August 2019

LED developer Lextar Electronics announced that next week at Touch Taiwan 2019 it will showcase a 5.1" transparent active-matrix microLED display that achieves an extremely high brightness - 30,000 nits.

This is Lextar's first public demonstration of a micro-LED display. Last year at Touch Taiwan 2018 the company unveiled its first micro-LED chips. The company recognizes that its micro-LED display technology will not be ready for commercialization before 2020 at the earliest.

AU Optronics announced that it will demonstrate a 12.1" LTPS micro-LED display prototype next week that features a resolution of 1920x720 (169 PPI). It seems that this is the same display shown at IFA 2018.

The 2018 display used blue LEDs with color conversion, which achieved "marvelous color performance", according to AUO.

Korean market research company UBI Research forecasts that Micro-LED revenues will grow from around $100 million in 2019 to over $6 billion in 2025.

IHS Markit recently said that it expects MicroLED display shipments to reach 15.5 million units in 2026, as sharp production cost improvements will enable micro-LED technology to achieve mass market success. The new emerging display technology will find markets in wearables, TVs, AR and also smartphones.

Researchers at Zhejiang University developed a laser-driven programmable non-contact transfer printing technique that could be applicable to the transfer of Micro-LED chips. The researchers used an innovative design based on an active elastomeric micro-structured stamp with tunable adhesion.

The tunable adhesive used in this technique features cavities filled with air and encapsulated by a micro-patterned surface membrane, used in easily available sandpapers. The micro-patterned surface membrane can be inflated dynamically to control the interfacial adhesion by heating the air in cavities.

Luumii, a joint-venture between Micro-LED developer Rohinni and Koja, announced that it has started to mass produce its micro-LED and mini-LED based notebook computer keyboard backlights and logo lighting solutions.

Luumii says that its solutions are more compact and offer a higher power efficiency compared to current solutions, and may also enhance product features and user experience as it offers colored lighting and animations. Luumii's current capacity is 34,000 units per month, and by the end of 2019 it will increase the capacity to 100,000 monthly units.

High-precision 3D sensing developer CyberOptics Corporation announced that it has received a $1.3 million order for its Multi-Reflection Suppression (MRS)-enabled SQ3000 Multi-Function systems for Automated Optical Inspection (AOI), Solder Paste Inspection (SPI) and Coordinate Measurements (CMM).

CyberOptics says that the systems, which will ship in Q2 2020, will be used for the scale-up of Micro LED device production.

US-based Rohinni announced that it has received initial orders for its Pixalux mini-LED and micro-LED placement solution. The company expects to ship more systems in the current quarter, and anticipates higher-volume market adoption in 2020.

Rohinni says that its system combines higher throughput and accuracy for small-die applications to provide a compelling and highly-competitive solution.

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).