In 2018, with the introduction of Micro LED related concept products by major manufacturers such as Samsung, Sony and AUO, the next-generation display technology and application market expected by the industry is accelerating. Micro LED currently outperforms LCD and OLED in terms of technology life, contrast, energy consumption, response time and viewing angle. Leading manufacturers such as Apple, Sony and Samsung have already been actively deployed. Hon Hai has made great efforts to build the entire industry chain of Micro LED. All help to advance its commercialization process. According to LEDInside, LEDInside estimates, the market value of Micro LED and Mini LED will reach 1.38 billion US dollars by 2022.

Micro LED technology advantages

Micro LED display technology is to thin, miniaturize and array the LED structure design. The size is only about 1~100μm, but the precision is up to 10,000 times that of traditional LED. In addition, the Micro LED is similar in display characteristics to the OLED, eliminating the need for a backlight and self-illuminating, the only difference being that the OLED is self-illuminating for organic materials. At present, OLEDs are favored by major manufacturers because they are superior to TFT-LCD in terms of reaction time, viewing angle, flexibility, color rendering and energy consumption, but Micro LEDs are easier to accurately adjust colors and have longer illumination. Lifetime and higher brightness are expected to become another technology to promote display quality after OLED.

In terms of luminous efficiency, the Micro LED needs to remove the substrate, leaving 3~5μm film epitaxy, and the light is directly emitted, and the light output effect is superior to other display technologies. In addition, Micro LED uses semiconductor micro-machining technology to control the chip size to micron level and high image quality. If the huge transfer technology is further broken, Micro LED can achieve high ppi in image quality, if applied to mobile phones and wearable devices. The small and medium size display on the screen, the advantages will be very obvious.

? Figure 1: The history of Micro LED development. (Source: Takuya Industry Research Institute)

Low power consumption is also a big advantage of Micro LED. The existing display screen consumes a large amount of power, and the battery life problem is the pain point of the mobile phone industry, and the Micro LED without the backlight module can not only solve the pain point, but also satisfy the industry's pursuit of high display effect and product performance.

Finally, ultra-high brightness and nanosecond response speeds are the biggest characteristics of Micro LEDs. Under outdoor direct sunlight, the display brightness needs at least 2,000 nits or more, but the traditional LCD technology has a very low light-emitting efficiency, so the display effect is less than ideal; in comparison, the Micro LED can easily reach more than 10,000 nits. In terms of contrast, each pixel of the Micro LED is composed of several tiny LEDs, and the theoretical contrast can reach infinity. As for the reaction speed, it is 10 times that of the LCD.

However, at present, Micro LED still faces layer-by-layer technical bottlenecks, including epitaxy and wafer, transfer, full color, power drive, backplane and detection and repair technologies. In the past, the biggest bottleneck was generally considered to be transfer technology, but with the introduction of various transfer programs, such as Pick & Place transfer, fluid assembly, laser transfer, and roller transfer, it is expected that there will be more cost-competitive in the future. The emergence of technical solutions will have the opportunity to accelerate the development of Micro LEDs.

Micro LED industry chain and possible display applications

The Micro LED industry chain is roughly divided into four major segments: LED chip, transfer, panel and terminal application. Currently, the chip and application are the most promoted, and the mid-end link is weak. The upstream manufacturers that have been deployed include Osram, Nichia, Jingdian, PlayNitride and Sanan, etc.; the middle reaches include LuxVue, mLED and Taiwan Institute of Technology; downstream include Apple, Sony and Lumiode. From a regional perspective, European and American manufacturers focus on downstream terminal application development, and Asia-Pacific manufacturers focus on the development of key components.

According to LEDinside, Micro LED technology will initially have the opportunity to import special display applications. In small and medium-sized screens, OLED displays are on the limelight, and there is a potential for replacing LCD liquid crystal displays. Although OLEDs are not as good as Micro LEDs in terms of lifetime and display characteristics, they ultimately depend on cost competitiveness. According to LEDinside estimates, due to the relatively mature LCD and OLED processes, Micro LEDs still have technical and cost issues to overcome in the short term. Therefore, it is still difficult to compete with traditional display technologies at this stage. It is expected that manufacturers will have no way to completely Satisfied technical pain points cut. In the short term, related size applications will evolve at the same time.

The characteristic of LED is that the light-emitting area is smaller than the module area. It is very suitable for producing large-size display panels by splicing, especially for large-size display screens in outdoor or public spaces. In addition, such applications are not sensitive to price, so it will be Micro. The first commercial market for LED display technology. In the case of oversized size, it will be an ultra-small display application, such as wearable devices and AR/VR devices, especially AR and VR. The high brightness, low power consumption and high response speed of the Micro LED are very suitable for this type of application. The application not only overcomes the display problems under daylight, but also reduces energy consumption while meeting the high-speed display requirements of the game.

? Figure 2: Micro LED industry chain analysis. (Source: Takuya Industry Research Institute)

(1) veteran manufacturers

1. Apple

Apple focuses on small and medium-sized displays such as mobile phones and watches, and has recently released two types of Micro LED panels for small-sized applications: (1) 1.3 to 1.4 inches for future Apple Watch; (2) 0.7 to 0.8 inches for AR Wearable device, may be AR glasses.

Apple's development of Micro LED is mainly to reduce the excessive dependence on a large Samsung OLED. Since the acquisition of LuxVue in 2014, it has been actively deployed. So far, Apple has obtained quite a lot of patents in the field of Micro LED, and has basically completed the technical reserve of Micro LED. .

2. Sony

Sony's product layout is based on high-end commercial large-size display screen products, focusing on high-end home and cinema projection scene applications to compete with OLED. The CLEDIS display, such as the CES 2017 show Sony, is made up of 144 Micro LEDs.

Sony has already launched Crystal LED Display technology at CES 2012, using 6.22 million miniature LED granules to introduce 55-inch (1920×1080×3) TVs, but the cost is quite expensive, and the huge transfer-related technology is not yet mature. The production yield is low and time-consuming and labor-intensive, and mass production cannot be achieved. In 2016, Sony changed its strategy to re-launch the spliced ??display screen and named the technology CLEDIS, establishing a strategy for the large-size display market by Micro LED.

3. Samsung

Samsung Electronics is developing in the medium and large size of the Micro LED field, and is now dominated by the commercial display division of the Samsung VD. In 2018, Samsung launched the world's first modular 146-inch Micro LED TV "The Wall", which was a topic of the moment. However, the LED chip size of "The Wall" TV is reported to be about 100 microns, and it has not yet reached the true Micro LED level.

In order to seize the Micro LED market, Samsung also signed a prepayment agreement with Chinese chip manufacturers. The agreement has certain exclusivity. Within three years after the agreement comes into effect, Chinese chip makers will supply Samsung's agreed LED chips.

4. LG

In the LG Group, LG Electronic is currently leading Micro LED technology. In 2015, it has completed the Micro LED full-color display product, using RGB Micro LED and flexible substrate to complete the product with a screen size of about 3 inches and 3000 ppi. In March 2018, LG has applied to the EU for three new trademarks related to Micro LED panels. It can be seen that LG is actively deploying and plans to launch the first Micro LED TV in September 2018.

5. Sanan Optoelectronics

In the past two years, Sanan Optoelectronics has continuously increased its market concentration in the LED chip industry. The downstream sector has demonstrated system integration and diversified technology development, and actively deployed the Micro LED industry chain. In February 2018, Sanan launched a long-term business relationship with Samsung. Samsung will pay a pre-payment of US$16.83 million from Xiamen Sanan in exchange for a certain number of LED chips for display products in Xiamen Sanan production line. Once Xiamen Sanan reaches mass production capacity, Samsung will consider Xiamen Sanan as its primary supplier, and Sanan may lead the Micro LED chip market.

(2) New entry manufacturers

Invasive

Yuchuang Technology has the ability to develop and design Micro LEDs. Its Micro LED display technology is called “PixeLED Display”. The transfer of Micro LED chips to the panel through transfer technology, claiming a transfer yield of 99.9%; in addition, PixeLED Display consumes power. Only 10% of the general LCD and 50% of the OLED.

Most of the Micro LED manufacturers have developed Blu-ray monochrome, and the company has developed RGB three colors, and the color display is more perfect, but the yield is more challenging. The company started trial production of Micro LED in the second half of 2017; at the ICDT exhibition in April 2018, the Micro LED display was exhibited, which was divided into white, green and full color.

2. VueReal

Canadian startup VueReal develops high-performance and ultra-low-cost miniature display screens with Micro LED technology. VueReal's proprietary high-efficiency Micro LEDs below 10μm and the patented mass transfer process, known as "Continuous Pixelation" technology, enable display screens with ppi greater than 4,000 at high throughput and at an affordable price. Based on this technology, VueReal has developed a 4K micro LED display screen with a pixel density of up to 6,000 ppi, which helps to reduce the size of AR devices such as head-mounted displays (HMDs) and head-up displays (HUDs).

In terms of capital, in March 2018, VueReal received more than $10.5 million in Series A financing, which will be used for team expansion and the introduction of advanced micro component development and characterization research centers to accelerate the development of Micro LED technology. It is expected to reach mass production in 2021. .

In summary, despite the wide range of industries involved in Micro LED, including precision machinery, semiconductor manufacturing, testing and overhaul, huge transfer technology still needs to be broken, and the mass production level cannot be achieved in the short term, but from the current development trend, the leader Manufacturers are actively involved in the development of Micro LEDs, and some technologies have made some progress. It is estimated that high-end products will be produced in the second half of 2018. Therefore, Micro LED still has great potential to become the next generation display technology in the future, and business opportunities are expected.