The latest Apple research report states that in 2022, the iPad will adopt both mini LED and OLED screens. The report indicates that the MacBook is the most important application for mini LED, while the focus for the iPad will be on high-end models. It is expected that the new MacBook Air in 2022 will use mini LED, while only the high-end models of the iPad will adopt mini LED.
The report expects that in the future, the iPad will use both mini LED and OLED screen technologies. The latest industry survey indicates that if the iPad adopts an OLED screen in 2022, the model will be the mid-range iPad Air, while the high-end iPad Pro will still use mini LED. This is because the OLED used in the iPad is of the hard screen type and has a significantly lower PPI than the iPhone, making it easier to produce and the cost is close to that of the current LCD display used in the iPad Air.
Apple’s transition to mini LED will make its product designs thinner and lighter, while providing many of the same advantages as OLED. Mini LED offers deep blacks and better HDR similar to OLED without burn-in or degradation issues.
LED backlight LCDs are much more energy-efficient than the cold cathode fluorescent lights used in past LCD panels, and mini LED LCDs will provide additional power efficiency improvements.
The report states that as mini LED production costs decrease, in the future, all of Apple’s mid-to-large-sized products positioned for productivity will eventually adoptmini LED backlit displays.
It is expected that assembly manufacturers will begin mass production of mini LED iPads in mid to late April. The latest survey indicates that the current production yield and quality of mini LED iPads have already reached Apple’s high standards.
The report expects that the MacBook Pro using mini LED will begin mass production in the second half of 2021. Since the production difficulty of the MacBook’s mini LED display is lower than that of the iPad, it is expected that the new MacBook Pro will significantly boost the shipment of mini LED displays in the second half of 2021. The expected shipments of mini LED displays for 2021 and 2022 are 10 million and 20-30 million, respectively.
So today, let’s get to know this highly favored Mini LED technology by Apple~
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What is LED?
LED (Light Emitting Diode) is a type of semiconductor solid light-emitting device. It utilizes solid semiconductor chips as light-emitting materials, emitting photons through the recombination of carriers in the semiconductor, directly emitting red, yellow, blue, green, cyan, orange, purple, and white light.
The core part of the light-emitting diode consists of a chip made of P-type and N-type semiconductors, with a transition layer called the PN junction between the P-type and N-type semiconductors.
In certain semiconductor materials’ PN junctions, when the injected minority carriers recombine with the majority carriers, they release excess energy in the form of light, directly converting electrical energy into light energy. When a reverse voltage is applied to the PN junction, it becomes difficult for the minority carriers to inject, thus not emitting light.
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What is Mini LED?
The concept of Mini LED was first proposed by Epistar, and now this concept is gradually accepted by manufacturers in mainland China, although the Mini LED referred to by both sides is slightly different.
To be precise, what we refer to as “Mini LED” in the industry is different from “Mini LED display.” The Mini LED proposed by Taiwanese manufacturers purely refers to the spacing of crystal particles, while the Mini LED display in mainland China’s LED display industry emphasizes the different packaging forms.
One refers to a type of new packaging form product, while the other refers to a classification of displays.
Mini LED is also known as “sub-millimeter light-emitting diode,”with the chip unit size of a single Mini LED packaged between 50μm and 100μm, which is the narrow definition of Mini LED.
▲Mini LED backlight principle illustration, similar to traditional LED backlight.
From a broad definition perspective, within the industry to better distinguish Mini LED, it is often stated that the display devices with LED chip spacing below 1mm are also called Mini LED. This type of Mini LED with spacing less than 1mm is actually achieved through packaging technologies (COB, surface mount, N-in-1 packaging technologies, etc.) and does not use Mini LED chips, thus not considered true Mini LED.
There are many definitions regarding small spacing, Mini, and Micro related LEDs, and I find that definitions from various sources are very chaotic. The group standard officially released on June 3, 2020, by the Shenzhen Lighting and Display Engineering Association defines some key terms as follows:
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Mini LED
LED devices composed of chips sized between50–200µm.
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Mini LED display module
Mini LED display modules composed of Mini LED pixel arrays and driving circuits with pixel center spacing of0.3–1.5mm.
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Mini LED display
The Mini LED screen composed of several Mini LED display modules.
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It has been determined that SMD packaging technology, 2-in-1 packaging technology, 4-in-1 packaging technology, N-in-1 packaging technology, and COBIP integrated packaging technology can all be used for Mini LED.
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Rise of Mini LED
After Apple did not use Micro LED in the new generation iWatch, opinions on its technology and applications have become more rational, and related manufacturers are actively cooperating to promote its application.
Meanwhile, Mini LED is gradually becoming a reality, with manufacturers following suit from top to bottom. From recent exhibitions, manufacturers like Samsung and Lumens have launched Mini LED applications.
However, whether it is the Mini LED products from mainland manufacturers or the Mini LED displays referred to by Taiwanese manufacturers, discussions about both cannot avoid Micro LED.
Micro LED is seen as the next generation of display products, which indeed has its advantages compared to current LCD and OLED technologies. However, it is well known that Micro LED faces many challenges in the “mass transfer” process and key equipment.
To correctly and efficiently move millions or even tens of millions of micron-level LED crystals to the circuit board is a huge challenge currently faced by Micro LED.
The industry generally believes that Micro LED must overcome the bottleneck of mass production, which may take at least another two to three years. However, the development of display technology is very rapid, and in the face of OLED’s strong rise, some companies developing Micro LED are becoming anxious. If OLED gains the upper hand and captures a large share of the market, even if Micro LED can overcome technical difficulties in the next few years, it may be too late.
In other words, no matter how good Micro LED is, it ultimately cannot quench immediate thirst. In this situation, relevant manufacturers certainly will not sit idly by, so they began to seek a compromise. It is under this urgency that Mini LED, seen as a transitional technology, has been proposed.
Mini LED generally refers to LEDs with particle sizes between 50-100 microns. Compared to Micro LED, Mini LED is much more feasible in terms of manufacturing processes, and the technical difficulty is much lower, making mass production easier and allowing for quick market entry.
Due to the limitations of Mini LED chip size and packaging technology, the Mini LED currently used for RGB self-luminous displays can achieve a pixel pitch limit of about 0.5 mm. When making a 4K screen, the entire screen size reaches over 85 inches, and the large number of LED chips (~24 million) makes the screen extremely costly. To enhance the competitiveness of LEDs in the display market and improve the display quality of existing LCD backlights, the application of Mini LED in backlighting (hereafter referred to as Mini BLU) has received increasing attention from the industry and is often compared with AMOLED.
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Advantages of Mini BLU Technology
The advantages and disadvantages of Mini BLU compared to other display technologies are as follows:
In terms of the most basic display elements, including power consumption, cost, lifespan, pixel pitch, brightness, and contrast, Mini LED is essentially an all-rounder.
However, in today’s world where AMOLED has become incredibly popular, products applying Mini LED in backlighting still face skepticism and have yet to enter the market. This is mainly due to the relatively late technical reserves of Mini BLU (mainly starting in the second half of 2017), and partly because it is still based on LCD display technology.
Even LED chip practitioners might assume that their display effects would not be as good as AMOLED. But the truth is otherwise. Compared to AMOLED, Mini BLU has undeniable advantages in terms of cost and lifespan.
Due to the higher optoelectronic conversion efficiency of LED chips compared to OLED, along with local dimming control, Mini BLU can achieve close to or even lower power consumption, thus also achieving higher contrast and brightness. The pixel pitch is primarily limited by LCD technology, which can currently outperform self-luminous AMOLED.
Based on these various advantages, Mini BLU can always find its place in suitable fields.
Of course, in today’s consumer market increasingly pursuing personalization, Mini BLU has a fatal weakness: it cannot be made flexible (but can still be made curved), which is mainly due to the limitations of LCD technology.
In terms of terminal applications, from small screens like mobile phones and tablets to medium screens like car displays and monitors, and large screens like TVs, Mini BLU and AMOLED each have their competitive advantages, and it may take some time for one to replace the other.
Especially in automotive and medium-to-large screen displays, Mini BLU will have more apparent cost advantages, along with better lifespan and reliability, which are advantages that AMOLED cannot currently replace.
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Mini LED Backlight Technology (Mini BLU)
Compared to traditional LED backlight sources, Mini LED has many advantages and is suitable for high-end LCD display solutions:
① It can directly adopt RGB three-color LED modules, achieving a display effect without loss of the three primary colors, and can cover 100% of the BT2020 wide color gamut, with color vividness comparable to OLED.
② Mini LED can achieve uniform heat dissipation at high brightness (>1000nit), which traditional discrete LED devices cannot achieve.
③ Mini LED backlighting can achieve ultra-thin direct backlit LCD displays, i.e., OD≈0mm, which has broad applications in lightweight portable consumer electronics, such as AR/VR glasses, mobile phones, laptops, etc.
④ Mini LED, combined with precise local dimming, can achieve ultra-high contrast (1000000:1), making blacks deeper and lights brighter.
Mini LED backlight packaging adopts flip-chip Mini LED chips to achieve uniform light mixing, eliminating the need for secondary optical design with lenses. Due to the small chip structure itself, it facilitates more detailed dimming zones (Local Dimming Zones), thus achieving a higher dynamic range (HDR) and higher contrast effects.
On the other hand, it can also shorten the optical mixing distance (OD) to reduce the overall thickness of the device, thus achieving ultra-thinning.
Mini LED backlighting can combine local dimming technology to control the on/off and brightness adjustment of corresponding backlight areas in real time based on the brightness and darkness of the images in the TV signal, making blacks blacker, whites whiter, and colors more natural and vibrant, providing the best immersive experience.
During CES 2019, ASUS first unveiled the new flagship professional monitor “ProArt Studio PA32UCX,” which is a 32-inch Mini LED backlit 4K gaming LCD monitor, whose BLU uses more than 10,000 Mini LEDs produced by Lunda Electronics.
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Challenges of Mini LED Technology
Compared to current conventional applications, Mini LED has its unique advantages:
(1) For backlight applications, Mini LED generally adopts direct design, achieving better brightness uniformity and higher color contrast in smaller mixing distances through a large number of densely packed LEDs compared to traditional backlight designs, thus achieving ultra-thin, high color rendering, and energy-saving terminal products.
Additionally, when combined with local dimming control, Mini LED will have better contrast and HDR display effects.
(2) For display applications, RGB Mini LED overcomes the defects of wired connections and reliability of flip-chip structures, while also leveraging the advantages of COB packaging, making it possible to further reduce the pixel pitch of display terminals, significantly enhancing the visual effects of the terminal products, and allowing the viewing distance to be greatly reduced, enabling indoor displays to further replace the original LCD market.
On the other hand, RGB Mini LED can also achieve high-quality curved displays when paired with flexible substrates, and due to its self-luminous characteristics, it has a very broad market for special shape requirements (such as automotive displays).
As can be seen, Mini LED has significant advantages relative to other competitors in the current LED landscape, and based on this, various manufacturers are researching it. From the current situation, although its chip size is similar to small-pitch chips of flip-chip structures, there are also many differences.Its technology has the following characteristics and challenges:
1. Chip End
a. Chip miniaturization:
Since Mini LED requires the pixel pitch to be below 1mm, this also requires the Mini LED chips to be smaller. Currently, Mini LED chips generally require sizes below 200um, which raises higher requirements for the photolithography and etching processes during chip production, especially since existing mature production equipment struggles to meet the production of chips below 100um. In the case of small-sized chips, the smoothness of the welding surface, the design of the electrode structure, the ease of soldering, the adaptability to soldering parameters, and the packaging tolerance are all key challenges in chip design.
Moreover, during the production of Mini LED chips, a low-efficiency full-test and full-distribution mode is adopted, which presents efficiency issues in handling a large number of high-density and high-precision chips, both in production and testing, inadvertently raising the costs of Mini LED chips.
b. Red flip-chip.
Since flip-chip structures do not require wiring, they are suitable for the dense requirements of Mini LED. Therefore, currently, all Mini LEDs adopt flip-chip structures, and while blue and green flip-chip LED chip production is relatively mature, red flip-chip LED chip technology is more challenging, as it requires substrate transfer, and the production yield and reliability during the transfer process are not high.
c. Consistency and Reliability.
As display chips, Mini LED chips have high requirements for product consistency and reliability, with key consistency indicators including small current consistency, consistency under different currents, high and low position consistency, color uniformity, and low capacitance consistency, among others. Due to the complex usage environment of Mini LED displays, maintenance is challenging, leading to higher reliability requirements for Mini LED chips. Overall, Mini LED chip manufacturers need to implement strict production controls to ensure the stability of various product indicators.
2. Packaging End
a. High-efficiency die bonding and mounting:
Due to the chip sizes of Mini LED primarily being 50-200um, and the large number of chips and LED units used per unit area being tightly packed, higher requirements are placed on the smoothness of the welding surface and the precision of the wiring, and the adaptability of the soldering parameters and packaging tolerance are also more stringent.
Thus, achieving high efficiency and high precision in Mini LED chip bonding is a challenge that Mini LED faces.
Traditional solder paste bonding can easily lead to chip welding drift and increased hole rates, making it impossible to meet the high precision bonding requirements of Mini LED. Therefore, higher precision bonding substrates and bonding equipment are urgently needed.
Traditional mounting machines must reduce the mounting speed to 30-50% of the original speed for Mini LED packaging devices below P1.0 due to precision requirements being below 25um, which significantly lowers the manufacturing efficiency of displays. More efficient mounting machines are also a major challenge that Mini LED faces in the future.
b. Thin packaging:
As backlighting, Mini LED requires products to be as thin as possible. However, when the PCB thickness is below 0.4mm, during reflow soldering and molding processes, the different thermal expansion systems of resin substrates and copper layers can induce chip cold soldering, and during the molding packaging process, the thermal expansion coefficient differences of the packaging glue and PCB can also lead to glue cracking.
c. Light mixing consistency:
Due to color differences in chips or LED beads or circuit issues, display or backlight effects may differ, which will negatively impact the display effects of Mini LED.
d. Reliability and Yield:
The usage environment of Mini LED displays is relatively complex. If moisture in the air penetrates through packaging materials or brackets into contact with the LED chip electrodes, it can easily cause short circuits. Moreover, due to the densely packed arrangement of Mini LED products, the number of packaging devices used increases exponentially. Considering the high maintenance difficulty and costs of Mini LED, it is necessary for Mini LED packaging devices to have relatively high reliability.
3. Driver IC Aspect
a. Current control and heat dissipation:
As the pixel pitch of Mini LED becomes smaller, the number of LED chips used increases, and the chip sizes decrease, this leads to the driving current becoming smaller, making precise control of the current by driver ICs increasingly difficult. Future designs will need new circuit designs for precise control of small currents. Additionally, the use of a large number of driver ICs and LED chips also complicates PCB rapid heat dissipation, which can lead to color distortion issues in the driver IC modules due to heat. Therefore, highly integrated and low-power driver ICs will be the development direction for display screen driver ICs.
b. Local dimming:
For Mini LED backlight applications, the current static dimming technology has become difficult to meet the demands of new Mini LED backlight technology due to the high costs associated with the number of ICs required in series, the large number of driver circuit I/O, and the size of the driver circuit. Local dimming driver ICs can compensate for the shortcomings of static dimming, but using local dimming solutions also faces a series of issues, including enhancing the brightness and uniformity of Mini LED backlight partitioning, increasing refresh rates, improving backlight light efficiency, and achieving high integration and fine dimming resolution.
4. PCB Backplane
Under the premise of Mini LED lightness, the high requirements for display and backlight effects pose new challenges for the thickness uniformity, flatness, and alignment accuracy of PCB backplanes. Additionally, with a large number of LED chips and driver ICs on the PCB backplane, it is necessary for the backplane’s Tg point to be above 220℃. The PCB backplane must withstand various external forces during Mini LED processing to maintain thickness uniformity and dimensional stability, requiring the backplane to have high tear strength and moisture resistance.
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Current R&D Focus of Mini LED Technology
To expand Mini LED applications, upstream and downstream manufacturers in the Mini LED industry are actively working on new technology R&D and cost reduction.Currently, domestic and foreign Mini LED manufacturers are focusing on developing or expanding new technologies, including light output adjustment chips, COB and IMD packaging, Mini LED mass transfer, TFT circuit backplanes, and flexible substrates.
1. Light Output Adjustment Chips:
When Mini LED is used as backlighting, a large number of LED chips are often used as direct backlight sources. To adjust the chip’s light output for easier ultra-thin designs, Huazhan Optoelectronics has added optimization layers to traditional backlight chips, which can enhance the light output angle of chips, thus making the light output of LED chips more uniform and effectively improving display effects.
2. COB and SMD Packaging:
Currently, COB (Chip on Board) packaging directly encapsulates LED bare chips onto the module substrate and then performs overall molding. Compared to traditional SMD packaging,
this COB packaging of full-color LED modules has fewer manufacturing processes, lower packaging costs, higher packaging integration, and better reliability and display effects, making it an important packaging form for future high-density LED display modules.
Currently, as the COB industry chain has yet to be fully established, the cost per unit area of COB products is higher than that of SMD. However, as the COB display packaging industry chain gradually matures, the market share of COB display packaging will quickly increase.
In Mini LED applications, COB packaging offers higher reliability and stability, making it easier to achieve ultra-small pitch displays, aligning with the technological trend of Mini LED, thus making COB packaging one of the technological trends for Mini LED.
3. Mini LED Mass Transfer:
Compared to the mass transfer technology of Micro LED, the chip size of Mini LED is larger, making the transfer difficulty relatively smaller. Combining mass transfer with COB packaging technology can effectively improve the production cycle of Mini LED. Currently, Uniqarta’s laser transfer technology can transfer approximately 14 million LED chips sized 130×160 microns per hour using single or multiple laser beams.
4. TFT Backplane:
To compete with OLED in terms of display effects, Mini LED backlighting + LCD must achieve top-level HDR, which means that the number of local dimming zones must reach hundreds or even thousands. However, if driven by traditional LED backlight circuit architectures, this idea would sacrifice costs and lightweight designs due to excessive component use.
In view of this, Innolux has proposed to use an active matrix TFT circuit to drive the AM Mini LED architecture.
5. Flexible Substrates:
Mini LED backlighting typically adopts direct design, achieving smaller local dimming ranges through a large number of densely packed LEDs. Due to its design, it can be paired with flexible substrates, allowing for the curvature of LCDs while ensuring picture quality to achieve similar curved displays as OLEDs. However, due to the large number of Mini LEDs, the heat generated is substantial, and flexible substrates often have poor heat resistance, making the development of flexible substrates with high heat resistance one of the future technological trends.
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Mini LED Market Applications and Trends
The high-density LED industry continues to develop opportunities. Major brand manufacturers such as Apple, Huawei, and Samsung are continuously laying out in the high-density LED industry. The direct display market for small pitch products is one of the core incremental markets for Mini LED, primarily driven by cost. The use of Mini LED backlighting for LCD panels is also one of the core incremental markets for Mini LED. Mini LED backlighting can fill the technological and market gaps between traditional LED backlighting and OLED, becoming a new growth point for mid-to-large-sized LCD displays.
Mini LED drives changes in the industry chain’s technology and structure. The application of Mini LED promotes the R&D of MOCVD equipment, drives domestic replacements, and stimulates market demand. Technologically, the transition from traditional LED SMT/SMD mounting gradually shifts toCOB packaging solutions. In direct display applications, the upgrading of Mini LED technology specifications also gradually blurs the technical divisions between packaging and application manufacturers. In the downstream market, in addition to original LED brand application manufacturers, major manufacturers in sectors such as security and LCD panels are gradually entering this field. Backlight applications are also expected to transition from current PCB substrate solutions to future glass-based solutions, intensifying competition between traditional packaging manufacturers in the Mini LED backlight industry and traditional backlight module manufacturers.
The high-density LED industry continues to develop opportunities.
From the chip end, packaging end to application end, companies are actively laying out Mini LED to achieve mass production. As shown in the following figure, taking some chip manufacturers, packaging manufacturers, and display manufacturers as examples. Major brand manufacturers such as Apple, Huawei, and Samsung are continuously laying out in the high-density LED industry.
Mini LED is expected to drive the continued penetration of small pitch display applications.
The direct display market for small pitch products is one of the core incremental markets for Mini LED. Small pitch LED displays refer to indoor LED displays with pixel pitches below P2.5, with the mainstream specification currently around P1.2. Mini LED specifications are usually below P0.7, representing the cutting-edge technology specifications for small pitch display products. Direct display LED is typically positioned for ultra-large display sizes above 110 inches. As the pixel pitch specifications shrink, the display performance continues to improve, and its applications are gradually penetrating into mid-size specifications.
Mini LED is expected to drive the continued penetration of small pitch display applications.
The industrial chain of Mini LED direct display mainly includes LED chips, packaging and assembly, systems, and brands. Among the system and brand manufacturers, in addition to traditional LED brand application manufacturers, major manufacturers in sectors such as security and LCD panels are gradually entering this field for differentiated technology layout. Additionally, the upgrading of Mini LED technology specifications also gradually blurs the technical divisions between packaging and application manufacturers, mainly as application manufacturers gradually penetrate into the packaging sector.
Small pitch LED applications have a wide range of scenarios. Its application fields are mainly in the specialized display market, rapidly penetrating into commercial and civilian markets. From a market scale perspective, small pitch displays have significant potential space in specialized and commercial display markets. For instance, the penetration rate of small pitch LEDs in public security command centers in major domestic cities is less than 10%, and it is expected to rise to 50% in the future. According to the 2018 annual report from Zhaoming Technology, the commercial market scale for small pitch LEDs is projected to reach 44.2 billion yuan over the next three years, with the penetration rate gradually increasing. Additionally, we believe that the market scale for small pitch LED displays will expand in the future. The China Business Industry Research Institute predicts that the market scale for small pitch LEDs in China will reach 9.8 billion yuan in 2020, rapidly replacing LCD and DLP splicing screens.
Micro/Mini LED opens up more commercial display application space. Due to the traditional LED and small pitch display’s distinguishable viewing distance being above 2-5 meters, mainly applied in outdoor large screens and large indoor screens, such as monitoring commands and large conference rooms, as the display distance enters the Micro/Mini era, suitable viewing distances will be around 1-2 meters. We believe this will meet the needs of more commercial applications in small and medium-sized conference rooms and education, expanding the market potential from the hundred billion level of small pitch LED to the trillion level, and gradually realizing it as costs decline.
In the future civilian market, Mini LED is expected to drive the continued penetration of small pitch display applications. Samsung’s 2018 launch of “The Wall” Micro LED TV received widespread market attention due to its excellent display effects. We expect that according to “Heisenberg’s Law,” Micro/Mini LED displays at the P0.6-0.7 and P0.3-0.4 levels are expected to mature in the next three years, achieving FHD and 4K display effects in sizes over 50 inches, thus entering the trillion-dollar civilian display market. Initial costs will be relatively high, but the advantages of Micro/Mini LED’s flexibility in assembly can initially meet the indoor ultra-large display needs before gradually penetrating into other sizes.
Mini LED backlight applications have broad prospects.
Used for LCD panel backlighting, it is also one of the core incremental markets for Mini LED. Mini LED backlight technology primarily differentiates itself from traditional side-lit backlight LEDs and OLED direct display TVs. Based on the design structure of traditional LCD TVs, its display performance can rival OLED technology, but it has the potential for continued cost reduction.
Micro LED is the ultimate solution for displays.
Compared to other display technologies, Micro LED has advantages, including high brightness, low power consumption, long lifespan, ultra-high resolution, and color saturation, among others. As shown in the figure, the biggest advantage of Micro LED comes from its micron-level spacing, where each pixel can be controlled and driven individually. In terms of luminous efficiency and energy density, Micro LED exceeds other LED products in both aspects.
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Mini LED drives changes in the technology and structure of the industry chain
In the direction of backlight applications, the Mini LED industry chain is divided into upstream chips, midstream packaging, and downstream applications. The chip manufacturing stage involves a series of semiconductor processes to prepare epitaxial wafers into light-emitting particles, followed by key indicator testing, wafer grinding, cutting, sorting, and packaging. The midstream packaging refers to connecting the external leads to the chip electrodes to form Mini LED devices. The main role of packaging is to protect the chip and improve light extraction efficiency. The downstream is primarily applied in mobile phones, televisions, tablets, and automotive displays.
Changes in LED equipment
MOCVD is the core equipment in the LED chip industry chain (used for preparing LED epitaxial wafers), and Mini LED applications promote the R&D of MOCVD equipment, driving domestic replacements and stimulating market demand. MOCVD is the most critical equipment in the LED chip production process, with complex technological processes and accounting for nearly half the cost of LED epitaxial chips.
Changes in the LED chip segment
Mini LED chip production includes the processes of epitaxial wafer production, electrode production, chip production, and testing. The core technical bottlenecks are concentrated in the miniaturization of Mini LED chips, red flip-chip technology, and consistency and reliability. LED chip manufacturers are actively laying out Mini products.
Changes in LED chip packaging
Technologically, the transition from traditional LED SMT/SMD mounting solutions to Mini LED’s COB solutions is underway. The process flow is illustrated in the figure below. Compared to SMD packaging, this COB packaging of full-color LED modules has fewer manufacturing processes, lower packaging costs, higher packaging integration, and better reliability and display effects. Mini LED packaging technology also includes IMD technology, which integrates two, four, or six groups of RGB beads into one small unit, combining the advantages of SMD and COB, and serving as a precursor to COB packaging.
Changes in LED display and backlight applications
Mini LED backlighting brings technological innovation, possessing numerous advantages over traditional side-lit LED backlights. Specifically, its precise local dimming can achieve ultra-high contrast (1000000:1); the RGB three-color backlight scheme can achieve a wide color gamut, with color vividness comparable to OLED; it reduces optical mixing distances (OD), lowers screen thickness, achieving ultra-thin designs; and it can achieve high brightness (>1000nit), making HDR possible.
Changes in the competitive landscape brought about by Mini LED applications
More traditional panel manufacturers are participating in the Mini LED backlight industry applications, intensifying competition in downstream terminals and brand markets. More panel manufacturers and brand application manufacturers are beginning to lay out Mini LED backlight industry business, with specific progress as follows. Due to the popularity of Mini LED, traditional packaging manufacturers are laying out Mini LED backlighting, increasing competition with traditional backlight module manufacturers. For example, Ruifeng Optoelectronics established a Mini LED packaging production line at the end of 2018, becoming one of the first domestic companies to achieve batch production of Mini LED products. Benefiting from expected customer orders, it will continue to increase production lines; Zhaochi Co., Ltd. has primarily focused on lighting packaging business but has also completed layouts in the Mini LED display field, including Mini RGB and Mini backlighting.
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