From November 30th to December 1st, the 2022 World Display Industry Conference hosted by the Sichuan Provincial People's Government and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology was held in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. The "Mini/MicroLED Display Key Technology Theme Forum" was held at the same time as the conference. At the forum, participating experts and entrepreneurs affirmed the development prospects of Micro LED and also pointed out that Micro LED is still several steps away from success. Whether it can become the "best display technology" still requires the industry to work together to overcome several difficulties.
Micro LED applications will be promoted in four stages
MicroLED is considered the "ultimate display" solution. Its application prospects and the value it can create are extremely attractive. New opportunities for applications such as commercial displays, high-end TVs, vehicles and wearable devices continue to flourish. Related upstream and downstream industries are reshaping the display ecosystem.
Huang Xiuqi, general manager of Chengdu Chenxian Optoelectronics Co., Ltd., believes that glass-based Micro LED displays have excellent performance and versatile functions, and are expected to be widely used in commercial displays, high-end TVs, vehicles, wearables and other fields, and have huge market potential. Its new equipment and materials will become important opportunities for industrial development and are expected to reshape the display industry ecosystem. Micro LED can realize large-size free splicing display applications, and technologies such as modular packaging and sidewall wiring make free splicing possible. Micro LED can also realize integrated applications of interactive devices. The future screen is expected to become a platform that can realize various functions such as interaction through sensors, breaking through the concept of "display". Innovation at the device level can bring about revolution at the functional level. 3D display, 3D interaction, coupled with emerging technologies such as 5G and big data, the future development direction of holographic display is undoubtedly exciting. Glass-based Micro LED can cover the application fields of large, medium and small-sized products. The market size is expected to grow rapidly from 2024, and it is expected to build a new upstream and downstream industrial ecological chain.
After years of research and development, Micro LED large-scale displays have officially reached the milestone of mass production this year, becoming a rich driving force for the development of related components, equipment and processes. The participation of more manufacturers and the continued development trend of miniaturization have prompted the Micro LED industry to continuously achieve new technological breakthroughs and the market scale has also continued to expand.
When talking about the Micro LED display large-screen market and technology trends, Xu Chenke, deputy general manager of Sanan Optoelectronics Co., Ltd., said that the market has continued to grow. From the perspective of LED direct display technology, with the increase in application fields, the entire display industry is developing towards smaller spacing, and the transfer speed will be faster and more efficient. As one of the Micro LED fine pitch display technologies, fine pitch technology is a bridge connecting the backplane and the chip, and will become the mainstream technology in the field of large display screens in the future. Fine pitch products also have advantages in the production and manufacturing process. Pitch fine products require less time in the part-making part, are easier to repair, can be used on glass substrates and PCBs, and also help expand smaller point pitches. In terms of product advantages, because fine pitch uses advanced Micro LED chips, coupled with massive transfer technology and advanced packaging technology, it has higher contrast and ultra-wide viewing angles compared to Mini LED. Overall, he believes that fine pitch technology is currently the best solution and can accelerate the commercialization of Micro LED in the large-screen field.
In addition to large displays, Micro LED has the excellent characteristics of being able to be used with flexible and penetrable backplanes. It is expected to emerge in automotive displays and wearable displays, creating a new application business opportunity that is different from current display technology. The addition of more manufacturers and the continued trend of miniaturization will be the key to the continued decline in chip costs.
Lu Changjun, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Leyard Group, believes that the application of Micro LED is divided into several stages, of which the first and second stages focus on commercial applications, namely higher-resolution large-size commercial displays and commercial applications in smaller spaces (conference rooms). The third stage is in fields such as AR/VR and vehicles that require higher resolution and reliability. The fourth stage is in consumer electronics fields such as mobile phones and tablets that are more cost-sensitive. It is expected that Micro LED will eventually develop into a substrate-less direction, and the chip size will be further reduced. Technically speaking, in the future, large-size MicroLED displays will no longer pursue reduction in pitch. After all, a pitch of around p0.4 can meet the application requirements of most splicing screens. The ultimate picture quality, reliability and stability will become the biggest pursuit of Micro LED development. For example, excellent low-gray performance, flicker-free AM (active matrix), wider color gamut and saturation may become Leyard's technology development direction. In terms of products and applications, Micro LED applications will no longer be limited to traditional splicing walls. Leyard will develop diversified products for different needs so that technology can truly serve products and applications.
MicroLED mass production still needs to overcome several hurdles
Future displays should be able to free both hands and integrate multiple functions on the screen to achieve interaction. This requires that the display must have high contrast, high PPI, high brightness, and even extended reality. Currently, Micro LED can meet the development needs of the future display industry, but the industrialization process still needs to be accelerated.
Lin Weihan, general manager of Konka Group Technology R&D Center, said that in general, the industrialization of Micro LED must first achieve mass production of chips and continue to optimize performance; secondly, large-volume transfers need to be combined with repair to achieve mass production of products; thirdly, the production efficiency of Micro LED needs to be further improved under driving micro-current conditions; finally, the industrial ecology is still under construction, and hardware costs need to continue to decline.
With the official start of mass production of Micro LED large-size displays, the mass transfer method has gradually shifted from the current pickup method to the laser transfer method with faster speed and higher utilization rate, simultaneously optimizing the process cost of Micro LED. Despite this, MicroLED currently still faces mass production problems, and productivity needs to be improved.
Dong Gang, chairman and general manager of Toray Advanced Engineering Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., said that the industry should consider how to improve the productivity of Micro LED, including repair. There are tens of millions of LEDs in a TV. If they are transferred to a substrate, even if the yield can reach 99.99%, there will still be many places that need to be repaired in the end, and it will take a long time. Also solve the problem of uneven display brightness. In addition, in terms of mass production speed, yield and cost, Micro LED still does not have advantages compared with the current very mature liquid crystal. Although the industry has done a lot of work on mass transfer, Micro LED still has a long way to go before it can truly achieve mass production. There are two main mass transfer technologies, one is Pick & Place, and the other is laser mass transfer. Toray has done a lot of work in terms of laser mass transfer and is developing related materials and equipment.
In addition to basic process capabilities, glass-based Micro LED also faces some industrialization challenges. In this regard, Huang Xiuqi summarized three major issues: first, the issue of display uniformity; second, the issue of the driver architecture suitable for Micro LED display; and third, the issue of seamless splicing. Huang Xiuqi said that Chenxian Optoelectronics focuses on the technology research and development and industrialization of glass-based Micro LED displays. It has currently made a comprehensive layout in terms of team, production line, technology, intellectual property and other aspects. It hopes to collaborate with industry chain partners to innovate and quickly promote the industrial development process.
Based on its tiny size, Micro LED also poses more challenges to detection. Inziv CEO David Lewis said in this regard that in the early stages of the development of the MicroLED industry, the industry paid more attention to Micro LED chip miniaturization, chip design, efficiency improvement and mass transfer. But today's key challenges for Micro LED are detection, repair and brightness management. Micro LED requires suitable equipment to achieve mass production. The most fundamental problem in current Micro LED manufacturing is extremely low yield. For structural defects, material defects or thermal defects that lead to low yield, the industry needs to develop a fast EL (electroluminescence) solution to achieve rapid detection of Micro LED defects.
Following LCD, MicroLED is a strong competitor in the new generation of display iteration technology, and Micro LED chips are undoubtedly the key link. It is understood that the size of Micro LED is only one percent of the original mainstream LED chip, reaching the order of tens of microns. Due to the small size of the chip, the traditional ball mounting and wiring method will seriously reduce the luminous ratio of the chip. Therefore, stripping off the vertical structure of the sapphire substrate has become the mainstream Micro LED chip structure.
Hao Maosheng, chairman of Shanghai Xinyuanji Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd., said that from LED to Mini LED, there is no major difference in chip technology and chip process in nature, but the chip size is changing. The essential change in the development of Micro LED is that chip segmentation cannot be completed by thinning and scratching the sapphire substrate. Instead, the GaN chip must be directly peeled off the sapphire substrate. The existing substrate stripping technology in the industry is only laser stripping technology. This technology itself is a destructive process and is not very mature in China. This is the first problem faced by Micro LED chips. The second problem is the dislocation density of Micro LED chips, which has a very negative side effect on the consistency of Micro LED chips. Initially, the dislocation density in GaN LED epitaxy was as high as 1010. Although the dislocation density was high, the luminous efficiency was also very high. After gallium nitride LED was produced in Japan, after more than thirty years of development, process optimization has reached the ceiling, with the dislocation density reaching 5×108. However, due to the high dislocation density of existing LED technology, the development of Micro LED may greatly restrict the development of subsequent products. Therefore, it is necessary to continue the existing LED chip technology and develop Micro LEDSolve two problems. The first is to further reduce the dislocation density of gallium nitride materials, and the second is to find a better lift-off technology than laser lift-off technology.
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