Financial

During AUO's recent investor conference call, the company updated on its microLED project and made some interesting comments. First of all, AUO says that it has started to ship wearable microLED display panels at the end of 2024 (that's in line with AUO's previous announcement).

As far as we know, AUO is working with a Swiss luxury watch producer (like Tag Hauer) that will announce its microLED smartwatch soon. AUO says that it expects to expand its wearable microLED production soon.

In February 2024, ams-Osram announced that it's cornerstone customer (Apple) cancelled its microLED project, which will have dire implications for Osram's own $850 million 8-inch microLED epiwafer factory in Malaysia. Back then ams-Osram estimated that it will have impairment charges of $650 to $900 million and it will also likely to cancel or delay some of its investments in Malaysia.

ams-Osram now announced its plans and strategy following Apple's decision to cancel its project. It seems as if the company has decided to pretty much withdraw from the microLED display market, and the only remaining microLED development efforts will focus on automotive lighting products. ams-Osram now believes that microLED displays will primarily play a role in several smaller applications that also will scale slower and later than previously expected. We also believe that microLED displays will take a longer time to mature than some in the industry have expected.

Last month Apple decided to cancel its microLED Watch project, which had very bad consequences for many microLED developers. Ams-Osram is still considering its options and it estimates its loss at $650-900 million, while Singapore-based electronics assembly solutions provider Kulicke & Soffa announced that it was also effected, to the tune of $110-130 million as it cancelled its own project with Apple.

KLA Corporation recently announced that it is withdrawing from the FPD market altogether. The company entered this market when it bought Israeli Orbotech for $3.4 billion, developer of inspection equipment for the semiconductor and display industries. 

Following Apple's cancellation of its microLED Watch project, Singapore-based electronics assembly solutions provider Kulicke & Soffa announced that its own so-called Project W (probably referring to the Watch) is cancelled, following a project cancellation by a strategic customer, likely to be Apple. 

K&S says it expects charges, including impairments, in the range of $110-$130 million, most of it due to inventory write-downs and impairment charges relating to long-lived assets.

Belgium-based microLED microdisplay developer MICLEDI announced that it closes its Series A Funding round, to accelerate its development of high performance microLED arrays. VCs that participated in this round include imec.xpand, PMV, imec, KBC and SFPIM.

MICLEDI did not disclose the funding it received, but it did say that total funding in the company to date is nearly $30 million. In 2021, the company raised 7.1 million Euro, and in 2020 MICLEDI raised 4.5 million Euro in its Series-A round (which is now referred to by MICLEDI as its seed round, together with the 2021 round). Following its 2020 round we talked with the company's CEO who explains the company's technology and goals. If our calculation is correct, this new Series A round totaled around $17 million. 

AU Optronics announced an agreement with PlayNitride, to build a 6-inch microLED production line at AUO's Longtan factory. AUO will pay PlayNitride NT$700 million (around $21.5 million USD) for this new line.

AUO says that the new line will utilize PlayNitride's Chip-on-Carrier (COC) technology, that produces the microLEDs on temporary substrates ready for the transfer process. This will enable AUO to more easily realize the production of display panels based on these microLEDs. AUO says that this new line will also enable it to reduce microLED production costs. 

ams Osram is progressing with its microLED production fab project in Kulim, Malaysia, and the company has now signed a sale-and-lease agreement with three local Malaysian funds, with a total sum of 2 billion RM (or about $420 million USD). 

ams Osram will sell its Kulim facility (The building itself) to Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB), the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Retirement Fund (KWAP), and will lease it back for at least 10 years. The deal is expected to be formally signed by December 2023.