What Display Daily thinks: Let’s put to rest some of the more grandiose statements here. MicroLED displays only work for premium smartwatches. The Garmin Fenix 9, which is rumored to use AUO displays but may not be available until next year, will be in excess of a $1,000, the price of the Fenix 8 with an AMOLED display.
So, AUO has a limited list of possible partners, Tag Heuer being the other one. The best audience for these smartwatches are the type A, wealthier, triathletes, runners and cyclists. And those guys are saying their rumor mill claims Garmin is only seeing 10% yields on production. There’s probably 50-100,000 of them worldwide who will spend more than a thousand bucks on a smartwatch. Maybe. When you do the math, it might be no different than the audience for $100,000 MicroLED TVs.
Reality check done, let’s move on to the positives, at least for the Taiwanese display industry. Taiwan is a good place to make semiconductor devices. It should be an excellent place to develop semiconductor displays. It has expertise, resources, and TSMC proved that it had the ambition to make big leaps in the electronics industry before anyone else was ready.
None of this changes the trajectory or pricing of MicroLED displays – the hype doesn’t quite match the output, manufacturing difficulties, and costs – but it offers hope to MicroLED developers like Vuzix, Mojo Vision, and VueReal. Look at what TSMC did for Arm, Nvidia, and Apple. Maybe AUO can do the same for the MicroLED guys. Lord knows they need a foundation for production that they can build upon, and it is not going to be Korea or China.
AUO Claims Mots Advanced MicroLED Production Line
DigiTimes reports AUO is on track to open the world’s most advanced MicroLED production line, a 4.5-generation facility scheduled for completion this month and slated for mass production by 2025. The new line represents AUO’s ambitious expansion into the MicroLED market, with applications planned for smartwatches, large-screen displays, and eventually automotive technology.
After claiming to have successfully launched MicroLED displays for smartwatches in late 2023 (with Garmin), AUO is expanding its sights to larger displays and more sophisticated uses.
In the company’s initial phase, AUO used a smaller production line to produce the world’s first 1.39-inch MicroLED smartwatch display, which allowed AUO to fine-tune its processes before moving to a larger-scale facility. The 4.5-generation production line will now focus solely on mass production.
With an expanded backplane size, the new facility will also make large-scale MicroLED transfer and assembly more efficient according to the company. Initial setup is nearly complete, and trial production will commence shortly, with sample displays slated for distribution to clients for final testing. Full production is set to roll out in 2025, with a product lineup that includes not only smartwatches and televisions but also transparent displays and automotive screens—the latter expected to debut by 2026.
One of the capabilities of the new line is its production of a 41.6-inch Micro LED panel, which will be the largest single active matrix MicroLED panel in the world. Manufacturing a 127-inch display currently requires around 100 panels of 12.7 inches each, while the new 41.6-inch panel reduces that number to just eight.
AUO’s Chief Technology Officer Liao Weilun told DigiTimes, MicroLED is no longer just an experimental technology but is poised to enter various commercial sectors. To remain competitive, AUO is strengthening collaborations within the MicroLED ecosystem and developing innovative products with strong market potential. With this new facility, AUO is positioning itself as a leader in the evolving MicroLED landscape, ready to meet the demand for increasingly advanced display technologies.
