Micro-LED - Page 14

According to an industry insider in Taiwan, Samsung is set to acquire Taiwan's PlayNitride for the company's micro-LED technology for around $150 million. Our inside says that Samsung aims to develop micro-LED based displays for VR applications, but may also look into micro-LED based TVs using PlayNitride's technology.

Micro-LED is a promising display technology as it has the potential to enable brighter and more efficient displays compared to OLEDs. It also may be cheaper, but there are still technical challenges to overcome and analysts estimate that micro-LEDs will not be commercialized before 2020.

An IDC Analyst estimates that Apple will start low-volume Micro-LED production in its plant in Taoyuan, Taiwan, by the end of 2017. Mass production will begin in 2018 with an aim to use these displays in future smart watch devices.

Apple acquired Micro-LED developer LuxVue in May 2014 and has not updated on the technology since, so this is all speculation at this stage. In 2016 Oculus acquired InfiniLED, another Micro-LED startup. Sony is also developing Micro-LED displays.

Oculus has acquired InfiniLED, a Micro-LED display developer based in Ireland. Oculus did not say the amount of money it paid, but it did confirm the acquisition and said that the team joined Oculus Research in a new office dedicated to research in Cork.

Oculus is currently using dual 3.1" 1200x1080 VR AMOLED displays produced by SDC. This is an interesting acquisition which follows Apple's acqusition of Micro-LED developer LuxVue in 2014. There were some reports in June 2016 that Apple is looking to develop a Micro-LED display for future smartwatches, although this was not confirmed.

The first-generation Apple Watch uses a flexible OLED display, exclusively produced by LG Display. Digitimes now says that Apple is developing a Micro-LED panel to be used in a future Watch - to be released in H2 2017.

Apple acquired Micro-LED developer LuxVuew in May 2014, and according to this report has setup a micro-LED research lab in Taiwan in 2015.

In 2012, Sony demonstrated a new micro-LED based display technology called Crystal-LED. These displays use ultra-fine RGB LEDs to create a self-emitting display. Sony actually demonstrated a prototype 55" Full-HD Crystal-LED TV.

Sony never mentioned this technology again, but last week during the InfoComm trade show, Sony unveiled a large tiled outdoor 9.75 x 2.74 meter 8Kx2K display based on Crystal LED technology (Sony calls this display Canvas Display, or CLEDIS).

Back in May 2014, Apple acquired LuxVue Technology, a private company that develops micro-LED based displays. Very little was known about this company and its technology, but since then interest in micro-LED displays is obviously higher.

Candice Brown-Elliott, the creator of the Pentile Matrix technology (and the CEO of Nuovoyance), says that micro-LED has the potential to be truly disruptive. While it's still in an early stage, and using it to create large display is very challenging, a micro-LED display is attractive as it may be more efficient than an OLED display (as LEDs are currently more efficient than OLEDs). Some speculate that Apple aims to use such displays in future Watch devices as making a smaller display is obviously easier at first.

There are reports that Apple acquired private stealth company LuxVue Technology. LuxVue is developing a micro-LED based display. The company raised $43 million in VC money.

There's very little information available about LuxVue or its technology. And obviously we don't know anything about Apple's plans for this technology.

Sony announced that they are developing a new display technology called Crystal-LED. Crystal-LED uses ultra-fine RGB LEDs to create a self-emitting display - basically this is similar to OLEDs, but with in-organic LEDs. Sony actually unveiled a prototype 55" Full-HD TV panel at CES 2012:

The TV uses over six-million LEDs and, compared to existing Sony LCD and Plasma displays features a higher contrast ratio (about 3.5 times higher), wider color gamut (about 1.4 times) and faster response time (10 times faster). It should also be more efficient, but this will depend on the image shown (just like in OLEDs).