Financial

Last month Apple decided to cancel its microLED Watch project, which had very bad consequences for many microLED developers. Ams-Osram is still considering its options and it estimates its loss at $650-900 million, while Singapore-based electronics assembly solutions provider Kulicke & Soffa announced that it was also effected, to the tune of $110-130 million as it cancelled its own project with Apple.

KLA Corporation recently announced that it is withdrawing from the FPD market altogether. The company entered this market when it bought Israeli Orbotech for $3.4 billion, developer of inspection equipment for the semiconductor and display industries. 

Following Apple's cancellation of its microLED Watch project, Singapore-based electronics assembly solutions provider Kulicke & Soffa announced that its own so-called Project W (probably referring to the Watch) is cancelled, following a project cancellation by a strategic customer, likely to be Apple. 

K&S says it expects charges, including impairments, in the range of $110-$130 million, most of it due to inventory write-downs and impairment charges relating to long-lived assets.

Belgium-based microLED microdisplay developer MICLEDI announced that it closes its Series A Funding round, to accelerate its development of high performance microLED arrays. VCs that participated in this round include imec.xpand, PMV, imec, KBC and SFPIM.

MICLEDI did not disclose the funding it received, but it did say that total funding in the company to date is nearly $30 million. In 2021, the company raised 7.1 million Euro, and in 2020 MICLEDI raised 4.5 million Euro in its Series-A round (which is now referred to by MICLEDI as its seed round, together with the 2021 round). Following its 2020 round we talked with the company's CEO who explains the company's technology and goals. If our calculation is correct, this new Series A round totaled around $17 million. 

AU Optronics announced an agreement with PlayNitride, to build a 6-inch microLED production line at AUO's Longtan factory. AUO will pay PlayNitride NT$700 million (around $21.5 million USD) for this new line.

AUO says that the new line will utilize PlayNitride's Chip-on-Carrier (COC) technology, that produces the microLEDs on temporary substrates ready for the transfer process. This will enable AUO to more easily realize the production of display panels based on these microLEDs. AUO says that this new line will also enable it to reduce microLED production costs. 

ams Osram is progressing with its microLED production fab project in Kulim, Malaysia, and the company has now signed a sale-and-lease agreement with three local Malaysian funds, with a total sum of 2 billion RM (or about $420 million USD). 

ams Osram will sell its Kulim facility (The building itself) to Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB), the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Retirement Fund (KWAP), and will lease it back for at least 10 years. The deal is expected to be formally signed by December 2023.

MicroLED developer Mojo Vision announced that it has closed its Series A funding round, raising $43.5 million. In April 2023 the company announced the first trench of its Series A funding ($22.4 million), which means that the company now raised $21.1 million.

This round was led by long-time investors (New Enterprise Associates and Khosla Ventures) and new investors (Vanedge Capital) with participation from several investors including Shanda Grab Ventures, Dolby Family Ventures, Advantech capital and Fusion Fund.

France-based microLED developer Aledia has closed a new financing round, raising €120 million from existing investors. The company also appointed Pierre Laboisse as its CEO (Giorgio Anania, the previous CEO, remains on the company’s board of directors).

Aledia's investors include CEA Investissement, Supernova Invest, and the SPI and Ecotechnologies funds. In 2020 Aledia announced that it plans to establish a 140 million euros LED production fab in Champagnier, near Grenoble in France. The company already raised 110 million Euros towards that goal, and now it has raised another significant amount of money. In total, the company raised over €360 million to date.

The German federal government and the Free State of Bavaria are looking into supporting ams-OSRAM in its aim to increase its optoelectronic components R&D investment at the company's Regensburg facilities. ams-OSRAM asked for subsidies of more than 300 million Euro, which will create 400 new high-tech jobs.

ams-OSRAM will use the funds to increase its R&D efforts, build new clean rooms, labs and pilot lines. The funds will include support for several projects, including UV-C LEDs for disinfection, NIR emitters for LiDAR applications, new components to support industry 4.0 applications - and microLED display technologies. The company has already started to build a 8” wafer pilot production line for microLEDs in Regensburg.