The key to mass production of Micro/Mini LED display: the balance between technology and cost
In recent years, the micro luminescent diode (Micro LED) has been developing rapidly in the large factory driven and cross field industrial chain, and the sub millimeter light emitting diode (Mini LED), considered as a transition technology, has also developed rapidly over the past year. The two technologies have always been challenged, but cost considerations remain a common problem.
The price to compete with OLED "Mini LED's biggest problem is not technology but at cost", one professional mentioned that in the US SID exhibition this year, many panel factories exhibit Mini LED backlighting products with the thickness of the module between 1 and 2mm, and the number of Local Dimming Zones (Local Dimming Zones) from 200 to 1000 All the areas have, the product is quite high.
Although this kind of product specification is close to the existing high order product grade, the number of chips used is more than 10 thousand, that is to say, the price of the product will be very considerable. "Under such circumstances, whether we can enter the market and OLED PK is the most critical problem now," the professional said. In particular, mobile or tablet devices are light and electricity saving, and Mini LED is not suitable for such display products, and the cost problem will be a key point for Mini LED to be able to measure production ahead of time.
The people say that both the Mini LED or the Micro LED are the most difficult areas to be cut in, after all, the technology of OLED is relatively mature in this field. Although it is only a matter of time to overcome the bottleneck of Mini LED or Micro LED technology, reducing costs is not easy to overcome in the short term.
In terms of Mini LED, the development of high priced and high-class televisions may be a great opportunity. The people pointed out that the Mini LED backlight concept has appeared earlier, that is, straight down backlight, but the size of the LED chip is larger and the cost is too high. Now the Mini LED concept reduces the size of LED chip to 100 to 200 mu m, or can further reduce the cost of materials, and does not require new equipment expenditure.
Using the Mini LED's direct backlight with the area dimming, not only the contrast is high, but also the display effect will be very good. The people believe that the Mini LED backlight product can develop the differential straight backlighting high order machine, it is expected to compete with the OLED high order machine, and the future also has the opportunity to develop in the 8K high-order television market, and the gaming monitor (gaming monitor) is expected to become one of the fields of the rapid development of Mini LED.
The highest cost of Micro LED transfer and repair is Mini LED and Micro LED technology, which may be faster than the past OLED development time, which is believed to be related to the slow technological breakthroughs of OLED organic materials. Micro LED is different from OLED. It is a very mature semiconductor process. The way of development is different from that of OLED. It needs a breakthrough in the process, a good rate, a new equipment and so on. The speed of progress is expected to be accelerated.
However, apart from many bottlenecks in technology, the cost is still a big problem for Micro LED to achieve mass production at an early date. The cost structure of the current Micro LED 2K resolution is dismantled, and the overall cost of analysis is mostly on the two major projects of Mass Transfer and Repair, and the proportion is more extreme than other projects, and the overall cost is about eight to ten times more than the existing display costs.
Many manufacturers have begun to try to solve problems with short-term alternatives, such as cutting and screening before transfer to reduce the cost of repair after transfer; some use monochrome Micro LED with quantum dots (QD) color conversion materials, or RGB three color Micro LED to achieve full color; and some use the Redundancy mechanism to avoid bad points. In order to further reduce the huge cost of transfer and repair, we need to restore the cumbersome process and so on.
"For a long time, whether it is a huge transfer or repair cost, the most serious point is that the yield of the front product is not mature enough." the people think that how to improve the rate of all processes in the future is the key point. If it can be perfect in the front of the process, the latter can reduce the appearance of bad points and reduce the cost of repair, of course. In the field of repair, it is necessary to synchronize the new solutions to further reduce the cost; in addition, the key to long-term development is to reduce the use of materials and improve the efficiency of material use.
Referring to the huge transfer technology, the people said that China's Taiwan area is running faster in the field of technology. At present, there are special transfer technology patents in Taiwan, Taiwan Institute of engineering, Mesa Technology and so on. In addition, there are also panels and LED industries in Taiwan region of China, and then to adjust the direction of huge transfer and develop Micro The environment of LED is relatively mature. Under the drive of apple, SONY, Samsung and other systems, the future in the high-order television market, the AR projection scheme, and so on, will be the potential development direction, but to cut into the mainstream of the specifications will depend on the ability to reduce the cost of the plant, the people think at least three years.
"The future of China's Taiwan region will be the Micro LED display training place", he is optimistic about the opportunity to develop Micro LED in China's Taiwan region. "All the technologies must have a solution, but the key is the cost. How to balance technology and cost will be the key to the future," the personage said.
