We're happy to interview eLux, as part of our new series of interviews with MicroLED Industry Association members. eLux was established in 2016 in the USA as a spin-out from Sharp Labs of America. eLux expertise and intellectual property development focus on the massively parallel assembly processes that enable low cost manufacturing of microLED displays.
Q: Hello! Can you introduce your company and technology?
eLux, Inc. was founded in 2016 as a spin-out from Sharp Laboratories of America. eLux's objective is to develop direct emission displays based on microLED technology targeting large format displays for video wall and television applications. Core personnel of eLux, including Jong-Jan Lee (President and CEO) and Paul Schuele (CTO), had extensive experience in display development working at Sharp Labs.
A 2X8 tiled microLED display made in collaboration with a large display company shown at Touch Taiwan 2022
The work done at company headquarters in Vancouver, Washington consists of development of fundamental microLED assembly technology and characterization of display performance and reliability. Direct emission display development involves extensive collaboration with microLED suppliers and manufacturers of display backplanes, so significant effort is involved in prototype fabrication, which takes place in Taiwan.
Q: Can you say why you joined the microLED association and what it is you hope to achieve?
eLux expects that the microLED Association will be a source of up to date information on technical progress and supply chain developments within the microLED display industry.
Q: What is your biggest challenge, and success to date in the microLED industry?
The biggest challenge for eLux has been building up the partnerships necessary to manufacture display backplanes, microLEDs and color conversion plates, and to integrate all of the pieces to make real microLED displays.
Our biggest success has been to produce microLED display prototypes with high yield using our proprietary selective harvest and fluidic assembly technologies. We have made bezel-less display tiles with very low mura that can be assembled in video walls of any size.
Q: Can you detail your latest prototype/demonstration?
Our latest display prototype, made in collaboration with several partners, has a fluidic assembly yield of 99.91% without redundancy or repair. The bezel-less 12.1” display uses blue microLEDs and quantum dot color conversion to form border-less tiled displays of any size.
A 480X180 pixel display at 40 PPImade by fluidic assembly. Yield is 99.91% with no repair or redundancy and luminance uniformity is below 1% at low drive current.
Q: How do you see microLEDs changing the display industry in the next 5-10 years?
We expect that microLED displays will be introduced commercially in smart watches and large area displays over the next year. Longer term, microLED displays will dominate the AR/VR, automotive and large area display markets because of the high brightness and reliability that cannot be achieved by any other technology. The main challenge for wide acceptance, will be product cost, until higher volume and more development experience improve assembly speed and yield.
Join the MicroLED Industry Association today to collaborate with eLux and other microLED Pioneers and help promote microLED technologies!