MicroLED TVs - Page 12

HDTVTest posted an interesting video showing Sony's 110" Crystal-LED micro-LED display at Sony's Basingstoke UK office, at a joint event organized with AWE, a Sony distributor in Europe. The reviewer is highly positive about Sony's Micro-LED display quality:

AWE offers Sony's Crystal LED displays, which are custom made, but the company did release a general price guideline:

• 146" display - 350,000 Euro ($390,000)
• 182" display - 500,000 Euro ($550,000)
• 219" display - 700,000 Euro ($780,000).

Chinese LED producer ShineOn has unveiled a new MicroLED display prototype branded as IconiView at the Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition (GILE 2019). The display is a 139" 4K panel developed jointly by ShineOn and Korea-based MicroLED developer Lumens.

The IconiView display utilizes a Flip-Chip-On-Module (COM) LED technology and features a brightness of over 2,000 nits and a contrast ratio of 3000:1. ShineOn says that the product "has been verified" and can be mass produced.

At the InfoComm 2019 US trade-show, LG Display unveiled a new 8K Micro-LED display. We do not have a lot of information about this display, only that the pixel pitch is 50 microns.

LG Display unveiled its first Micro-LED TV prototype in August 2018, a 173" TV. The company did not yet discuss the technology readiness of its Micro-LED displays.

As promised last year, Samsung is set to launch the world's first consumer micro-LED TV. According to the company, in July 2019 it will start shipping (or accepting orders?) for the new TV, which (in a similar way to "The Wall Professional") will be made from tiled and seamless Micro-LED modules. The TVs will come in sizes ranging from 73" (2K resolution) to 292" (8K).

Samsung says that its Micro-LED TVs will offer unparalled viewing experience, and will offer a 2000 nits peak brightness, high contrast and 100,000 hour lifetime. The price will probably be very expensive, but Samsung did not reveal it yet.

The Society of Information Display (SID) revealed its 2019 display industry award winners, and interestingly two out of the three Display Of The Year Awards went to Micro-LED displays.

First up we have Samsung's modular The Wall display, made up of tiled and seamless micro-LED modules. The Wall was unveiled in January 2018 in a 146-inch installation. The Wall was officially launched in June 2018 when Samsung started to accept pre-orders, aiming to find customers in lobbies, museums, galleries, and retail spaces. It is estimated that the price of the 146" model is around $100,000. The Wall Professional features HDR 10+ and a peak brightness of 2,000 nits.

Korea-based driver IC developer MagnaChip announced its latest 28-nm process, and the company said that it is now starting to develop driver ICs for Micro-LED TVs.

This is just an early announcement, hopefully the company will give more details in the future about its MicroLED driver program. For OLED displays, the company says it is currently using the world's most advanced process and has already secured its first 28 nm design win with a leading smartphone maker.

Display signage company Daktronics introduced its first mini-LED display, branded as the Optica. The company says that it achieved a resolution "similar to LCD display resolution" but at much higher brightness levels (6,000 nits) while drawing half the power. Daktronics actually calls this a Micro-LED display, but as the pixel pitch is 0.9mm, it cannot really be called a micro-LED.

It is not clear whether Daktronics produces the display panel itself, and how close it is to commercialize this technology. Daktronics says that it is possible to scale up its Optica displays (to pretty much unlimited sizes) - a Full-HD (1080x1920) Optical display will be 1.037 x 1.8434 meter in size, while a 4K one will be 2.074x3.686 meters.

Samsung Electronics reported its financial results for Q4 2018 - with revenues of $53 billion USD down 10% from Q4 2017, and an operating profit of $9.6 billion (down 29% from 2017).

Samsung says that its display innovation in 2019 will include launching foldable OLED displays - and MicroLED TVs.

Market research firm Yole Développement has been following the Micro-LED market for some years with some very interesting insights and forecasts.

Yole's technology & market analyst Zine Bouhamri was kind enough to discuss Yole's Micro-LED views with us. Mr. Zine is is a member of the Photonics, Sensing & Display division at Yole and he's deeply involved in the business development of the Displays unit activities.

US-based Rohinni announced a new joint venture with China-based display maker BOE. The new JV (which will be based in China and controlled by BOE) will develop LCD mini-LED and micro-LED backlighting units.

The JV will adopt Rohinni's proprietary high-speed MicroLED placement technology that is capable of placing 50 die-per-second (dps) with 10 micron accuracy at 99.999% die yields. BOE and Rohinni will initially focus on large panel applications (32-inch and up) for consumer electronic products in addition to all display sizes for industrial, automotive and other markets