BOE

In August 2023, China-based BOE HC Semitek started building its $700 million microLED epiwafer production line in Jinwan District, Zhuhai, China. In October 2024, the company announced that it started producing sample wafers.

A few days ago the company held a ceremony as it is starting to mass produce 6-inch microLED wafers, as the project enters its commercial stage. BOE now has a full microLED industry chain, from epiwafers to modules and applications.

In August 2023, China-based BOE HC Semitek started building its $700 million microLED epiwafer production line in Jinwan District, Zhuhai, China.

The company now held a ceremony marking the beginning of sample wafer production at the new line. This is the first phase of this project, and total investment to date is $275 million. It is likely that ramping up will take some time and full scale production of the first phase will take place later in 2025. When the fab is complete, with all three phases, it will have a yearly capacity of 58,000 6-inch microLED wafers. 

BOE had a large demonstrating at SID Displayweek 2024, showing several of its latest displays and prototypes - including many flexible and foldable OLED displays, automotive AMOLEDs, new OLED technology demonstrators and two OLED microdisplays.

BOE also showed a microLED display demonstrator, which it called the MicroLED Transformer Display, that included two panels that can connect in an almost seamless way (but not completely). The displays are flexible (curved) with a 0.3 mm pitch display (P0.3). Other specifications include a brightness of up to 2,000 nits (peak), and a refresh rate of 90Hz. 

China-based HC Semitek is embarking on a 5 billion Yuan project (almost $700 million USD) to produce microLED wafers in Jinwan District, Zhuhai, China. The project will have three phases, with the first one (estimated at $275 million) has officially started last month.

HC Semitek hopes to light up the new production line in September 2024, and to start production by December 2024. When all three phases are complete, the new production line will have a yearly capacity of 58,000 microLED wafers (we do not the wafer size at this project, but we estimate these are 8-inch wafers). It is not clear from the reports, but this production line may also produce mini LEDs, not just microLEDs.

BOE announced that it has developed a new high-transparency mini-LED directview display, that offers a transparency of 65% and a brightness of over 1,000 nits.

BOE says that it achieved this high performance by optimizing the pixel circuit and designing a new pixel structure. BOE also used a new innovative design for the transparent area (it achieved a transparency of 95% in the transparent areas) and an optimized wiring structure.

Yole Developpement updated its MicroLED industry IP landscape report, and the company presented some interesting findings.

The number of MicroLED patents is now over 8,900, filed by almost 480 organizations. 40% of the patent families have been published in 2020.

Yole Developpement reports that about 5,500 microLED patents (2,500 patent families) have been filed, by more than 350 organizations. The rate of patent filing is growing exponentially - 40% of the patents were filed in 2019.

According to Yole, the recent patent filing shows that the industry is moving from prototypes to commercial consumer displays. Other notable new finding include that startup companies are a major innovation force, Apple is slowing down with its IP (but this could mean that the company is now focused on commercialization), and Samsung pursues multiple development tracks. BOE is another strong microLED IP player, with almost 150 patent familiies filed in 2019.

In early 2019 Rohinni announced a collaboration with China-based display maker BOE, and now the companies announced that they are launching the JV as a separate company called BOE Pixey, which will design and build micro-LED based LCD display backlights and direct-emission displays - focusing on large-area displays (32-inch and up).

BOE Pixel will also develop related sensors for large-format displays. BOE Pixey integrates Rohinni's mini-LED and micro-LED manufacturing process with BOE's display panel production experience and leadership. The company says that first products that utilize its displays will reach the market in the second half of 2020.