The next generation of OLED: Micro LED development status and technical bottleneck analysis

Since the release of the iPhone 7, iPhone 8's various news has come, and most news about the screen reports that the new generation of iPhone will use OLED screen, which makes OLED a fire, and is considered the next generation of OLED display. Micro-LED also seems to be no longer low-key, glory at the Taiwan Solid State Lighting International Symposium. Compared to OLED, Micro-LED technology is still relatively new to many people, but the focus is getting higher and higher.

The term Micro LED appeared very early. As early as 2000, Cree applied for a patent called "Micro-ledarrays with enhanced light extracTIon". Later, related papers were published, but Micro LED is only pure academic research. LED factories and panel factories have also been secretly researched and developed for many years, but they have not really become commercialized.

What is Micro-LED?

MicroLED technology, namely LED miniaturization and matrixing technology. Refers to a high-density and small-sized LED array integrated on one chip. For example, each pixel of the LED display can be addressed and driven separately. It can be regarded as a miniature version of the outdoor LED display, and the pixel distance is from millimeter. The grade is reduced to the micron level.

The Micro LED display, on the other hand, uses the normal CMOS integrated circuit manufacturing process to make the LED display driver circuit, and then uses the MOCVD machine to fabricate the LED array on the integrated circuit, thereby realizing the micro display, that is, the LED display. A reduced version of the screen.

Prominent advantage

The advantages of Micro LED are obvious. It inherits the characteristics of high efficiency, high brightness, high reliability and fast response time of inorganic LED, and has the characteristics of self-illumination without backlight. It is more energy-saving, simple in mechanism and small in size. Thin and other advantages.

In addition, a major feature of the Micro LED is its high resolution. Because of the ultra-small performance, the resolution of the performance is particularly high; it is said that if the Apple iPhone 6S uses micro LED, the resolution can easily reach 1500ppi or more, which is 3.75 times higher than the original ReTIna display of 400PPi.

Compared with OLED, its color is easier to accurately debug, has a longer luminous life and higher brightness, and has better material stability, long life, and no image imprinting. Therefore, another display technology with lightness and power saving advantages after OLED is common to OLEDs in that it needs to be driven by a TFT backplane, so the TFT technology grades are IGZO, LTPS, and Oxide.