MicroLED Displays for Mobile Devices Are On the Way, and This Company Is Making It Happen.
Large microLED displays are typically quite expensive, but a company is working on making this technology more affordable to develop a rollable and transparent microLED display in the form of a tablet.
The manufacturing of microLED displays presents serious challenges, including high costs and a low production rate. These difficulties are the reasons why it is unlikely that we will see consumer microLED televisions by 2025. However, a question arises about the viability of smaller microLED displays, which could be employed in devices such as tablets, laptops, smartwatches, and even smart rings. The company Smartkem has developed a solution to reduce production costs for these displays and is collaborating with AUO, a display manufacturer, to create a transparent and rollable microLED that, although still modest in size, may mark the beginning of a significant breakthrough in this technology.
Ian Jenks, president and CEO of Smartkem, explained that microLED displays are expensive due to their complexity. Each pixel of a microLED requires a red, green, and blue microLED, which makes them efficient and bright, outperforming other display technologies in terms of brightness and color range. However, manufacturing microLED displays involves assembling millions of components and laser connections that must be made with extreme precision. For example, a 42-inch television could require up to 25 million microLEDs. If dead pixels or failures are found during testing, the high cost of previously invested production can lead to significant waste.
Smartkem aims to change this situation through its innovative transistor technology. Instead of using silicon transistors, the company opts for liquid crystal polymer transistors, which can be applied in photo layers. This not only allows them to work at lower temperatures, expanding the types of substrates they can use, but it also facilitates connecting and testing the microLEDs before completion, improving the success rate in production. This process is the result of 15 years of research and an investment of 80 million dollars.
Recently, Smartkem has collaborated with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) of Taiwan to develop a prototype production line for tablet-sized displays. Subsequently, AUO expressed interest in utilizing this technology to manufacture a 12.7-inch flexible and transparent display. Jenks anticipates that the results of this collaboration will be ready in a couple of years.
Although the produced microLED displays will not be the size of a television, there is great potential for their use in various devices. Jenks mentioned that AUO wants to apply these flexible microLED displays in a “notebook” type device, although its exact form has not been defined. He envisions a future where laptops feature transparent displays that enable more direct visual communication between people in environments such as offices or stores.
Over the next few years, he expects to see transparent tablets and notebooks, as well as innovative wearable devices like smart rings that have the capability to display information on a small screen. The development of these displays could also facilitate the advancement of rollable smartphones and other mobile devices that require flexible displays without compromising visual quality.
Regarding televisions, Smartkem’s technology could eventually help lower the high prices of current microLED televisions, making them more accessible to the mass market. According to Jenks, the key is to solve manufacturing issues and increase production, which could make costs more comparable to those of OLED televisions.
Finally, Jenks sees great potential for microLED displays in the signage field and in automotive applications, where their energy efficiency could replace other technologies that are more demanding in terms of energy. The production of the 12.7-inch microLED display, along with Smartkem's unique technology, marks an important step towards an exciting variety of products equipped with microLEDs.
