June 2020

PlayNitride says that in order to meet mass production goals, microLED chip prices will have to be reduced drastically. The company aims to reduce the production cost of microLED chips by 95% within five years.

PlayNitride's CEO, Charles Li, says that the main challenge right now is to reduce the cost and size of microLED chips. In addition microLED makers will have to integrate the entire supply chain - from LED wafer production and process to transfer technology, backplane production and display module fabrication. Good technologies are available for all these steps, but integration is now key.

This is a sponsored article by Dr Xiaoxi He, Principal Analyst, IDTechEx

MicroLED, believed by many to be the next generation of display technology, has been pursued by players of LED, display, OEM, materials and so on. Differentiated from LCD and OLED, microLED is considered to be the only display technology that has no size limitation. What are the potential applications? What are the hypes and realities? These are questions addressed in the brand-new IDTechEx report, “Micro-LED Displays 2020-2030: Technology, Commercialization, Opportunity, Market and Players”.

Various Motivations Are Driving the Progress of MicroLED Displays

Samsung Display has announced it is ending the LCD business and will focus on its QD LCD & OLED businesses. LG Display has halted its domestic production of LCD panels. Korean vendors tend to reduce their LCD panel production and shift to QLED & OLED. In addition, Panasonic and JDI are also getting out of the LCD business. AUO, Innolux and a few other Taiwanese companies are slowing down investment in LCD or OLED. As a comparison, LCD manufacturing is shifting to mainland China due to cost competence, new line production efficiency and industry chain support.

Epistar and Lextar announced plans to establish a joint holding company, effectively merging the two companies.

The plan is to delist both companies from Taiwan's stock exchange and list the new company by the end of October 2020. The two companies will continue to operate independently, but the holding company's main focus for its future revenue growth will be on mini LEDs and microLEDs products and technologies.

Helio Display Materials, based in the UK, was spun-off from both Oxford and Cambridge University, to commercialize photoluminescent and electroluminescent perovskite-based materials for the display industry - with solutions for the OLED, LCD and Micro-LED markets.

Our sister site, Perovskite-Info, posted an interview with Helio's CEO, Simon B. Jones, discussing the company's technology and business.

Samsung Electronics launched a new The Wall experience zone at the Galleria Department Store in Suwon, Korea. The company is showcasing a 146-inch microLED The Wall TV.

This is the first time Samsung is showcasing its microLED TVs to the public. The company said that it will expand this exhibition to other Galleria Department stores in Korea.