Highlights of Macroblock Technology Seminar 2021 | Release of cutting-edge display application-driven new products

Preface

The 2021 Macroblock Technology Seminar was held online on December 8. Through cooperation with Dream Animation, XR shooting techniques were used to create a new type of seminar in the XR studio. The flow between scenes and speakers in the process brought out the concept that a studio can create infinite scenes; furthermore, the scenes changed in conjunction with the shooting angle of the tracking camera (Camera Tracking), creating an excellent immersive visual experience to break the boundary between virtual and real, and concretely practice the hottest virtual reality application in the LED display industry in the post-epidemic period.

Macroblock Seminar collaborates with Dream Animation to create a new type of seminar in a virtual production studio

 Innovative XR Style Workshop

At the beginning, Chairman Yang Lichang transformed into a director, shuttling through the key elements of the XR studio, including the center console, camera, scene, etc., leading the audience into the magical XR stage of the Juji Seminar and allowing everyone to understand the characteristics of the XR studio in just 60 seconds.

Chairman Yang Lichang further explained that this year's theme uses the concept of "union" in mathematics, and uses the formula "micro-LED ∪ mini-LED ∪ LED Display ∪ LCD = Macroblock" to express that Macroblock's driver chip product range covers a full range of display applications. During the conference, speakers shared market trends, innovative technologies and new product information, hoping to explore the ultimate display technology with the participants.

 Chairman Yang Lichang explained that the theme of this year's seminar is "micro-LED ∪ mini-LED ∪ LED Display ∪ LCD = Macroblock", which means that Macroblock products cover a full range of display applications.

Virtual production dedicated LED driver chip | 120Hz high frame rate, 16-bit grayscale, 7,680Hz refresh rate

At the beginning, Wu Yida, manager of Macroblock Technology, shared that XR technology in virtual production has been widely used in commercial advertising shooting, music MV production and film shooting. The key to virtual production lies in the coordination between the camera and the LED display. How to shoot realistically and how to reduce the defects of the shooting picture are the goals to be pursued. According to these applications, 1. The pixel pitch of the commonly used LED display screen is P1.5 (close-up, close-up shooting)-P2.8 (background, long-distance shooting), and the brightness requirement is 1000~2000 nits to adjust the peak brightness of the matching scene (HDR source), so the optimal number of scans for LED driver chips is 16 scans or less to take into account both brightness and picture quality; 2. The shooting format (FPS) of the camera is a natural multiple of the display frame rate of the LED display screen, which can be synchronized through the controller Genlock, which is the basis for flawless shooting.

But in fact, even if the LED display screen and the camera are synchronized, there will still be three major challenges in the picture: motion blur, scan lines, and flickering caused by insufficient refresh rate of low gray. These display problems must be specifically improved through a new generation of virtual production dedicated driver chips. This driver chip has "PWM enhanced evolution function". Under the condition of achieving 16-bit grayscale, the specifications can support 120Hz high frame rate and 7,680Hz high refresh rate, reduce motion blur and alleviate scan line problems; further, the unique "super visual calculation" can effectively handle low gray flicker problems and greatly improve the screen segmentation caused by scan lines. Solving the three major challenges of the picture through a new generation of virtual production dedicated chips will help achieve the goal of flawless shooting and further enhance the visual immersion effect.

Manager Wu Yida shared how Macroblock’s virtual production solutions can overcome the image problems encountered during virtual production shooting

High-scan architecture technology breakthrough | Optimize low-gray uniformity to enhance excellent HDR display effects

The application of small-pitch LED displays is getting closer to the consumer market. In the past, they were mostly used as advertising billboards with a viewing distance of dozens of meters. With technological innovation, the viewing distance has been shortened and the application scope has been brought closer to consumers, such as P1.2~P2.5 (SMD LED) commercial all-in-one machines, P1.2~P0.5 (mini-LED) home theaters, and automotive displays with a dot pitch less than P0.5 (micro-LED). Macroblock Technology Manager Cheng Hongyi further analyzed the connection between the five major technical thresholds contained in these small-pitch applications and the demand for LED driver chips, including 1. The smaller the LED grain size, the more accurate the driver chip current needs to be; 2. Whether to use a face-up or flip-chip solution in the LED process; 3. The application conditions of pick-and-place technology and mass transfer in transfer technology; 4. The selection difference of the backplane due to the pixel pitch of the target application; 5. The number of PCB layers is also closely related to the number of scans that the LED driver chip can support. The more layers there are, the greater the cost pressure; Therefore, from the above five technical requirements, it can be understood that when the application point pitch continues to shrink, the related costs such as process technology will increase significantly, resulting in a compression of the penetration rate of small-pitch applications in the consumer market. Therefore, Macroblock Technology launched a new generation of 96-scan LED driver chip-MBI5265 based on these requirements.

MBI5265 can support up to 96 scans, which can reduce chip usage by 67% compared to 32 scan driver chips. In addition, MBI5265 has built-in PWM enhancement technology and grayscale enhancement technology, so even under the 96 scan design conditions, it can still achieve the excellent HDR (16-bit|3,840Hz) display specification. However, how to improve low-gray uniformity within this specification is the key to pushing the image quality to a new high, because low-gray uniformity problems (blocks, vertical stripes, horizontal stripes) will cause poor image contrast and grayscale performance quality. In the past, the common "blocks" and "vertical stripes" can be improved through high-precision channel current and digital timing. However, as the number of scans in module design increases, the "horizontal stripes" derived from the inconsistent scan current of each row caused by PCB routing need to be optimized through the unique "uniformity optimization mode" of MBI5265 to thoroughly optimize the image quality and present the best low-gray display power.

Highly integrated mini-/micro-LED driver solution | Perfectly imported into P0.4 application

In response to the shrinking dot pitch, in mini-/micro-LED applications, due to the limited backplane area, the driver chip must have both high integration and support for high-scan design, and be combined with a line-scan sharing architecture to improve the backplane area utilization and achieve applications with smaller pitches. Macroblock Technology's MBI5864 is a highly integrated driver chip that can support up to 64 scans and achieve an excellent HDR (16-bit|3840Hz) display effect. Manager Cheng Hongyi used the introduction of evidence to let the audience know that there are already customers using the BGA-packaged MBI5864 in the P0.4 mini-LED module, and there is obviously still room for the backplane; in addition, the display effect can also achieve a contrast ratio of 25,000:1. The temperature issue that the industry is concerned about can also be seen through measurement data that both the mini-LED lamp surface and the backplane driver chip surface are around 35°C, reducing concerns about overheating and blue spot display problems caused by long-term operation.

Manager Cheng Hongyi explained that Macroblock's highly integrated mini-/micro-LED driver solution MBI5864 can support 64 scans and achieve excellent HDR (16-bit | 3840Hz) display effects

Upgrade the visual experience of gaming monitors | Full-matrix local dimming mini-LED backlight driver chip equipped with variable refresh rate (VRR) technology

The e-sports field has always been an application with a high threshold for LCD. In addition to requiring high image quality and high contrast, because the signal source is generated by the GPU, each frame of the picture may be fast or slow, unlike the TV which has a fixed frame rate signal source. Therefore, most e-sports LCD monitors have built-in variable refresh rate (VRR) function to reduce display problems such as "tearing" or "stuttering" that players cannot accept.

Macroblock Technology Manager Chen Changlin mentioned that in order to pursue higher picture quality, many gaming monitors have introduced full-matrix local dimming mini-LED backlights. Different from traditional backlight technology, the "image" characteristics of full-matrix local dimming mini-LED backlights can achieve high dynamic contrast (HDR) and regional independent dimming functions. However, when the mini-LED backlight does not have a variable refresh rate, the screen will have "flickering" and "uneven brightness" problems, reducing the visual entertainment of gaming players. Therefore, the new generation of full-matrix local dimming mini-LED backlight chips launched by Macroblock Technology: MBI6329, MBI6353 and MBI6334 all introduce variable refresh rate functions. Whether used for static or scanning mini-LED backlight displays, they can effectively handle the problem of vertical synchronization signals (Vsync.) not matching the frame rate of the picture source, bringing gaming players the ultimate visual experience.

Manager Chen Changlin explains how Macroblock mini-LED backlight can enhance the visual experience of e-sports players through variable refresh rate (VRR) technology