LED driver IC specialist Macroblock reported a gross margin of 34.2% for the first quarter of 2018, reaching new high over the past two years. The company expects its 2Q18 revenue to increase by 20% QoQ after its driver IC is chosen and successfully adopted in Samsung’s display products.

While more companies join in the development of Micro LED, only a few are able to manufacture RGB Micro LED chips. Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn is reported to acquire shares of Epileds, a Taiwan-based LED wafer and chip maker, from Catcher Technology, specialized in light metal technology and originally a shareholder of Epileds.

As a popular product in the LED display industry, Micro LED is regarded as a leader of next-generation display technology. A large number of manufacturers at home and abroad have paid attention to Micro LED, which has promising market prospects.

According to TrendForce’s latest report New Display Technology Cost Analysis, Micro LED has emerged as the most discussed topic in the display industry. The capital market and the supply chain are all looking forward to this next-generation display technology. However, from the technical perspective, the mass production of Micro LED still face many challenges, including the yield rate of mass transfer and LED uniformity, etc. Some manufacturers have thus shifted their development focus to Mini LED, whose architecture is similar to that of current LCD and LED displays. No major change in the design is needed. Commercialization of Mini LED is only a matter of time, therefore, companies are all expecting it to become a transitional product before Micro LED is ready for mass production.

As time is moving forward to the second quarter of 2018, more and more rumblings and updates about Micro/Mini LED emerged and have been circulating in the industry. In February, LEDinside collected and revealed information of Micro LED development from nearly 50 companies around the globe. Here, we would like to share some progress updates released after that from 10 companies.

According to the latest report of LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, while conventional LED components are used for backlight, Micro LED and Mini LED technology have been gradually used for self-emitting in displays of consumer electronics. Every LED will then stand for a pixel, increasing the number of LED wafers used.

The Society for Information Display (SID) and Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC) announced the complete agenda for the SID Display Week 2018 Business Conference. Featuring many of the leading companies, analysts and industry executives in the display industry, the Business Conference kicks off the well-attended Display Week Business Track and will be held on Monday, May 21, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., at the Los Angeles Convention Center. 

Recently, HC Semitek, Leyard and Changelight have revealed their progress of Mini and Micro LED, and so has Shenzhen MTC.

Concepts of Micro/Mini LED display are more and more popular. Enterprises' developments in this segment also become focuses of the LED industry.

The head of Samsung Visual Display expressed that Samsung Electronics has been researching methods to apply quantum dot technologies to its Micro LED TV.

As Micro LED still encounters certain technical bottlenecks, some companies are currently focusing on the transition technology Mini LED instead. The squad proactively developing Mini LED applications includes panel giants (Innolux and AUO), LED chip makers (Epistar and Lextar), and LED packaging firms (EVERLIGHT, AOT, and Harvatek).

According to media reports, Huawei, OPPO and Xiaomi are worried about insufficient OLED panel production, so they plan to use Mini LED-lit LCD displays for their smartphones in 2H18. Despite the fact that this rumor is not confirmed yet, the LED supply chain already pins its hope on Mini LED.

Optovate has revealed further details of its innovative micro-LED technology, following its first technology announcement in March 2018. Optovate has since 2008 been developing catadioptric micro-optic arrays to enhance the benefits of micro-LED, mini-LED and OLED displays and also a patterned laser lift-off (p-LLO) micro-LED transfer process.

According to the latest report, 2Q18 Micro LED Next-Generation Display Technology Market Report- Micro Projection AR & VR Market Trend and Analysis, from LEDinside, a division of the market research firm TrendForce, LEDinside analyzes the light sources of micro projection. Since Micro LED has high brightness and is power-saving, it can produce miniature module. After Micro LED technology becomes mature, it will be the new mainstream for display technology.

The oversupply in the LED chip market continues in 2018. The market demand is estimated to recuperate in the second quarter; however, it will still need new technologies such as Mini LED to ease the oversupply, according to Biing-Jye Lee, Chairman of Epistar

The sentiment is heating up in the high-end TV market as more rumors about Korean suppliers’ next-generation TVs came out. By the end of 2018, Samsung Electronics will release new-generation Micro LED TVs and the price could be as high as USD 300,000. Also, LG Electronics will start the global distribution of its new OLED TVs featuring its own AI platform DeepThinQ.

Currently in the industry, on one hand, Apple has been very active in developing Micro LED; on the other, display makers AU Optronics (AUO) and Innolux just announced to roll out Mini LED applications by the end of 2018.

Taiwanese manufacturer Playnitride stunned visitors by exhibiting Micro LED displays. There are three color displays, white, green and full color. In addition, 0.89” display is used on watches, with about 169 ppi and blue LED chip in combination with phosphor. For 0.8” display, the display quality is improved to 230 ppi, with green LED chip. For full color 0.89” display, it adopts RGB LED chip combination, with about 103 ppi. Playnitride hopes to advance technology in the future to develop toward the commercialization of Micro LED display.

The investment in whole flat panel display industry by Chinese enterprises has amounted to more than $70 billion, and the production scale of display panel in China is expected to be the No.1 around the world by 2019 from the third place at present, as well as China will be the important driving engine for the growth of global display industry. Under this circumstance, the Society for Information Display (SID) sets up operations entity in China, outside of the United States for the first time, and organizes the international conference on Display Technology (ICDT). The second International Conference on Display Technology (ICDT) is held during April 9-12, 2018 in Guangzhou, China. ICDT 2018 is hosted jointly by the Society for Information Display (SID) Beijing Chapter, SID Taipei Chapter and SID Hong Kong Chapter, and organized by South China Normal University, South China University of Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Juhua Printed Display Technology Co. Ltd, HKUST State Key Laboratory on Advanced Displays and Optoelectronics Technologies, SID China, OE-A and Fuzhou University. ICDT 2018 attracts a large number of display prominent scientists, academia and enterprise elites in the field of display, focusing on 7 special topics and 17 symposium topics, also totally publishing 383 symposium papers (including oral, invited and poster presentations). In addition to the publication of technical papers, in order to promote the continuation of technology, the venue also provides exhibition booths and the opportunities for collaboration between start-ups and investors to enhance industrial exchanges.

Over the past two years, Micro LED, regarded as the new generation display technology, has attracted a lot of attention. Seeing great potential in this new technology, a large number of manufacturers have scrambled for it. According to LEDinside’s latest report "1Q18 Micro LED Next-Generation Display Technology Market Report- 2018 Micro LED and Mini LED Industry Trend", the market value of Micro LED is expected to reach US $2.891 billion in 2025.

LG is reported to have filed applications to the EU for three trademarks related to Micro LED displays. The trademarks are XµLED, SµLED, and XLµLED, Gsmarena.com carried in a report.

The sales of iPhone X turned out to be less than market expectation, so Samsung has lowered the utilization rate of OLED production lines. The tight supply of OLED panels over the past two years has also been eased. According to WitsView, a division of TrendForce, Apple has initiated the trend of OLED panels, and it is estimated that the penetration rate of OLED panel in smartphones will reach 46% by 2021. Mini LED is overwhelmed by OLED’s technology maturity and competitive costs, so it might be hard for Mini LED to grow in the smartphone market in short term.

According to the latest Gold Member Report - LED Industry Demand and Supply Data Base from LEDinside, a division of the market research firm TrendForce, in 2017, due to the stable prices on LED market and the rapid growth of automotive lighting and outdoor architectural lighting, LED market value of 2017 reached USD 17.16 billion, up 7.4% YoY.

Chinese LED packager Nationstar on March 2 inaugurated its new research center focusing on the research and development of Mini LED and Micro LED.

Optovate Ltd., the Micro LED optical specialist, announces that it has realized a Micro LED technology that enables multiple Micro LEDs transferred in parallel from a wafer to a substrate to be aligned in one step with a precision optical array. The technology is the subject of a portfolio of 20 granted and pending patents dating from 2008.

Solar-Tectic LLC ("ST") announced that a paper reporting a breakthrough thin-film transistor (TFT) technology, that promises greatly to improve current processes used the industry, has been published in the peer reviewed journal Materials Letters. The title of the paper is: "High mobility crystalline silicon film growth below 600°C from an Au-Si eutectic melt for TFTs".

Samsung Electronics launched its flagship line of 2018 QLED TVs and AV products at the 2018 First Look New York event at the American Stock Exchange building in Manhattan.

Micro LED display developer VueReal announced on March 6 the initial closing of its $10.5 million (USD) Series A funding led by the venture arm of a large Asian company and a leading North American vendor focused on startups with emerging technology.

JBD, a HK-based startup founded in 2015, carried out extensive research and development work to realize inorganic compound semiconductor material based display technology. Near the end of 2017, JBD introduced a new Micro LED technology for microdisplay manufacturing. LEDinside contacted Dr. Fang Ou, CTO, and Dr. Lei Zhang, CEO of JBD, and got the information about the technique in detail.

Taiwan-based LED chip manufacturer Epistar reported a decrease of 8.59% MoM and a growth of 11.52% YoY in its revenue for January 2018. The slow season and the price decline of LED are factored in for the decrease.