VR / AR

The European Electronics Display Conference (edC), which takes place next week at Nuremberg, Germany, is a leading display conference, which takes part as part of the embedded world event. The conference focuses on industrial and automotive displays, and includes two days of keynote speeches and sessions.

MicroLEDs are featured at the conference, as the organizers realize the importance of the next-generation display technology. We had a short talk with the conference charimen Prof. Dr. Karlheinz Blankenbach from Pforzheim University's Display Lab. 

Q: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Dr. Karlheinz. Can you tell us a bit about the Electronic Display Europe Conference?

China-based MicroLED microdisplay developer Jade Bird Display announced that it has developed a higher-efficiency AlGaInP-based (native) red microLED, that achieves a brightness of 750,000 nits, an increase of 50% compared to its currently-used emitter. The company says that this it the industry's brightest native red emitter.

JBD says that it managed to redistribute the local charge carriers by a breakthrough in surface treatment process and in this way, minimize the surface non-radiative recombination and boost the efficiency. The company says it expects to implement this technology in mass production by middle of 2023.

ClassOne Technology, a developer of advanced electroplating and wet processing tools for microelectronics manufacturing, says that it has received a follow-on order for its Solstice GoldPro gold electroplating system from a leading microLED maker with global manufacturing sites.

The new system will be used at the customer’s new manufacturing site in Asia for high-volume production of next-generation microLEDs deployed in a range of end applications.

We're happy to interview ClassOne Technology, as part of our series of interviews with MicroLED Industry Association members. ClassOne develops and sells high-performance electroplating and wet processing systems for the manufacture of advanced microelectronics, for both R&D and high-volume fab environments. For the microLED industry, ClassOne offers its Solstice single wafer electroplating and wet process platform, in addition to its reactor technology for the industry.

Q: Can you introduce your company and technology?

Joe Gaustad, Product Manager, ClassOne Technology: At ClassOne, our mission is to deliver the world’s highest performing and most elegantly designed electroplating and wet processing systems for the manufacture of advanced microelectronics. Engineered for maximum efficiency and flexibility on the manufacturing floor, our systems offer a comprehensive range of electroplating and wet process solutions validated, tested, fab proven, and designed for top performance in both high-volume and R&D fab environments.

Specialized Korea-based LED developer Lumens announced that it has developed a Monolithic RGB epitaxial wafers for micro-LED display production. The new technology stacks the three color LEDs on on top of the other on the wafer.

A comparison between Lumen's stacked RGB transfer process (bottom) and the standard process (top)

A stacked microLED architecture improves the performance, while also making the transfer process more productive. The company says that its design will offer a dramatic reduction in the production costs - especially the transfer process, which is reduced to a third (in terms of number of transfer steps), while also doing all the process from a single wafer.

TCL announced and demonstrated its latest AR smart-glasses, the RayNeo X2, which features a full color microLED display engine.

We do not have any information on the microLED display, but other specifications include a Snapdragon XR2 chipset and a wearable ring controller. The RayNeo 2 will ship to developers in Q1 2023, and TCL hopes to launch it as a commercial product later on.

In 2021, ams Osram announced that it will expand its LED production plant in Kulim, Malaysia, with an investment of around $850 million. Osram plans to produce mini-LED and micro-LED chips on 8-inch wafers in Kulim.

ams Osram already said it regards microLED as one of its key initiatives, and in a recent conference call the company's CEO emphasized that that microLED is one of the areas in which the company has clear advantages and is a market leader - and it will direct more efforts on microLEDs. The company is on track, it was revealed, to start microLED production in Kulim in 2024.

On February 7th the MicroLED Industry Association will host a private webinar on microLED technologies for the AR market. The AR market is a very good segment for microLED developers, as it offers high performance requirements, relative microLED maturity and an excellent horizon.

The upcoming Seminar will feature four world-leading speakers, and will also be open to a Q&A session, to help increase microLED developers knowledge and involvement in the AR industry:

• Karl Guttag: a display systems engineer, one of the most respected experts on near eye displays and HMD designs
• Assaf Levy-Beeri: CEO at JoyaTeam, an optical design team focusing on AR solutions
• Soon-gi Park: AR specialist at LetinAR, a Korea-based AR optical system developer
• Reza Chaji: CEO at microLED microdisplay developer VueReal (and a microLED association member)

In August 2022, we posted that both Samsung Display and LG Display started to develop microLED microdisplay technologies. According to a new report from Korea, Meta is in talks with both Korean companies regarding the future supply of both OLED and MicroLED microdisplays.

It is said that Samsung targets AR devices with its microLED microdisplay technology, while it targets VR devices with its OLED microdisplays. Samsung's microLED displays will achieve a resolution of 6,000 to 7,000 PPI (higher than its OLED devices).

Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), is introducing its latest microLED microdisplay technologies, and unveils its latest microdisplay prototype.

The 0.5" display offers full-color images (using blue LEDs and quantum-dots based color conversion), high resolution (over 2,000 PPI) and high brightness (over 20,000 nits). The display offers high power efficiency - ITRI says it consumes less than half the energy of current solutions (likely compared to OLED microdisplays).