LED display market Leyard Optoelectronics announced that it developed the world's first mass-produced microLED display that uses quantum dots color conversion technology. Leyard collaborated with Saphlux (of which it owns around 12%).

Leyard adopted Saphlux's NPQD R1 micro LED technology, and have completed the development and testing of the display technology, and now it can mass produce NPQD-powered displays.

Researchers from the Beijing Institute of Technology and MIIT have developed perovskite quantum dots microarrays with strong potential for quantum dots color conversion (QDCC) applications including micro-LEDs displays.

Perovskite quantum dots (PQDs) hold potential as an attractive material and can resolve some of the problems found in conventional QDCC. While perovskite quantum dots are relatively new, they have already been shown to have attractive properties that make them extremely suited for electronic and optoelectronic applications.

Porous-GaN material platform developer Porotech announced a new technology that it brands as DynamicPixelTuning that makes it possible to create full-color or tunable-color monochrome displays using identical pixels from a single wafer.

Porotech says that DynamicPixelTuning displays will offer high color uniformity without the use of complex fabrication processes. The technology is applicable for all microLED display types, from microdisplays to mobile displays to TV displays.

Researchers from the National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) in Taiwan have found that by applying ALD Al₂O₃ passivation, it is possible to increase the external quantum efficiency of microLED chips.

The EQE of 5x5 um microLEDs was enhanced by 70%, and the EQE of 10x10 um chips was enhanced by 60%. The ALD passivation technology was also successfully used for the patterning of color-conversion QDs by inkjet printing (the passivation is used to prevent the quantum dots from photo-oxidation and degradation).

Researchers from Japan's Toyohashi University of Technology and the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University have developed a flexible, multipoint microLED array film that can be flexibly attached to cover the brain and can illuminate specific brain regions.

The manipulation of neural activity by light (enabled by optogenetics), requires a thin, flexible and lightweight lighting source that is not toxic to living tissue. The new microLED film is highly suitable for this task, and the researchers hope that such devices will create a new area of neuroscience research aimed at comprehensively understanding the brain information that underpins how neural activity, behaviors, and disorders are linked.

Researchers from the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) have developed a stretchable microLED display, that can be stretched in both directions. The researchers say that the display can stretched by up to 25% without distortion to the image.

The researchers report that they have managed to successfully fabricate a 3" microLED display. This was achieved by using metamaterials with unique mechanical properties that do not exist in nature - mainly that if they are stretched in one direction, they also stretch in the perpendicular dimension, and so the display is not distorted. They term the display a 'metadisplay'.

Quantum Dots developer Nanosys announced a joint-development agreement with OTFT backplane developer SmartKem, to work on low-cost OTFT based microLED displays.

1.6-inch LTPS microLED prototype (glo)

The two companies will develop displays that utilize SmartKem's OTFT backplane and Nanosys' GaN microLED technology. Last year Nanosys acquired glo, which developed the microLED tech.

Korea-based LED developer Seoul Viosys announced two microLED related breakthroughes developed together with researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

First of all, the researcher succeeded in developing blue and green micro LEDs with 1 μm diameter. Second, they have managed to overcome challenges of decreased EQE in red microLEDs at 70um. The EQE of the 70um red microLEDs have been increased by 150% compared to the company's previous designs.

US-based amorphous-metals based display backplane developer Amorphyx was awarded a $256,000 US NSF SBIR phase I grant towards a proof-of-concept demonstration of the company's 211 pixel circuit for AMOLED and microLED applications.

Amorphyx says that its 211 pixel circuit leverages the unique properties of the AMNR and IGZO AMeTFT device technologies to both improve upon the variable image refresh rate and power consumption improvements of LTPO while dramatically simplifying the pixel circuit's functionality and manufacturing. The Amorphyx backplane meets and exceeds LTPO performance while eliminating the LTPS TFT technology that drives the complexity of manufacturing LTPO backplanes.

Researchers from Korea's Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) developed a new process to produce microLED displays, which they say can be highly cost effective.

The new process is based on a novel film-like material developed at ETRI, called SITRAB. Using lasers, the process apparently detaches the microLED from the original epiwafer and bonds it to the SITRAB film in the same process step. The LEDs are then transferred to the final target backplane.