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.

The Taiwanese backlight module and projector producer Coretronic held the earnings conference call of Q2 on July 24th and claimed that the company’s business has not been influenced by the tariff imposed by the U.S. government.

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.

The price competition of blue LED continues and has impacted the revenue of the Taiwanese LED chip maker, Epistar. Facing the challenges, the company plans to expand the production of four-element LED and to increase the proportion of Mini LED products in blue LED.

AIXTRON, a German deposition equipment supplier reported that the Chinese chip maker Changelight has ordered AIX 2800G4-TM MOCVD systems to expand its production capacities for arsenide-phosphide-based red, orange and yellow LEDs (ROY LED) and solar cells.

Though the big brands have been focusing on Micro LED and pushing its development, currently most of the technologies of Micro LED have stayed inside the laboratories and still need further preparation before entering the mass production process. Mini LED, on the other hand, is ready to be applied and to be produced in volume, according to many LED manufactures.

The Taiwan-based supplier of wide range LED product, Lextar, released its revenue of the second quarter and reported the company’s plan to boost Mini LED backlight application for the second half of 2018.

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.

Mini LED as an enhanced version of conventional LED backlight has been considered as a transitional technology between conventional LED and Micro LED. According to the estimation of LEDinside, the revenue of Mini LED products is expected to reach US$689 million by 2022. Before the second half of 2018 started, many LED companies have reported their progress and shipping schedule of Mini LED products including applications of automotive lighting and mobile devices.

Innolux illustrated that by the end of this year, the company expected to launch Mini LED public information display (PID) and large size TV application was estimated to release in 2Q19. As for automotive products, due to the time consuming verification process, were scheduled in 2020.

Micro LED displays and Mini LED backlight technology have been the focus of spotlight in this year’s exhibitions of consumer electronics and display technology. Major manufacturers including Samsung, Sony, and AUO have showcased related conceptual products. It is also said that Samsung may mass-produce ultra-large Micro LED TVs, driving more manufacturers to invest in Mini LED R&D. According to the latest report of LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, the market value of Micro LED and Mini LED products is estimated at US$1.38 billion by 2022.

During Display Week 2018, many big giants have been simultaneously releasing Mini LED backlight products. LEDinside found those Mini LED panels majorly adopt direct-type local dimming and support HDR mode, making the vivid contract ratio, which can compete with OLED panel.

Micro LED since 2014 has been receiving attention. The industry is slowly becoming familiar with the new display technology that motivated Apple to acquire LuxVue. However, in 2008 a company already foresaw Micro LED to be a future display trend and started related development despite lack of market appetite. When the market started noticing Mini/Micro LED UK-based optic tech firm Optovate had already patented ideas to render various applications featuring these microscopic technologies.

As time is moving forward to the second quarter of 2018, more and more rumblings and updates about Micro/Mini LED emerged and have been circulating in the industry. In February, LEDinside collected and revealed information of Micro LED development from nearly 50 companies around the globe. Here, we would like to share some progress updates released after that from 10 companies.

LED driver IC specialist Macroblock reported a gross margin of 34.2% for the first quarter of 2018, reaching new high over the past two years. The company expects its 2Q18 revenue to increase by 20% QoQ after its driver IC is chosen and successfully adopted in Samsung’s display products.

Taiwanese LED chip maker Epistar in 2017 went through a financial turnaround and reported a share dividend of NTD 0.8. In wake of lukewarm market demand, the company’s 2Q18 results showed declinces. Its plan to mass produce Mini LED products is scheduled in the second half of 2018.

As a popular product in the LED display industry, Micro LED is regarded as a leader of next-generation display technology. A large number of manufacturers at home and abroad have paid attention to Micro LED, which has promising market prospects.

According to TrendForce’s latest report New Display Technology Cost Analysis, Micro LED has emerged as the most discussed topic in the display industry. The capital market and the supply chain are all looking forward to this next-generation display technology. However, from the technical perspective, the mass production of Micro LED still face many challenges, including the yield rate of mass transfer and LED uniformity, etc. Some manufacturers have thus shifted their development focus to Mini LED, whose architecture is similar to that of current LCD and LED displays. No major change in the design is needed. Commercialization of Mini LED is only a matter of time, therefore, companies are all expecting it to become a transitional product before Micro LED is ready for mass production.

As time is moving forward to the second quarter of 2018, more and more rumblings and updates about Micro/Mini LED emerged and have been circulating in the industry. In February, LEDinside collected and revealed information of Micro LED development from nearly 50 companies around the globe. Here, we would like to share some progress updates released after that from 10 companies.

According to the latest report of LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, while conventional LED components are used for backlight, Micro LED and Mini LED technology have been gradually used for self-emitting in displays of consumer electronics. Every LED will then stand for a pixel, increasing the number of LED wafers used.

With the development of display technology, the panel industry will no longer only focus on the supply and demand. Instead, more emphasis has been placed on the quality and specs upgrade of panels in order to increase the value of display products. This trend has motivated the display panel makers towards better specs, such as high resolution, curved, ultra-thin, lightweight, bendable, high dynamic HDR, high contrast, and wide color gamut. In this way, the displays will be able to present more natural colors and vivid image.

In recent year, Mini LED has undoubtedly emerged as a new sector where LED companies and panel vendors actively enter. The reason is that the traditional LED backlight has been developing for many years, reaching a bottleneck in technology; the profit is relatively low as well. Meanwhile, OLED displays, which feature thinness and flexibility, are invading into the backlight display market. As the result, manufacturers that do not worked on OLED displays have turned to the development of Mini LED, a new product that is highly competitive in terms of function and cost.

Concepts of Micro/Mini LED display are more and more popular. Enterprises' developments in this segment also become focuses of the LED industry.

As Micro LED still encounters certain technical bottlenecks, some companies are currently focusing on the transition technology Mini LED instead. The squad proactively developing Mini LED applications includes panel giants (Innolux and AUO), LED chip makers (Epistar and Lextar), and LED packaging firms (EVERLIGHT, AOT, and Harvatek).

According to media reports, Huawei, OPPO and Xiaomi are worried about insufficient OLED panel production, so they plan to use Mini LED-lit LCD displays for their smartphones in 2H18. Despite the fact that this rumor is not confirmed yet, the LED supply chain already pins its hope on Mini LED.

Optovate has revealed further details of its innovative micro-LED technology, following its first technology announcement in March 2018. Optovate has since 2008 been developing catadioptric micro-optic arrays to enhance the benefits of micro-LED, mini-LED and OLED displays and also a patterned laser lift-off (p-LLO) micro-LED transfer process.

The oversupply in the LED chip market continues in 2018. The market demand is estimated to recuperate in the second quarter; however, it will still need new technologies such as Mini LED to ease the oversupply, according to Biing-Jye Lee, Chairman of Epistar

Currently in the industry, on one hand, Apple has been very active in developing Micro LED; on the other, display makers AU Optronics (AUO) and Innolux just announced to roll out Mini LED applications by the end of 2018.