Micro LED technology stands 50% chance of success, says…

Based on existing development and established supply chain of Micro LED, the possibility of successful development in terms of commercial applicability is about 50%, according to general director Wu Chih-I for Electronic and Optoelectronic System Research Laboratories (EOSRL) under the government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).

Micro LED will be technologically successful, but commercial application hinges on cost-performance competitiveness with TFT-LCD and OLED. Makers are expected to make efforts to keep improving performance and decreasing production costs which will pose challenges for Micro LED, Wu said.

In comparison, brightness of Micro LED is 2-3 times that of OLED under the same power consumption, Wu noted. Micro LED entails much less investment than TFT-LCD to reach economies of scale, Wu said.

Micro LED is characterized by small size LED chips, Wu noted. Micro LED chips are so small that a 5-inch 400 by 600 smartphone-use panel needs to use nearly one million chips and an Ultra HD TV panel about 50 million chips, Wu indicated.

The core of Micro LED technology is mass transfer of small chips, Wu said. LuxVue Technology, a Micro LED developer acquired by Apple in May 2014, uses unique electrostatic adhesion for mass transfer, while others use vacuum pressure which is the simplest method but has low yield rates, Wu indicated. Currently, mass transfer of Micro LED chips is challenged by balancing cost and yield rate, Wu explained.

Viewing that Taiwan-based makers are unable to compete with large international enterprises such as Apple and Samsung Electronics in developing Micro LED technology, ITRI is organizing a consortium consisting of more than 20 Taiwan-based LED makers, LED material makers, IC design houses, IC packaging & testing service providers, TFT-LCD panel makers and system product makers, which will be established in November 2016, Wu noted. ITRI has been developing Micro LED for a while and is progressing toward small-volume trial production in early 2017, Wu noted.

Due to cost-performance competition, Micro LED is likely to be initially applied to small-size displays such as smartwatches, heads-up displays, VR or AR (augmented reality) devices as well as large-size display panels, and then, when production cost decreases significantly, to smartphones, TVs and PCs, Wu indicated.

Categories: LED LED applications LED upstream

Tags: ITRI Micro

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