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.
Researchers from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed new GaN nanowire-based ultraviolet LEDs that are five times as bright as regular LEDs. The new design uses a silicon-doped GaN nanowire core coated with a shell made from magnesium-doped GaN and Aluminum.
The nanowires are built in a p-i-n structure and the researcher say that adding the Aluminum to the shell of the LED helps confine electrons to the nanowire core by introducing an asymmetry in the electrical current which boost the electroluminescence of the device.
Researchers from the Rochester Institute of Technology managed to vertically integrate nanowire gallium nitride (GaN) field-effect transistors (FETs) and indium gallium nitride (InGaN) LEDs. Such technology could be useful for future Micro-LED displays.
The researchers say that this integration could provide to enable smaller structures and more cost-effective processes compared to alternative light emitting architectures - such as high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) combined with LEDs.
HDTVTest posted an interesting interview with Cadmium-Free QD developer Nanosys CEO and president Jason Hartlove. In this long interview Jason discusses the company's technology and recent achievements.
Jason explains that producing an RGB Micro-LED has many challenges as each color micro-LED chip is different - and different color LEDs need slightly different voltages and drive currents. The mechanical placement of these chips is also much more difficult for three colors. Using single-color (blue) Micro-LED chips and color-converting them using QDs makes a lot of sense for such displays - with easier manufacturing, longer lifetime, less differential aging (burn-in) and a wider color gamut.
UK-based GaN-on-Si MicroLED developer Plessey Semiconductor announced a partnership with Quantum Dots developer Nanoco. Plessey aims to integrate Nanoco's cadmium-free quantum dots into its micro-LED displays.
Using a quantum-dot coating, Plessey will be able to use only blue micro-LEDs in its microdisplays, and convert the blue light to red and green to create full-color displays (in a similar way to today's QD-enhanced LCD displays). Plessey says that this design will enable it reduce its pixel pitch from 30 µm to just 4 µm, a reduction of 87%. The QD-enhanced micro-LEDs will also have a wide color gamut and will be more energy efficient compared to Plessey's current phosphor-based architecture.
In November 2017 Veeco and ALLOS Semiconductors announced that the two companies have completed their micro-LED strategic initiative and demonstrated 200mm GaN-on-Si wafers for blue and green micro-LED production. ALLOS proprietary epitaxy technology was transferred onto Veeco's Propel Single-Wafer MOCVD System to enable micro-LED production on existing silicon production lines.
Yesterday ALLOS and Veeco announced the completion of another phase of their mutual effort to provide the industry with leading GaN-on-Silicon epiwafer technology for microLED production. The two companies now demonstrated the reproducibility of ALLOS’ 200 mm GaN-on-Si epiwafer technology on Veeco’s Propel MOCVD reactor when producing epiwafers for many prominent global consumer electronics companies.
UK-based GaN-on-Si MicroLED developer Plessey Semiconductor announced a strategic partnership with Taiwan's Taiwan's Jasper Display Corp (JDC). Under the new partnership, Plessey will use JDC's silicon backplane to drive its monolithic micro-LED displays produced on the company's proprietary GaN-on-Silicon (GaN-on-Si) wafers.
In May 2018 JDC demonstrated its latest JD27E2 8" wafer, and a 0.7" Full-HD monochrome (960x540 color) microLED microdisplay that is said to be the world's brightest at 100,000 nits (JDC later demonstrated a million nits micro display). JDC's backplane allows Plessey to fabricate highly efficient and ultra-bright micro-LEDs displays.
UK-based Optovate recently announced that it has developed a parallel aligned Micro-LED transfer process. Today the company revealed more details about its Micro-LED technology.
Optovate p-LLO transfer process
Since 2008, Optovate develops catadioptric micro-optic arrays to enhance the benefits of micro-LED, mini-LED and OLED displays. The company also developed a patterned laser lift-off (p-LLO) micro-LED transfer process.