MicroLED Displays: Global Trends & Opportunities for Equipment and Material Suppliers

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Theodora Montgomery
6 years ago
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1 Picture: Sony From Technologies to Market MicroLED Displays: Global Trends & Opportunities for Equipment and Material Suppliers SEMICON EUROPA Jean-Christophe ELOY - CEO - Yole Développement 2017

2 AGENDA Presentation of Yole Développement - From Technologies to Market What Are MicroLED Displays? MicroLED Challenges MicroLED Competitive Landscape MicroLED Applications Opportunities for Equipment and Material Suppliers Conclusion 2

3 Presentation of Yole Développement From Technologies to Market 3

A GROUP OF COMPANIES M&A operations Due diligences www.yolefinance.

com Market, technology and strategy consulting Manufacturing costs analysis Teardown and

4 A GROUP OF COMPANIES M&A operations Due diligences Innovation & Business maker Market, technology and strategy consulting Manufacturing costs analysis Teardown and reverse engineering Cost simulation tools IP analysis Patent assessment Test & Measurement Expertise Research & Innovation 4

5 DISPLAY ACTIVITIES: RECENT REPORTS Available: Off the shelf reports and custom analysis. Visit: 5

6 DISPLAY ACTIVITIES: COST MODELING, TEAR DOWN ANALYSIS AND REVERSE COSTING Cost Simulation Tools 6

7 What Are MicroLED Displays? 7

LCD VS EMISSIVE DISPLAYS LCD (transistor matrix) LCD Light is

liquid crystal light switches and colour filters constituting

g: OLED) Encapsulation Emissive Each sub-pixel is a tiny

8 LCD VS EMISSIVE DISPLAYS LCD (transistor matrix) LCD Light is generated by an LED backlight and goes through a matrix of liquid crystal light switches and colour filters constituting the individual subpixel. Emissive (e.g: OLED) Encapsulation Emissive Each sub-pixel is a tiny light emitter which brightness can be individually controlled Illustrations: Ignis Technology 8

9 WHAT IS A MicroLED DISPLAY? Self emitting displays (just like OLED) that use individual, small LED chips as the emitters. Red, Green, Blue LED Epiwafers Chip singulation Sorting and Pick and place + hybridization/connection to the transistor matrix that controls individual pixels 9

10 POTENTIAL MICROLED BENEFITS Low power consumption. Perfect black + high brightness = High Dynamic Range (contrast). Wide color gamut. Long lifetime, environmental stability. High Resolution/Pixel density. Virtual reality Smartwatches and wearables Apple Large video displays Sony TV LG Smartphones Fast refresh rates. Wide viewing angles. Curved/flexible backplanes. Integration of sensors within the display front-plane. Oculus Augmented/Mixed Reality Microsoft MicroLED TV prototype (Sony, CES 2012) Automotive HUD BMW Tablets Acer Samsung Laptops and convertibles HP 10

11 SO, THIS IS IT? Do we have the best display technology ever? 11

12 Challenges 12

MICROLED DISPLAY MANUFACTURING CHALLENGES While very promising in terms of performance, there are still multiple manufacturing challenges that need to be addressed to enable cost effective, high

13 MICROLED DISPLAY MANUFACTURING CHALLENGES While very promising in terms of performance, there are still multiple manufacturing challenges that need to be addressed to enable cost effective, high volume manufacturing of µled Displays. Light extraction and beam shaping Color Conversion Backplane hybridization Massively Parallel and High Accuracy Pick and Place Technologies Defect Management & Testing LED Technology (epitaxy, chips) LED µdisplays Supply Chain Multiple challenges need to be tackled to enable the µled display opportunity 13

14 MICROLED DISPLAY ASSEMBLY 4K Display (TV, smartphone ): 24.9 million µled chips Traditional pick and place equipment ~ 1000 hours 41 days Small chip handling (<10 µm)? Accuracy? Need for technologies to handle 1000 s chips simultaneously! 14

15 DEFECT MANAGEMENT µled Yield Transfer Yield Epitaxy + chip manufacturing: dead or dim µled pixel. X Die not properly picked or placed, or faulty connection to the TFT: missing, dead, or always-on pixels. = Combined Defect Rate (in ppm) 99.9% 99.9% 20 ppm 99.99% 99.99% 2 ppm % % 0.2 ppm Most high-end displays are guarantied zero defects 15

SUPPLY CHAIN Large scale µled displays manufacturing?

LED Makers Small diameter wafers 4 to 6 Cleanroom class 10,000 at best

Mass transfer, assembly, test technologies Not established yet!

to 10 m 2 ) Clean room class 100-1000 Semi-finished products (panels)

16 SUPPLY CHAIN Large scale µled displays manufacturing? Bringing together disparate technologies and industries. LED epitaxy. LED Makers Small diameter wafers 4 to 6 Cleanroom class 10,000 at best Produce components / chips Fab CapEx <$500M Cultural and technology chasm Mass transfer, assembly, test technologies Not established yet! Display Makers TFT backplanes + LCD/OLED frontplanes Large substrates (1 to 10 m 2 ) Clean room class Semi-finished products (panels) Typical fab CapEx for large players: $5 to $10 Billions. No commercially available equipment. No supply chain. 16

17 Competitive Landscape 17

MICROLED PLAYERS - A LOT OF SMART PEOPLE WORKING ON IT Number of applications Increasing activity from all types of companies: display makers, LED makers, semiconductor companies, start ups 300

Granted patents CREE US6410942 (granted) Arrays of interconnected LEDs with individual sizes of less than 30 µm.

6 First wave of patent extensions Extension of priority patents 14 13 11 10 The second wave of patent filings combined to an increase of patent extensions worldwide is an indication of the technology

18 MICROLED PLAYERS - A LOT OF SMART PEOPLE WORKING ON IT Number of applications Increasing activity from all types of companies: display makers, LED makers, semiconductor companies, start ups 300 Patent activity in the field of MicroLED 1,570+ patents (500+ patent families*), including 680+ granted patents and 690+ pending patent applications Patents 250 Patent families Granted patents CREE US (granted) Arrays of interconnected LEDs with individual sizes of less than 30 µm. The purpose of the invention was to improve light extraction per unit surface 3 Kansas State University US (granted) GaN microdisk LED with 12µmdiameter and 50µmpitch Innovation triggers First wave of patent extensions Extension of priority patents The second wave of patent filings combined to an increase of patent extensions worldwide is an indication of the technology maturity 48% CAGR Extension of priority patents Note: Due to the delay between the filing of patents and the publications by patent offices, usually 18 months, the data corresponding to the year 2015 and 2016 may not be complete since most patents filed during these years are not published yet. * A patent family is a set of patents filed in multiple countries by a common inventor(s) to protect a single invention. Year of application 18

19 Applications 19

20 HOW DO WE FORECAST? Performance, features Technology requirements Cost requirements Incumbent technologies For each application: SWOT analysis applications roadmap adoptions rates forecast 20

21 SMARTWATCHES: THE LOW HANGING FRUIT? Cost Small amount of pixels + high PPI = low cost Technology Getting there Performance Differentiating improvement in power consumption. Supply Chain ~low volumes / low capex Doug Marshall 21

AUGMENTED / MIXED REALITY: A POTENTIAL KILLER APP Performance Only

Need <<$100 per microdisplay for consumer.

22 AUGMENTED / MIXED REALITY: A POTENTIAL KILLER APP Performance Only technology that could deliver the high brightness required for outdoor applications. Technology CMOS integration / hybridization Color conversions issues Cost Need <<$100 per microdisplay for consumer. Supply Chain Reduced capex, can be addressed by smaller company, well funded startup Microsoft Most AR/VR HMDs feature a darkened shield to reduce the amount of ambient light. 22

First high volume consumer products More high volume

Remaining technical and manufacturing challenges prove to

Niche product only (where µled performance are highly

23 WHAT S HAPPENING IN THE SHORT TERM? Finalize technology development Set up supply chain. Manufacturing of dedicated equipment Test and ramp up First high volume consumer products More high volume consumer products? Remaining technical and manufacturing challenges prove to difficult to overcome. Niche product only (where µled performance are highly differentiating) µled remain too expensive & difficult to manufacture for high volume consumer applications, and or incumbent technology keep improving too fast Crash and burn: no µleds displays? 23

24 Opportunities for Equipment and Material Suppliers 24

25 Technology Manufacturing REMAINING ROADBLOCKS Epitaxy MicroLED chip architecture: Assembly Technologies: Defect Management Others Need improved wavelength homogeneity vs current standards. Requires lower epi-defects: cleaner substrates. Many applications require µled die size below 10 µm, as low as 2 µm. At those sizes, efficiency is only 1-10% vs. up to 70% for traditional LEDs. At those levels, µled can t deliver on one of their key promises: lower energy consumption. Efficiency of massively pick & place (P&P) processes decrease for larger displays with low pixel densities. Challenging to manipulate die size below 10µm which are required in most applications. Systematic pixel redundancy could increase cost and is not feasible in displays with high pixel density. Individual pixel repair is challenging, can be costly and is not doable with monolithic µled arrays. Color conversion: need high flux resistant QDs and/or nanophosphors. Need improved clean rooms and reactor cleanliness. Improving homogeneity might require single wafer reactors. The LED industry's existing infrastructure and equipment are not suitable for µled: requires better clean rooms (class 100 or better) + high resolution lithography tools (steppers vs mask aligners) Challenging alignment and positioning accuracy requirements. Equipment not available commercially. Need to develop specific testing and laser repair tools. Need to develop specific electrode deposition tools to individually connect pixels. 25

26 Conclusion 26

27 CONCLUSIONS MicroLED is inherently more complex than OLED and LCD. Large video displays MicroLED won t completely displace OLED and LCD. Smartwatches and wearables Sony TV MicroLED could end up dominating a few niches: wearable,ar/mr/hud Virtual reality Apple LG Smartphones MicroLED could compete with OLED on the very high end of the market in various other applications or not. In any case, several opportunities among the supply chain for equipment and material suppliers Oculus Augmented/Mixed Reality Microsoft MicroLED TV prototype (Sony, CES 2012) Automotive HUD BMW Tablets Acer Samsung Laptops and convertibles HP 27

28 Thank You! Visit us at booth B

The future of microled displays using nextgeneration

The future of microled displays using nextgeneration technologies Introduction MicroLEDs (micro-light-emitting diodes) are an emerging display technology that, as the name implies, use very small LEDs