Researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas developed a new method to create highly flexible microLED chips, that can be folded and twisted. The LEDs are detachable, and can be attached to almost an surface.

The researchers used remote epitaxy, to grow the LED crystals on a sapphire crystal substrate, coated with a one-atom layer of 2D graphene, which prevents the LED to stick to the sapphire substrate.

Digitimes reports that Epistar's chairman, Lee Biing-jye says that he estimates that the first volume application for microLED displays is going to be in the smartwatch industry - but that will still take 3-4 years to actually materialize. Volume adoption in the TV market will take at least 4-5 years.

Epistar is developing microLED epitaxy and chip technology (in collaboration with AUO) and still has challenges to overcome, mainly in the mass transfer area. The company expects to achieve reliable production capabilities within 2-3 years. Epistar needs also to improve the yield rates for microLED epitaxy and reduce costs for mass transfer processes.

GaN-on-Si IP developer ALLOS Semiconductors announced it is collaborating with with Prof. Ohkawa and his team at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) to develop high efficiency nitride-based red LEDs on large diameter silicon substrates.

Prof. Ohkawa and team have developed an indium gallium nitride (InGaN)- based red LED stack with low forward voltage of less than 2.5 V and high efficiency by using local strain compensation and a modified MOCVD reactor design. ALLOS and the KAUST team will combine their unique technologies to handle strain and optimize crystal growth conditions for GaN-on-Si and red LEDs. To this end, the KAUST team will grow its red LED stack on top of ALLOS's GaN-on-Si-buffer layers, which will be fine-tuned during the collaboration to optimize the performance of KAUST's red LED stack.

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.

PlayNitride says that in order to meet mass production goals, microLED chip prices will have to be reduced drastically. The company aims to reduce the production cost of microLED chips by 95% within five years.

PlayNitride's CEO, Charles Li, says that the main challenge right now is to reduce the cost and size of microLED chips. In addition microLED makers will have to integrate the entire supply chain - from LED wafer production and process to transfer technology, backplane production and display module fabrication. Good technologies are available for all these steps, but integration is now key.

Epistar and Lextar announced plans to establish a joint holding company, effectively merging the two companies.

The plan is to delist both companies from Taiwan's stock exchange and list the new company by the end of October 2020. The two companies will continue to operate independently, but the holding company's main focus for its future revenue growth will be on mini LEDs and microLEDs products and technologies.

Researchers from Seoul National University (SNU) in collaboration with KAIST, SAIT and the Korea Photonics Institute developed a new method to deposit MicroLEDs on sapphire nano-membranes which enables chip singulation without an etching process. This method can enable higher efficiency MicroLED devices.

The researchers say that this method improves the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) of the microLEDs by 44% compared to standard GaN microLEDs produced on regular planar substrates. The microLEDs also featured a reduced dislocation density (by 59.6%). According to their tests, the microLEDs provided 3.3X the photoluminescence compared to regular microLEDs.

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

In December 2019, China-based display maker Konka launched its tiled large micro-LED displays, under the APHAEA brand. The company demonstrated two such displays - a 118" 4K one that costs $240,000 and a 236" 8K one that costs $1.25 million.

Konka is gearing up to produce its own MicroLED and miniLED chips, and has ordered several Aixtron production systems, specifically the AIX G5+ C and AIX 2800G4-TM MOCVD systems. Konka will use these CVD reactors to produces GaN-based and AsP-based microLEDs and miniLEDs.

Taiwan-based Unity Opto Technology announced plans to invest $1.9 billion NT (around $64 million USD) to setup six new production lines for mini-LEDs and micro-LEDs.

Unity Opto Technology, established in 1993, develops and markets a wide variety of LED products, including LED packages, LED back lighting for displays and automotive LED products.