2018 has been a tough year for panel producers due to the dropping panel price caused by oversupply. Chinese panel makers are still expanding their production capacities for LCD and OLED displays, putting pressures on other industry players. Samsung is closing its 8.5 generation production line in 2019 and shifting the focus to QD-OLED panels in response to the price competition. LG Display also plans to expand its OLED production capacities in China and Korea targeting large sized TV displays. It is estimated that by 2020, the OLED investment of LG Displ...

Having looked back at the industry updates of Micro LED technology, let’s keep on reviewing the technology breakthroughs of Micro LED in the past year. KAIST Team Develops Flexible Vertical Micro LED to Cure Hair loss Problem In January, a researcher team at KAIST announced the development of flexible vertical micro LEDs (f-VLEDs). These f-VLEDs achieved optical power density (30 mW/mm2) three times higher than that of lateral Micro LEDs and can be applied to optogenetics for controlling the behavior of neuron cells and brains with...

For the LED and panel industry, the year of 2018 had a dramatic start with Samsung’s revealing of its Micro LED TV “The Wall” at the CES show. Since then, players in the industry have been releasing their achievements related to the next generation display technology. Several innovative solutions and applications have been disclosed in the past year including large size displays and wearable devices. As LEDinside has continued to track the progress of Micro LED development, we would like to list the significant breakthroughs and industry updates...

Epitaxy wafers are key to the technology development of Micro LED displays. As Micro LED chips are extremely small, the quality of epitaxy wafers including wavelength uniformity and low defect becomes critical for further production process. AIXTRON, the German-based technology company, has illustrated how its MOCVD systems can significantly improve wavelength uniformity and decrease defect density of Micro LED epitaxy wafer with its article, titled “AIXTRON’s MOCVD Technology Breakthrough for Micro LED High Volume Manufacturing....

Developing cost-effective methods for transferring Micro LEDs is critical for the commercialization of Micro LED display technology. How to accurately assemble numerous tiny sized Micro LEDs to targeted places efficiently has been one of the biggest challenges for worldwide Micro LED technology developers. Uniqarta, a U.S.-based startup who focuses on developing innovative assembly methods for integrated circuit (IC), has shared with LEDinside how its laser-based transfer technology can be applied for Micro LEDs. Its article, titled “Laser-Enabled E...

The key for commercializing Micro LED technology is to holistically improve the manufacture process and to achieve cost-effective high volume production of Micro LED displays. Major industry players in the production chain from the LED chip makers, transfer technology developers to panel producers and end products brands have all dedicated themselves to work on solutions for the goal. Tesoro Scientific, established by Francois J. Henley in 2017, focuses on the enhancement of Micro LED production. Its research paper, titled “Novel In-Process Functional Tes...

Plessey, the UK-based optoelectronic technology solutions provider, announced that it is going to demonstrate AR and VR glasses powered by Micro LEDs at CES 2019. Plessey’s Micro LEDs are put in action for AR applications with Vuzix, who has collaborated with Plessy in the development of Micro LED smart glasses. According to Plessey, its Micro LEDs offer 10 times the resolution, 100 times the contrast ratio, and up to 1,000 times the luminance compared to traditional OLEDs. Furthermore, the device uses only half the power consumption, doubling b...

The “Micro LED Technology Research Contest” held by LEDinside has received numerous articles providing innovative and practical solutions to enhance the manufacturing of Micro LED during June 6th – September 10th, 2018. LEDinside was very excited to learn all these novel ideas and technologies offered by different institutes and companies from all over the world. Selecting the winning articles was a tough task as most of them have proposed unique perspectives on how to solve the mass transfer issue of Micro LED or improve their yield rate. 

LED manufacturers reported revenue drop for November as the demands decrease in the off-peak season. AOT, the LED company under the Foxconn Group, has posted a revenue of NT$ 332 million (US$ 10.76 million) for November with a decrease of 10.4% MoM and 39.9% YoY. LED backlighting is the major business of the company which accounts for more than 90 percent of its revenue. Therefore, the dropped demands of TV backlight due to seasonality led to the decreased monthly revenue of AOT. (Image: AOT) AOT also began the development of Mini and Micro LE...

Gallant Precision Machining (GPM), a Taiwan-based semiconductor equipment provider, reported that its business has been growing stably with orders from penal producers and semiconductor companies. The company and its subsidiary GMM have also been pushing the development of Micro LED transfer equipment which is expected to enter the market by the first quarter of 2019. GPM and its subsidiary GMM have focused on equipment for different Micro LED production. GPM targets in-process testing equipment for Micro LED chips while GMM is focused on Micro LED...

Combining LED technology and medical research, several integrations have been revealed, showing the potential of the technology in healthcare applications and development. LEDinside has collected some innovative examples of LED applications which create possibilities for future medical improvement. Elastic Micro LED skin sensor system In February 2018, a new ultrathin, elastic Micro LED display that fits snugly on the skin was developed by researchers at the University of Tokyo and Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) in an academic-industrial collaboration. The int...

UK-based Micro LED producer Plessey has announced a partnership with EV Group (EVG), a wafer bonding and lithography equipment supplier. The aim of the collaboration is to accelerate the commercialization of GaN-on-Si monolithic Micro LED technology.

Veeco Instruments and ALLOS Semiconductors have continued their collaboration in developing GaN-on-Si epitaxy wafer for Micro LED production. The two companies have partnered to demonstrate the reproducibility of ALLOS’ 200 mm GaN-on-Si epitaxy wafer technology on Veeco’s Propel® MOCVD reactor. “To bring Micro LED technology into production, simply presenting champion values for a single metric is insufficient. It is essential to achieve the whole set of specifications for each wafer with excellent repeatability and yield,” ...

Mass transferring is one of the biggest obstacles for the mass production of Micro LED display technology. Many players in the industry have come up with different methods to solve the issue and it is also a focal point in the Micro LED Technology Research Contest, where several research papers targeted the topic. The article submitted by Thomos Q. Ke has illustrated an idea to produce Micro LED without the process of mass transfer. The paper, titled “Mass Production Solution of Micro-LED without Mass Transfer” was awarded with an honorable menti...

Researchers in the industry and in the academic field have dedicated their efforts to overcome the difficulties of Micro LED display technologies. Currently the bottlenecks of the technology lie in six major areas including mass transferring process, the production of epitaxial wafer, method for full-color display, driver IC design, backplanes and testing and repair technology. One of the articles awarded with honorable mention in the Micro LED Technology Research Contest hosted by LEDinside has focused on the method for full-color display. The article, titled “Q...

Micro LED displays require the use of red, green and blue (RGB) LEDs, achieved by mixing nitride LEDs and phosphide LEDs. This mixing causes blue, green and red LEDs to behave differently in terms of temperature and aging, which impacts the quality of image color. Moreover, blue, green and red LEDs each require specific electronic drivers, making integration more complex. (Figure 1: Red emission at 630nm of 100µmx100µm of full InGaN LED grown on Soitec’s InGaNOS) RGB LEDs composed of the same material inducing the same behav...

Japanese UV LED company Nitride Semiconductors has announced to establish a subsidiary, Micro Nitride, to focus on the developing and manufacturing of Micro UV LED chips for micro LED display.

According to LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, latest “2018 Micro LED Next Generation Display Technology Market Report- 4Q18 Micro LED TV Market and Technology Challenge Analysis”, 4K TV market share will reach to 51% and 8K TV market share will achieve 10% in 2023, which means high resolution panel will be hit in the future. Compared with OLED TV, Micro LED TV will be much easier to meet the high resolution, high brightness and high reliability. However, a lot of technology challenges remains to be conquered.

Taiwanese panel producer Innolux has announced the restructuring of the company’s organization. Robert Shiao, the prior president of the company, has become Vice Chairman. James Yang was promoted as President from Vice President and will oversee the business unit, operation unit and manufacturer unit of Innolux. According to Jim Hung, Chairman of Innolux, the new management team would strengthen the flexibility and competitiveness of the company.

Mini LED is one of the key technologies for 2019 and will be making its way into the displays of consumer electronics. On the other hand, Micro LED technology, which has been on the spotlight in the recent years, is expected to be applied on displays in the market by 2021, according to the forecast of LEDinside.

A European Apple patent application related to the technology of Micro LED display was published, reported Patently Apple.

imec as a world-leading R&D center and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technology has been dedicated to using the power of technology to improve lives. The institute has gathered researchers from around the world to transform conceptual ideas into solid solutions to tackle real world problems. imec has also been extending its collaboration with international partners and has set up its first R&D center outside Europe in Hsinchu, Taiwan, ten years ago.

According to LEDinside, the global market size of micro LED is expected to grow to US $1.12 billion in 2020 and US $3.18 billion in 2025. In the end, a variety of products (BLU and RGB displays) with micro / mini LEDs as individual pixels are expected to be introduced to the market. However, technologies that can deliver large quantities of LED chips to the substrate at a time are still under development, and technologies for repairing defective mini LED chips are needed. 

Micro LED displays and devices developer VueReal has announced $8.5 million in funding from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) to support its project whose total investment is over $26 million. The funding will be used to further develop innovative Micro LED technologies by expanding its original research team and launching a new center with fabrication facility. 

Taiwanese LED wafer and chip maker Epileds has reportedly continued its progress in developing Micro LED/Mini LED products. However, impacted by the price pressure and severe competition, the company’s performance for 3Q18 turned out flat.

Plessey has been speeding up its progress of Micro LED technology development. After announcing the partnership with Jasper Display Corp (JDC) for the backplanes, Plessey has ordered MOCVD equipment from AIXTRON SE to boost its manufacturing capability of GaN-on-Si wafers targeting Micro LED applications.

Imec Taiwan, a subsidiary of the Belgium-based R&D institute Imec, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Taiwan’s Instrument Technology Research Center of National Applied Research Laboratories (ITRC-NARLabs) for future collaboration in developing advanced imaging and optics applications. One of the focal points of the cooperation is to enhance the development of Micro LED and to explore further applications of the technology. 

Taiwan-based semiconductor equipment supplier Gallant Precision Machining (GPM) announced in July that the company has been developing equipment for Micro LED production. Its subsidiary, GMM, which focuses on the field, will complete the equipment for mass transferring Micro LED chips by the first quarter of 2019.

Regrowing hair for mice is the new application unveiled by researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) with their red flexible vertical Micro LED technology. They published their result in ACS Nano in August.

Plessey Semiconductors has reported its partnership with Jasper Display Corp (JDC) for using JDC’s silicon backplane to drive the monolithic Micro LED displays produced by Plessey’s proprietary GaN-on-Si wafers.