NEWS

Small pitch PK Micro LED Who can laugh at the end?

2019-09-05 13:54

In recent years, LED display companies have undergone a long-term "price war" of shopping, profits have been diluted, resulting in increased industry reshuffle. In order to survive and develop, the major LED display companies have made corresponding adjustments: those who expand the scale of the industry, those who play cross-border, and those who accelerate the occupation of emerging markets have a wide variety of names. In this smoke-filled "screen war", some characters are becoming the "darling" of the battlefield.

Small spacing becomes mainstream

According to relevant data, the global LED display market size in 2016 is 16 billion US dollars. It is estimated that by 2020, the global LED display market will reach 31 billion US dollars. In recent years, China's LED display market, led by small-pitch products, has appeared in a highly prosperous situation in 2016 and is expected to maintain a growth momentum of 20%-30% in the future. With such a huge market with small pitches, it has naturally become a "place of competition" for LED display companies.

However, the small-diameter LED display is not a big cake at the beginning. Not every LED display company can “taste”. In 2008, the concept of small-pitch LED display was first introduced by Liard, but it was not until 2011 that mass production began. Compared with the traditional LED display, the small pitch has a smaller pixel (lighting bead) spacing. However, due to the high development cost and technical difficulty, only a few large companies in the industry such as Chau Ming Technology were quickly followed up. With the improvement of technology, the technology has been broken, and a large number of domestic display companies have followed closely, and have stepped into the small-pitch market.

This point, from this year's Guangzhou isle exhibition, we can also see a clue. In addition to well-known display companies such as Liard and Abisen, many emerging LED display companies have also shown their own small pitch products.

Micro LED is a sudden rise

Just as the small distance is infinite, and it has become the “big wave” of “screening wars”, the new leader of Micro LED has entered our field of vision with its image of “Gao Fu Shuai”.

In 2017, Sony introduced the latest CLEDIS (Crystal LED Integrated Structure) large display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), highlighting the upcoming opening of the new LED in the commercial display market. Sony expects to introduce mass production in 2017. In our country, Taiwanese manufacturers are also actively investing in the process of Micro LED, and are making every effort to break through the mass production threshold. It is expected that Micro LED large indoor display and wearable devices will have the opportunity to mass production in the second half of this year.

From this point of view, the small spacing seems to have finally ushered in a "matching" opponent.

Small pitch PK Micro LED

Micro LED (micro-light-emitting diode display) structure is a miniaturized LED array, which is to thin, miniaturize and array the LED structure design, making it about 1% of the current mainstream LED size, each pixel It can address and drive the light separately, reducing the distance of the pixel point from the original millimeter to the micrometer. Advantages of Micro LED include low power consumption, high brightness, ultra high resolution and color saturation, fast response, ultra power saving, long life, high efficiency, etc. The power consumption is about 10% of LCD and 50% of OLED. %. In addition, better material stability and no image imprinting are also one of the advantages of Micro LED. Therefore, it is regarded as a new generation of display technology. Also because of its emergence, it has been asserted that Micro LED will replace small-pitch LEDs in the future.

So, is it really possible for Micro LED to replace small pitches?

From the technical application point of view, the small-pitch display mainly adopts the traditional LED packaging process. At present, the high-end specification is about 0.8mm, and the size limit may fall to 0.5mm. In comparison, the Micro LED can be from 0.3mm or 0. The 25mm mass production began, and even further developed to 10x10 microns. At first glance, Micro LEDs have a technical advantage over smaller pitches. However, the development of any technology, from birth to maturity, will take some time to settle. Although Mirco LED has the opportunity to enter mass production in 2017, its initial scale is limited and it is expected that explosive growth will be two to three years later.

In terms of market, in the past, small-pitch LEDs were mainly used in studios, conference centers, museum artifacts, airports, enterprises, and high-end commercial venues. Currently, small pitches have begun to be applied to a wider range of commercial applications, such as: light pole screens. , advertising machines, window screens, etc. Since 2016, domestic packaging factories have rapidly increased the production of 1010 lamp beads, and many manufacturers have been able to mass produce 0808 small pitch package devices. Domestic and foreign packaging plants have also begun to switch to P1.6, P1.2, P1, and even P0.7 spacing display technology. This undoubtedly led to the market growth of LED ultra-high-definition display, bringing changes to the P2.0 display product market. With the continuous breakthrough of small-pitch technology, its application in the field of digital signage (Digital? Signage) will become more and more wide, and it is no problem at all in the future to enter the VA/AR field and the theater system.

From this point of view, it is a bit too arbitrary to say that the Micro LED will replace the small pitch.

The author believes that whether it is a small pitch or a Micro LED, this is not the question of who replaces who. Compared with the Micro LED, the small pitch has its own advantages and disadvantages, and it is the market that can ultimately determine a technology. This involves the application and acceptance of the market. With the further expansion of the market size of small-pitch LED display, coupled with the cost reduction brought by the advancement of LED packaging technology, there will be room for price reduction in the future of small pitch, and Micro LED does not have an advantage in this respect. In other words, after so many years of development, the technology and the market are very mature, and the Micro LED is in the ascendant. If you want to gain market recognition, you still have to wait for time to test. There is still a long way to go in the future. .

All in all, the current small spacing is moving from high-end applications to the “100 billion-class” civilian market. In the future, Micro LED will probably have a place in the high-end display field due to its technological advantages.

(Source: OFweek Semiconductor Lighting Network)