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Aixtron reports strong results for its recent quarter, with both revenues and profit significantly higher than last year, driven by strong demand for SiC production systems for power electronics.

Aixtron reports revenues of 19.6 million Euro (up from 6.9 million last year) for LED and microLED systems. There's a strong new momentum for microLED production systems, which accounted for 37% of the equipment order intake. This development was boosted by the continued development activities of Micro LED customers, who are continuing to invest in development and pilot lines for the commercialization of Micro LED technology.

Semiconductor wafer product supplier IQE launched a new portfolio of 200mm (8”) Red, Green and Blue epitaxial wafer products for microLED display qualification. The wafer epitaxy is based on GaN and GaAs materials.

IQE says that it plans to scale up its technology to 300 mm (12-inch) wafers, to enable more cost-effective solutions for microLED developers.

AR microLED microdisplay developer Mojo Vision announced that it has achieved a process milestone and has lit-up its first 300 mm GaN-on-Silicon blue microLED array wafer. The company says it is on track to maturing its 300 mm CMOS fab process.

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Mojo Vision is developing microdisplays based on blue LEDs and quantum dots color conversion. The company developed the world's highest density microLEDs, achieve up to 28,000 PPI (sub-micron LEDs).

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. 

InZiv announced a new industrial-level microLED inspection system, called the REL. The company says that this new system provides unprecedented speed wafer-level EL testing of microLEDs. The REL system can rapidly obtain EL measurements on a microLED wafer, with up to 6 million LEDs in 1 hour.

The company's unique technology offers repeatable, high- accuracy measurements, with no damage to the device. The system is fully compatible with both vertical and flip-chip designs. InZiv says that the REL offers the most critical and reliable microLED inspection on the market, enabling the advancement of all microLED applications. The company is already working on its next-generation system, which will double the output.

MicroLED developer VueReal says that it achieved a breakthrough in its MicroSolid Printing Platform, enabling it to go below 7um LED pitch (on the wafer) for full color microLED deposition. The company reports that its newest (and smallest) microLEDs show minimal impact on EQE, and this enables high-efficiency display production.

VueReal says that its new technology could soon compete on price with OLED displays while offering higher performance, and could be viable for many display segments - from wearables through smartphones to automotive and more. According to its current tests, its microLED displays will offer a brightness of 3,000 nits (and higher), while consuming around half the power compared to the latest AMOLED displays. In addition, its printing process is highly scalable and should not have a problem handling the demands of even the smartphone industry with hundreds of millions of displays per year.

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.

Researchers from the US and Korea, led by MIT, developed full-color vertically-stacked microLEDs that achieve the highest array density (5100 PPI) and the smallest size (4 µm) reported to date.

To end up with such high resolution and small microLED chip size, the researchers used a 2D materials based layer transfer (2DLT) technique. The resulting microLEDs, that have near-submicron thickness, are grown on 2D material-coated substrates, removed, and then stacked.