Micro-LED - Lighting the Way for Display Technologies

Micro-LED technology has been exciting the trade and consumer tech press for several years now, particularly since 2014 when Apple purchased the micro-LED-focused start-up, LuxeVue. The implication that leading tech firms were racing to incorporate micro-LED in their highly desirable consumer tech prompted a flurry of speculation that micro-LED would be the 'next big thing' in TVs, smartphones, wearables and much more.

That hasn't happened – yet. But in the past few years the likes of Sony, LG and Samsung have demonstrated large-scale micro-LED screens, while other firms have brought various micro-LED prototypes to market, and still more have expressed plans to do so.

The size and nature of micro-LEDs convey several advantages when used in display screens. Their color gamut is superb, with perfect blacks and brightness above 1 million nits. A micro-LED screen can be exceptionally thin, with resolution as high as 6,000 PPI, and has a wide viewing angle. What is more, micro-LED screens have a long lifespan, can be flexible and/or transparent, and can incorporate sensor technologies (such as biometric sensors to unlock the screen in a smartphone display).

Furthermore, unlike traditional LED screens which are huge and visibly lose resolution as the viewer gets closer, micro-LED displays retain their sharpness regardless. In addition, they can be used in a wide range of screen sizes (in other words, they are eminently scalable). Figure 1 illustrates the capabilities of micro-LED displays vis-à-vis other display technologies.