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Musing on Competitive Technology

Despite the Hype Micro LED Displays Remain a Distant Target
November 25, 2019

​AU Optronics (AUO), with micro LED chips supplied by PlayNitride, has used in-house-developed mass transfer technology to produce 12.1-inch micro LED panels for automotive dashboards and central information displays. Trial production for such micro LED panels is likely to start two years from now, and volume production at least five years from now, AUO said. 

• PlayNitride and Tianma Micro-electronics exhibited a 7.56-inch transparent micro LED display at SID Display Week 2019. PlayNitride used their in-house-developed mass transfer technology and in-house-produced micro LED chips and Tianma provided LTPS TFT backplanes.
• BOE Technology and US-based Rohinni in January 2019 established a joint venture specifically for developing above 32-inch mini LED and micro LED displays.
• Micro LED developer LuxVue Technology, after being acquired by Apple in May 2014, has not yet shown progress in commercializing the technology.

There are about 300 micro LED R&D units around the world at present, three times as many as the number two years ago. These R&D units differ in their approaches: some has developed mass transfer technology for chips below 10µm, but it may not be suitable for LEDs above 20 microns; some use PCB backplanes, but their technology may not be applied to glass; and others' can accommodate all types of backplanes, which nevertheless results in slower mass transfer process. Commercialization of micro LED technology still faces big challenges concerning mass transfer yield rates and chip size reduction. It is relatively easy to reduce the size of micro LEDs from 100 microns to 50 or even 30, but technologically difficult to below 10 microns. As a result, a micro LED 4K TV would be much more expensive than an LCD equivalent currently. These challenges are deterring many vendors from launching micro LED products and they would rather wait until the technology becomes mature. Micro LED technology is likely to be initially applied to above 100-inch displays (including TVs) or smart wearable devices, while application to 5- to 6-inch smartphone screens is relatively infeasible for the time being due to competition from OLED panels.