Micro-LED - Page 11

Samsung Electronics reported its financial results for Q4 2018, with revenues of KRW 59.27 trillion ($53 billion USD), down 10% from Q4 2017. Samsung's operating profit of KRW 10.8 trillion ($9.6 billion) was down 29% from 2017.

Samsung Display reported a decline in rigid smartphone OLED display sales - due to rising competition from LCD panels. Demand for flexible OLEDs was strong. In Q1 2019, OLED display sales will remain weak - but Samsung says that flexible OLED demand will pickup in the second half of 2019.

Fuji Chimera Research Institute says that the global microdisplay market reached $161 million in 2018, with AMOLED taking up a market share of 27.8%. LCoS is still the leading technology with a market share of 59.7%.

Fuji Chimera expects the OLED microdisplay market to grow to $75 million by 2021 - a CAGR of 10.9%. The average unit price for an OLED microdisplay will reach $32 (35% higher than LCoS microdisplays).

HDTVTest posted an interesting interview with Cadmium-Free QD developer Nanosys CEO and president Jason Hartlove. In this long interview Jason discusses the company's technology and recent achievements.

Jason reveals that the company is working on emissive Quantum Dots displays - and he expects to have a full-color monitor-size QLED display prototype ready by the end of 2019. Jason says that they hope to show these display prototypes in private demos at CES 2020.

CES is only starting tomorrow, but companies are already unveiling some of the new products and prototypes. Samsung is showing two new Micro-LED TV prototypes, a 75" consumer TV and a large 219" professional signage display.

Samsung did not reveal any details or commercialization plans for its new 75" MicroLED-TV. The company is reportedly close to release a hybrid QD-OLED TV in 2019, but it would seem that Samsung hopes that Micro-LED panels will be the company's next-gen flagship TV technology.

Samsung launched a new home screen TV range in India, called Active LED (also "LED for Home") - modular LED-based TV tiles that are offered in 4 sizes (from 110-inch FHD to 260-inch UHD). These are likely to be Micro-LED emissive displays (or mini-LEDs, most likely), even though Samsung did not actually give any specifications yet.

The Active LEDs are priced from 10 million Rs (around $137,000) for the 110" to 35 million Rs ($480,000) for the 260-inch TV. As these are modular TVs, consumers can choose different shapes (but only one of the four available resolutions/sizes).

According to reports from Taiwan, Samsung Electronics aims to introduce a 75" Micro-LED TV in 2019. Samsung will adopt PlayNitride's LED chips and technologies (and will also take a 30% stake in the Taiwan-based startup to help it increase its production capacity).

In July 2018, Samsung Electronics video and display chief, Han Jong-hee, said that Samsung aims to release a Micro-LED consumer TV next year - The Wall Luxury that will be based on its Wall modular TV. It could be that this will be the 75" TV that will use PlayNitride's chips.

LG unveiled its first Micro-LED TV prototype at IFA 2018. The large 173" panel uses individual micro-LEDs to create an emissive display, that can rival OLEDs.

It is not clear yet whether LG actually intends to develop this technology commercially for the consumer TV market and compete with its OLED TV business. Samsung's Micro-LED project seems to be more advanced as it started accepting pre-orders in June 2018 and will soon ship its Micro-LED TVs for commercial applications - and is also looking to release its first consumer-premium Micro-LED TV in 2019.

Samsung Electronics says that it plans to release its first consumer Micro-LED TV next year. The Wall Luxury will be a high-end module, but "will not be priced as high as people think".

Samsung 146-inch Wall Professional TV

The Wall Luxury will be a consumer version of The Wall Professional - which was launched last month and is now available for pre-orders. Samsung disclosed that the Wall Luxury will be thinner than the professional version at 30 mm (The Wall Professional is 80 mm thick). This is still very thick compared to current OLEDs which are less than 5 mm thick.

n-tech Research released a new Micro-LED market report in which they estimate that the market will grow from $2.7 billion in 2019 to over $70 billion in 2027. The markets for Micro-LED displays, according to n-Tech, will include wearables, near-eye displays, HUDs, projection displays and extra large area displays.

All of these applications will benefit from the small size, low weight, high brightness and high resolution of Micro-LED displays. Extra large-area displays will benefit from the linear scalability of Micro-LED displays.

Yole Developpement sees the AR market finally emerging in 2022 or 2023 - as there are still several challenges to solve before AR systems that are good enough for mass adoption.

Yole sees OLED microdisplays (OLED on Silicon) as the best current technology, but by 2022 it is likely that MicroLED displays will prove better than OLEDs - and so OLED shipments to the AR market will always be quite limited in volume.