Micro-LED videos - Page 6

This is a sponsored post by Applied Materials

Applied Materials Baccini Cell Systems provides advanced screen-printing solutions and systems for a wide range of applications - including for MicroLED production.

Here is an interview we conducted with Applied Materials' Director of Global Product Marketing, Daniel Hada, who details the company's solutions for MicroLED production and R&D.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about Applied Materials' Baccini systems? What kind of systems are you offering?

We provide advanced screen-printing solutions for both R&D applications and high volume manufacturing. All Baccini systems are built for sheet-to-sheet printing, either on flexible or rigid substrates. In addition to our screen-printing capabilities, we also provide customers with different drying and curing solutions, in-line inspection systems to monitor the quality of the print immediately after the print, and fully automated print lines to enable low cost, and high volume manufacturing. Utilizing Baccini’s Esatto technology which provides high accuracy and high print repeatability, we developed the Double Print technology years ago, to allow print on print capability for printing narrow lines/small features with high aspect ratios and to minimize interruptions in the printed lines.

TCL's CSoT showed its latest display prototypes at the company's DTC 2021 event. CSoT unveiled two new microLED display prototypes, that it never displayed before.

The first display is a small 1.37" 320x360 (353 PPI) wearable LTPS microLED display, that achieves a brightness of >2,000 nits. The display also uses TDDI touch technology (in which a single chip shares the display driver and the touch sensor).

TCL announced a new AR smartglasses product, which it calls the Thunderbird Smart Glasses Pioneer Edition. TCL did not reveal much, but it says the color display is based on microLED technology, with a pixel pitch of 4 um. TCL did not release any estimated shipping dates or a price for this new product, which is likely still at an early stage.

The video above is not clear, but it seems as if this solution uses three monochrome microdisplays, combined to show a single full-color image (the video shows one panel, but it later shows three monochrome images combined into one full-color display). This kind of solution was suggested by Vuzix, based on JBD's 0.13" VGA monochrome microdisplays. Which incidentally offer a pixel pitch of 4um, which leads us to speculate that TCL is also basing its Thunderbird glasses on JBD's displays.

Taiwan's leading research institute, ITRI, developed a new in-cell technology to integrate sensors within microLED display panels.

ITRI says that it is the first in the world to enable a full-screen multi-finger fingerprint sensor. ITRI says that its new technology does not increase the display's thickness and can thus be implemented even in small wearable smartwatch displays.

Xiaomi announced its first smart glasses, called unimaginatively the Xiaomi Smart Glasses. These light-weight (51 grams) glasses will offer a monochrome (green) display and speakers, microphones and a 5MP camera, and will connect to your smartphone for notifications, navigation and will have applications such as real-time translation. It will support Xiaomi's XiaoAI Virtual Assistant.

Xiaomi says the microLED display is 0.13-inch in size, with a peak brightness of 2-million nits. The pixel pitch is 4 um. While not official, this is highly likely to be JBD's 0.13" VGA microLED display panel, revealed last year.

Canada-based microLED technology developer VueReal demonstrated a new transparent microLED display. The display is between 3 and 4 inches in size, with high brightness (over 3,000 nits) and very high transparency (85%).

The display in the video is produced on glass, but VueReal can also produce displays on flexible substrates. The company did not disclose the display's resolution (or whether this is a segmented display).

China-based display maker Royole introduced a stretchable and transparent microLED display prototype at SID Displayweek 2021. The company says that this display, the first of its kind, is compatible with existing industrial manufacturing processes.

The prototype panel is a 2.7-inch 96x60 display (120 PPI) . It can stretch by up to 130% and bend up to 40 degrees. It is quite transparent, too - with a transmittance of 70%.

Vuzix have officially launched its microLED display engines, based on three JBD monochrome microLED microdisplays.

Vuzix says that samples of the new engines are now available upon request. These are monochrome devices, and one would have to use three (red, green, and blue) for a full color display. Vuzix is developing full-color and higher-resolution (HD) engines. Vuzix says that its next-generation smart glasses will adopt these devices which are now on offer to customers.

MicroLED developer PlayNitride introduced interesting new display prototypes at SID Displayweek 2021.

The first display is a 89-inch 5K (59 PPI) curved display, produced from tiled microLED panels. The display has a 32:9 aspect ratio with the microLEDs driven by PCB. The 89-inch display is build from 168 tiles, and it achieves a brightness of over 2,000 nits.

Tianma demonstrated several new microLED display prototypes at SID Displayweek 2021. First up is a 7.56" 720x480 (114 PPI) flexible MicroLED display, developed in collaboration with PlayNitride. The display is driven by an LTPS backplane and achieves a brightness of over 600 nits. The bending radius is 50 mm.

The second display is a tiled display that combines two 5.04" 480x320 (114 PPI) LTPS microLED displays. This one was develop again in collaboration with PlayNitride. The border (bezel) of the panel is less than 0.03 mm - although looking carefully at the display you can see a black line separating the two panels.