MicroLED display chip output value is expected to reach US$2.3 billion in 2024

According to TrendForce's Optoelectronics Research Division, since Sony released a large-scale tiled Micro LED display in 2017, Samsung, LG and other companies have followed suit, driving the Micro LED craze in large displays. It is estimated that self-luminous Micro LED TVs are expected to be released between 2021 and 2022.

However, there are still many technical challenges and cost issues to be resolved at this stage. Therefore, it is foreseeable that Micro LED TVs will become luxury goods at the top of the pyramid in the early stages of commercialization.

TrendForce said that Micro LED display technology is expected to enter the market from niche products such as small-sized head-mounted augmented reality, wearable display watches, high-gross-margin automotive displays, high-end TVs, and large commercial displays. In the future, it will have the opportunity to slowly penetrate into medium-sized tablets, laptops, and desktop displays. Micro LED has the most explosive market in large displays, mainly because the technical threshold is relatively low. It is estimated that in 2024, the chip output value of Micro LED TVs and large displays will reach US$2.3 billion.

Analysis points out that at present, most Micro LED TVs and large displays belong to the traditional LED display structure, using RGB LED packaging with traditional passive (PM) driving methods. Not only is the cost high, but the reduction of dot pitch is limited. Currently, it can only be used in the field of commercial displays. In recent years, many panel manufacturers and brand manufacturers have developed more cost-competitive active drive (AM) solutions, using TFT glass backplane process to achieve the purpose of addressing and controlling pixels. The circuit design is simpler and the wiring space used is also less, in order to meet the high-resolution specification requirements of Micro LED TVs. 

Currently, Samsung and LG in South Korea, Innolux and AUO in Taiwan, and Tianma and CSOT in China have demonstrated AM-driven display applications. As for the LED light source, unlike the traditional LED display screens that use RGB LED packaging, Samsung chose to cooperate with PlayNitride to use RGB LED chips with mass transfer process to achieve full-color Micro LED displays; while AUO and Innolux use blue LED chips with quantum dots or phosphor color conversion technology.

However, the cost of Micro LED displays depends on the resolution and chip size. As the resolution requirements will be higher in the future, the amount of chips used will increase significantly. Therefore, the amount of Micro LED chips used in TV and display applications will be much more than other applications. For example, a 75-inch large display with a 4K resolution requires at least 24 million RGB Micro LED chips to be arranged as sub-pixels. Therefore, the process processing and material costs from Micro LED chips to mass transfer will remain high.

Therefore, TrendForce stated that the technical and cost issues of Micro LED TVs and large displays will be the biggest challenges for entering the market in the short term. As TVs will develop towards larger sizes and higher resolutions in the future, the difficulty of mass transfer, backplane, driver, chip, testing and maintenance technologies in the Micro LED process will increase. Once the technology is overcome, the cost of Micro LED will drop rapidly in the future, and it will have a chance to enter the mainstream display field.