February 2019

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.

US and Sweden based Glo has been developing Micro-LED displays on both LTPS and CMOS (microdisplay) backplanes for many years. The company has been rather quiet until now (even though the 2017 investment from Google created some buzz).

Glo has now started to disclose its technology and achievements. At CES 2019, Glo demonstrated two displays. First up is the 1.5-inch smartphone type display you can see in the image above. The 264 PPI 120Hz display is produced on a LTPS backplane and produces 4,000 nits brightness - you can see how it is much brighter compared to the LGD OLED in the Apple Watch next to it (1,000 nits max).

Korea-based LED developer Seoul Semiconductor announced it will soon introduce its innovate offering of Micro LED products for next generation displays.

Seoul Semiconductor says it is the world's second-largest LED maker (excluding the captive market) and it holds over 12,000 patents.

AU Optronics announced that it will accelerate its development of Micro-LED products. AUO started to ship mini-LED based LCD gaming monitor panels in Q4 2018, and will continue to develop mini-LED LCDs for other niche markets in 2019.

In July 2018 AUO said that micro-LEDs are still too expensive and not ready for mass production yet - even after years of R&D. Hopefully the company's views have now changed. AUO did say in 2018 that it plans to introduce micro-LEDs in "niche products" in the future.

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.