Is Micro LED would be the future of display technology?

In the early years and still today the TV display technology is revolving around the LEDs more or less, however, the emergence of OLEDs is recognized by various overwhelming advantages and even called the new generation display technology.

Also, it was proposed that the future development trend of TV display technology would be self-illuminating QLED. At that time, many people believed that LED technology will be replaced by OLED in the future.

However, in that past, the popularity of Micro LED display technology in the past two years has made many people in the industry see new hopes for the development. So where is the Micro LED?

Principle of Micro LED display

Micro LED is a new generation of display technology, which is actually the LED screen panel that we often see on the day, namely LED miniaturization and matrix technology.

The high-density, small-size LED array integrated on one chip, like the LED display, can be addressed and individually driven to illuminate, which reduces the pixel distance from millimeters to micrometers.

In general, an LED chip having a total surface of less than 2,500 mm that is, a 50 mm x 50 mm square, or a circular chip having a diameter of 55 mm.

Advantages of Micro LED display

Since 2016, Apple announced that it will be possible to adopt Micro LED technology, and this technology is also well known. The advantages of the Micro LED compared to the existing OLED technology are particularly obvious.

First, its micron-level pixel pitch allows each pixel to be individually controlled and driven, so that resolution, brightness, contrast, and power consumption are no less than OLEDs.

Because it is made of inorganic materials, the life and stability are much stronger than the organic molecules of the OLED screen, and the burn-in aging phenomenon that is easy to appear on the OLED screen is much less.

In addition, the Micro LED has a very big advantage, that is, the resolution is extremely high, which is also due to the use of micron-level pixel pitch, because of the small size, so the analytical strength is particularly high.

It is reported that the iPhone 6s using Retina display is 400PPI, but if it uses Micro LED display, it can easily reach 1500PPI.

Like OLEDs, Micro LEDs are also self-illuminating, which greatly reduces power consumption. Color is easier to debug accurately than OLED.

Current status of Micro LED

According to the latest data from industry research firm Yole Développement, the Micro LED display industry has confirmed that 125 companies and organizations have submitted nearly 1,500 patents, of which Apple has 62 patents.

At present, although the advantages of Micro LED display technology are obvious, it is not popular in the market. In fact, as early as 6 years ago at the 2012 CES, Sony exhibited a 55-inch full HD Micro LED display, which was also a sensation at the time.

Subsequently, industry giants including Apple and Samsung entered the market of Micro LED. At the beginning of this year, Samsung’s 146-inch Micro LED display device exhibited at CES once again caused a stir in the industry.

The reason why Micro LED has not been popular is that there are technical limitations at present.

It requires sophisticated micro-process technology and massive transfer of technology. It not only shrinks millimeter-level LED chips to only 1% of the original size but also transfers high-density, arrayed, thin-film LED crystals to the drive panel.

In addition, due to the poor wavelength consistency of the Micro LED, the color of the LED is not uniform, so it is necessary to make a whole piece of Micro LED panel like the size of the current smartphone, and the yield is very low.

In recent years, experts in Micro LED technology said that this technology can not be applied to iPhone, iPad and other products for the time being, but may appear in small screen products such as Apple Watch.

The current reliable statement is to apply Micro LED technology to wear smart devices and then project them on the big screen.

Micro LED Outlook

Although the popularity of Micro LED is still too early, the advantages of Micro LED display technology is still very broad.

At present, the biggest bottleneck of this technology lies in the technical bottleneck, and with the addition of giants such as Apple and Samsung, Micro LED display technology will become more and more mature.

I believe that it will not take long for the iPhone, iPad and other devices to use Micro LED display technology in our lives.