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MicroLED displays use ultrafine LED devices to create beautiful, flexible and highly bright and efficient displays.
Germany-based Singulus Technologies announced that it has adapted its modular high-vacuum sputtering TIMARIS STM system for microLED production. The first TIMARIS STM system has already been sold and delivered.
The TIMARIS platform has a modular structure and can be equipped with various process and add-on modules for a wide range of requirements.
MicroLED display developer VueReal announced a strategic partnership with Toray Engineering. As part of this collaboration, VueReal will integrate Toray's TASMIT 3000SR-Ⅲ300 PL inspection tool into its turnkey MicroSolid Printing platform. The announcement mentions several customized and optimized tools, but does not provide more details.
VueReal and Toray say that the PL inspection tool 3000SR-Ⅲ300 seamlessly integrates with VueReal's MicroSolid Printing platform to further reduce surface inspection device review time and contribute to greater inspection efficiency. This system acquires images of defects with a high level of magnification and categorizes defect types.
Perovskites are a family of materials with the same basic structure that can have an impressive array of interesting properties, including unique optical properties. Metal halide perovskites offer several advantages for use as components of LEDs and displays. They are direct-bandgap semiconductor materials that possess high photoluminescence quantum yield (PL QY) reaching 100%, they have narrow and symmetric PL peaks (full width at half-maximum about 15–30 nm, which is even better than for the traditional QDs) that enables wide color gamuts and they can easily be synthesized and processed at room temperature, or vapor-processed at low temperatures (typically <180°C) using inexpensive precursors.
Perovskite materials can benefit the MicroLED industry in two ways: as materials for color conversion (using perovskite-based QDs) and in perovskite-based LED emitters. Much R&D work is taking place on both these fronts, and interest seems to be growing.
Last month Apple decided to cancel its microLED Watch project, which had very bad consequences for many microLED developers. Ams-Osram is still considering its options and it estimates its loss at $650-900 million, while Singapore-based electronics assembly solutions provider Kulicke & Soffa announced that it was also effected, to the tune of $110-130 million as it cancelled its own project with Apple.
KLA Corporation recently announced that it is withdrawing from the FPD market altogether. The company entered this market when it bought Israeli Orbotech for $3.4 billion, developer of inspection equipment for the semiconductor and display industries.
US-based Q-Pixel announced that it has developed a new 3K x 1.5K, a 1.1x0.6 cm (6800 PPI) microLED microdisplay. Q-Pixel says that this is the world's highest resolution color microdisplay - but they actually mean the highest density full-color microdisplay.
Q-Pixel's technology is based around a single-pixel color-tunable microLED device, and the company's displays are produced using a monolithic process. In May 2023, the company announced a 5,000 PPI full-color microdisplay. In fact, later in 2023 the company announced a 10,000 PPI microLED microdisplay, but the 10,000 display was a passive-matrix microdisplay, and the newly announced display is an active-matrix one.
Toray Engineering announced a technical partnership with semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation, to promote efficient combined production systems for miniLEDs and microLED displays.
Toray Engineering will able to offer a combined inspection, transfer, and mounting systems, by data linking its systems with Advantest's inspection equipment. The company says that these integrated systems will enable the acceleration of microLED R&D and production.
SID's DisplayWeek is the world's leading display conference, and the MicroLED-Info team will attend this year's event. DisplayWeek will take place in San Jose this year, and will bring together a large part of the display industry. We're looking forward to seeing new microLED prototypes, learn about new processes and tools, and team up with industry leaders!
DisplayWeek includes a 3-day exhibition, 4-day technical symposium, short courses, seminars, three focus conferences (business, investors and market-focus) - and the 2024 annual meeting of the MicroLED Industry Association. We'll be happy to schedule meetings - so if you plan to come to the event, do contact us. We're really looking forward to a week full of display technologies!
In early 2022, Vuzix launched the Shield Smart Safety Glasses based on microLED microdisplays (JBD's VGA 0.13"). The Shield, powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR1 and Vuzix' propriety waveguide optics, was targeting enterprise use.
A few days ago, Vuzix announced that the Vuzix Shield smart glasses are now available to the general public, available to buy online at Vuzix's site. The company says that the Vuzix Shield is its most revolutionary pair of prescription-ready AR smart safety glasses, boasting enhanced 3D optics made possible by the stereoscopic microLED waveguide-based displays. At $2,499.99, this is still an expensive device and it is not really intended for general consumer use.
Researchers from several Universities in China developed a self-polarizing RGB device utilizing semipolar microLEDs and perovskite based films aimed at improving backlight applications.
Structure of an LCD based on semipolar blue μLEDs excite anisotropic perovskite NCs as backlight. Image from Opto-Electronic Advances
In standard LCD displays, the backlighting units emits non-polarized light, which then results in an almost 50% light loss as this light has to pass through a polarizer (this is part of the LCD light path). The newly developed high-performance device is designed to emit RGB polarized light which results in higher efficiency and no light-loss dueo to the LCD filter.
MicroLED display developer VueReal announced a partnership with automotive supplier Continental to showcase innovative automotive display designs based on VueReal's microLED technology.
VueReal did not say much about this joint project with Continental, but it is likely that Continental will develop and demonstrate microLED-based automotive displays based using displays provided by VueReal. In January 2024 Continental demonstrated its first microLED automotive display prototype, the CrystalCenter Display which is based on a 10" microLED display, but we do not know whether it was supplied by VueReal or a different microLED developer.
