What They Say
Leyard in China put out a press release highlighting that it has put into mass production a display based on the NPQD R1 MicroLED device developed with Saphlux (in which Leyard has a 12% interest). The press release was not clear on the exact products to be made with the chip, but the target is ‘civil’ (consumer?) and home markets. The R1-0406 microLED is a red device.
Digging around for more background led us to this news story from a couple of weeks ago that highlighted that Saphlux Inc had developed a red display for AR applications (the T1 series which are RGB units) that is said to achieve 67% blue to red conversion efficiency with a sub-pixel size of 2?m. The firm claims that its engine can achieve a ‘Wall plug efficiency’ (WPE) of 5.4% at brightness of 480K cd/m² and can go up to 740K (WPE 4.2%) or 930K (WPE 3.5%). The light engine is said to have passed a 3,000 hour reliability test. The FWHM of the red is 23nm and the colour is ‘close to Rec. 2020). The T1 is expected to be commercialised in 2023.
Also last month, Leyard promoted its Black Diamond LED range which is based on microLED and is usable in pitches from 0.4mm to 1.8mm. Leyard highlighted that microLED tends to be limited to pitches of 0.9mm and below, so extending it upwards makes it suitable for up to 80% of LED fine pitch display applications. It highlighted the advantages of the microLED configuration in the slide below. The firm said that it can make an UltraHD 100″+ set for less than RMB500,000 ($74,600).
What We Think
Pete Palomaki commented on the Saphlux approach as a good one back in 2019 (Top Trends in Quantum Dots at SID Display Week 2019 – Part 1) and there were announcements at Display Week last year (Quantum Dot Round-up at SID Display Week 2021), but I confess, Saphlux had ‘dropped off my radar’ as a company developing microLED – but there are a lot!
At the moment, Leyard seems to be just promoting this development in China, perhaps because of limited capacity, but we’ll be watching closely! (BR)
