

ALLOS demonstrated the 300 mm scale-up using a reactor made by Veeco who announced selling the first 300 mm GaN reactor to a leading-edge semiconductor fab just some month ago and also showed 300 mm wafer data at CES. ALLOS reports a wavelength uniformity of consistently below 1 nm and "all other production requirements like bow of

The Germany Bavarian state ministry for regional development has funded a new three-year project to develop transparent micro-LED displays for automotive applications.

The SmartVIZ project consortium consists of Osram, Fraunhofer IISB and ASM Amicra. The partners aim to develop direct-view high-resolution transparent and demonstrate a prototype in October 2021.