The development of the LED display industry has been blooming in 2018 with the progresses of Mini LED, Micro LED, Fine pitch LED and OLED showing up one after another. According to the latest report from LEDinside, it is estimated that the market value of Micro LED and Mini LED will reach US$ 1.38 billion by 2022.

Micro LED has been considered as the next generation display technology and many leading brands have continued to report their progress of Micro LED development. Taiwanese LED makers and panel producers have also introduced their latest development of Micro LED display technologies at Touch Taiwan 2018. According to sources from the supply chain, Apple has visited AUO and Epistar to learn their progress of Micro LED technology and discuss the possible cooperation regarding Micro LED display development. 

The display show, Touch Taiwan, has kicked off in Taipei, Taiwan. The next generation display technology, Mini and Micro LED, has been the spotlight of the event with several companies showcasing their latest display products adopting the technologies. According to the latest report of LEDinside, the market value of Micro LED and Mini LED products is estimated at US$1.38 billion by 2022.

Lextar has announced that the company will launch the latest Micro LED chips with the size smaller than 20 µm and two different Micro LED chip solutions for display applications at Touch Taiwan 2018.

Taiwanese semiconductor component provider TOPCO has announced that it will join the Touch Taiwan display show to introduce materials and components that are crucial for Micro LED/Mini LED technology development. 

Lextar has been reorganizing its production capacities and adjusting its products portfolio, aiming to efficiently integrate its resources and to boost profit margin for the future. 

LED IC driver manufacturer Macroblock registered a revenue of NT$ 245 million (US$ 7.99 million) for July, down by 9.97% MoM, which was not in line with the expectation of the peak quarter. Macroblock indicated that the trade war between the U.S. and China has impacts on the company’s orders.

As one of the most important display shows of the industry, Touch Taiwan will take place during August 29 – 31 in Taipei, Taiwan. Manufacturers of the supply chain including LED chip, panel, driver IC and end-product applications will gather at the event to demonstrate their innovative technologies as well as to discuss the development trend of the industry. Micro LED, considered to be the next generation display technology, will be a spotlight of the event.

Under the pressure of price competition and oversupply in the LED industry, LED producers worldwide have been devoting their efforts in organization transformation and reconstruction as well as focusing on innovative technologies. The development of Mini LED and Micro LED has been viewed as the new opportunity for LED firms. LEDinside has estimated that the revenue of Micro LED and Mini LED will reach US$1.38 billion by 2022.

Macroblock has showcased several displays adopting its new ICs at 2018 Macroblock LED Display Conference. The company is also ready to welcome the peak quarter of the year with its shipments of various products.

Taiwanese semiconductor equipment supplier Gallant Precision Machining (GPM) reported that the company has prepared for equipment to produce Micro LED, including facilities of LED picking, washing, mass transferring and testing. The facilities are now at the experimental phase.

Taiwanese panel producer AUO has reported its revenue for the second season of 2018 and revealed that the company expects to release Mini LED displays for gaming monitors or gaming notebooks in the second half of 2018.

Taiwanese LED driver IC provider Macroblock has become a supplier of Samsung’s display products and might benefit from Samsung’s mass production of Micro LED displays.

Cochlear implant is a device using electrodes to stimulate the auditory nerve to help hearing-impaired people to “hear.” But it cannot deliver complex sound as the electrode current does not move from the electrode to an auditory neuron directly. Researchers have been exploring the possibilities to replace electricity with light in cochlear implants via optogenetics technology.

LEDinside hosted Micro LEDforum 2018 last week in Taipei, Taiwan and welcomed international speakers and attendees to join the pioneer event of the industry. Several leading institutes shared their innovative approaches of Micro LED and the technology of mass transfer is definitely the biggest focus. QMAT and Tesoro Scientific, two U.S. based start-up companies, introduced innovative materials and equipment concepts to enable ultra-fast mass transfer methods.

The 2018 Micro LEDforum, hosted by LEDinside, ended on 12 July. This time, experts from various fields were invited to share the six bottlenecks in the Micro LED manufacturing process. In the mass transfer section, this time we invited Uniqarta, SelfArray, eLux, QMAT and KIMM to talk about the features of various transfer technologies and future potential.

Micro LED display has been considered as the next-generation display technology with its features of high resolution, high contrast, high brightness and wide viewing angles. To achieve these characteristics, driver IC is a key component during the manufacturing process. At Micro LEDforum 2018, LEDinside invited Macroblock, the LED driver IC specialist, to talk about how to fully realize the advantages of Mini and Micro LED display from the viewpoint of a driver IC maker.

The U.S. based start-up, eLux with its patent technology of Micro LED transfer process and its business cooperation with the Foxconn Group, has been attracting attentions from the industry. LEDinside invited Paul Schule, the founder and CTO of eLux, to speak at Micro LEDforum 2018 to share the company’s technological progress and insights of the industry. 

SelfArray, a startup based in New York, shared its innovative Directed Self-Assembly (DSA) technology which uses diamagnetic levitation to align LEDs automatically at Micro LEDforum 2018. 

LEDinside was honored to invite Dr. Jae-Hyun Kim, head of the Department of Applied Nano Mechanics at the Korean Institute of Machinery and materials (KIMM) to join Micro LEDforum 2018 to introduce their advanced technology of Micro LED production. Dr. Kim and his team developed the roll-to-plate transfer method to efficiently transfer Micro LEDs and to speed up the production of Micro LED displays.

Last week at Micro LEDforum 2018, experts from the industry have shared their advanced Micro LED technologies and illustrated the possibilities of further development of Micro LED. As mass transfer is the most difficult task to tackle, many speakers have introduced their unique method to solve the issue. Uniqarta, a U.S. based start-up was invited by LEDinside to present its Laser Enabled Advanced Placement (LEAP) technology at Micro LEDforum 2018.

The Belgium based nano-electronic center, Imec and the Taiwan based semiconductor equipment supplier Marketech International Corp are reportedly reported to collaborate for developing a testing chip implantation equipment for Micro LED manufacturing. 

Micro LEDforum 2018 was held successfully yesterday on July 12th in Taipei. Nearly 300 attendees from all over the world joined the giant annual event to learn the trends of the industry and to spark idea exchanges as well as to find the opportunities for business cooperation. LEDinside was honored to invite speakers from leading institutes including eLux, Uniquarta, QMAT, KIMM, Nitride Semiconductors, V-technology, Topcon, Macroblock, KLA, SelfArray and Jasper Display to share their technologies and insights of Micro LED. 

According to the latest report from LEDinside, a division of the market research firm TrendForce, 2018 Micro LED Next-Gen Display Technology Market Report- 3Q18 Micro LED Transfer, Drive, Backplane and Application Requirements, the correspondences between each display specification and technologies such as mass transfer, drive and backplane have been discussed. Due to the differences of product properties and specifications for displays, mass transfer, drive and backplane need to correspond according to application characteristics of various display products. Therefore, for different areas of display products, manufacturers are in charge of the future direction of development.

LEDinside is excited to announce that the weather did not lead to any change of the schedule and Micro LEDforum will be held as planned tomorrow starting at AM10:00 (Check-in at AM9:00) at NTUH International Convention Center, Room 201.

LEDinside is ready to welcome the experts and professionals in the industry to join us at Micro LEDforum 2018, titled “Key Technology and Application Market – Transfer, Inspection and Drive Solution Boost,” on 12th July at NTUH International Convention Center in Taipei, Taiwan. 

Beginning with Samsung’s demonstration of its Micro LED modular TV “The Wall” at CES 2018, this year there has been news and updates about Micro LED from manufacturers and researchers all over the world. LEDinside has been following the latest movements of the industry and has revealed information of Micro LED development in the past few months. Entering the third quarter of 2018, there are more on-going developments and technical progress that we would like to share. 

Nichia considered that in 2H18, the competition between LED makers will still go on due to the excess capacity of LED backlight and the weak market demands in the past two quarters. As the prices of LED chips and packaging has been down for years, there might be more acquisitions between corporates and some collapses for small and medium sized manufacturers. Generally speaking, 2018 is a tough year for the LED industry. 

LED makers have been announcing their progress of Mini LED before reaching the final goal, Micro LED. Manufacturers in Taiwan and China started to ship Mini LED products from the second half of 2018. Nichia, the Japanese LED giant, also reported that it has completed the development process of Mini LED and is ready to mass produce related products that will be released by the end of the year.

At Samsung Electronics’ QLED & Advanced Displays Summit in Los Angeles, California, the company showcased its current progress of the integration of QLED display, 8K ecosystem, Micro LED technology and HDR.