What They Say
Hat tip to MicroLED-info for spotting an article by David Hsieh of Omdia that set out his view on the future of MicroLED. The article was published in mid-March and includes Omdia’s forecast by application (below). His key findings were:
- Micro LED displays are projected to reach $7 billion in 2025 on a revenue basis.
- The high cost of micro LED displays is due to the complicated manufacturing process, the non-standardized process and equipment, the multiple participants of the supply chain, and the immature and unstable yield management and output.
- It is estimated that micro LED display capex will reach $8 billion from 2020 to 2025. Of this amount, $3.2 billon is for micro LED epitaxial wafer (epi wafer) process and $4.8 billion for micro LED mass transfer, modulization, and set assembly.
the article includes a list of different prototype and initial products (before Touch Taiwan, of course).
- Plessey 0.7-inch 1920×1080 micro LED on silicon wafer
- JBD 0.4-inch 1280×720 micro LED with silicon wafer
- ADRC 0.22-inch micro LED with LTPS TFT backplane
- ITRI 2.5-inch 120×120 micro LED with passive matrix substrate
- ChinaStar 3.3-inch micro LED display with indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) TFT backplane
- PlayNitride 458 pixels per inch (ppi) micro LED with LTPS TFT backplane
- Tianma 720×480 transparent micro LED display on LTPS TFT substrate
- eLux 12.1-inch 720×240 full color micro LED display
- AUO 9.6-inch 1920×960 flexible micro LED display with 228 ppi and over 5.5 million of micro LED chipsets
- AUO 12.1-inch flexible micro LED display for automotive display applications
- Konka 230-inch 8K micro LED digital signage
- Hisense 118-inch 4K micro LED digital signage
- TCL 132-inch 4K micro LED display TV with 0.76mm pixel pitch
- Samsung 146-inch The Wall 4K micro LED display for digital signage
- Sharp 24-inch curved micro LED display module
- Sony 395-inch 7680×2160 micro LED signage display
- Konka 2-inch micro LED display for smartwatch with quantum dot color conversion and LTPS TFT backplane
What We Think
Omdia has a lot of data, but seems to have forgotten the importance of getting its name out! We were surprised last year, when the firm re-vamped its website, that it didn’t seem to include press releases (we check such pages regularly), but at the time, the firm hadn’t got around to adding them to the site!
This is worth a look if you are interested in microLED. The article includes the summary of advantages and disadvantages. The chart is useful but shows microLED as having power efficiency advantages over OLED. This is true of bigger microLEDs, but at the kinds of sizes that might make the technology competitive in, for example, smartphones, that advantage disappears and OLED looks like the better bet for now. (BR)
