FutureSource’s InfoComm 2024 Post-Show Report Now Out As Free Download
July 2, 2024 by Dave Haynes
The UK research firm Futuresource Consulting routinely generates post-show wrap-up reports that get into detail about what its analysts saw on the exhibit hall floor of events like ISE and the recent InfoComm show in Las Vegas.
The InfoComm 2024 one is now out (here’s the download page), and while the free, information-rich deck covers all kinds of things like collaboration technology and audio, it gets into considerable detail about LED displays.
That work is done by Portland-based display-tech analyst Ted Romanowitz, who (thank you, Ted) backs up my periodic rants about display manufacturers calling what they have MicroLED, when it isn’t.
From the report:
Despite solid alignment to definitive LED definitions across vendors, misinformation remained prevalent at InfoComm 2024. No, MicroLED is not just any LED display below 1.0mm. No, CoB isn’t the same as CoG. This confusion can inhibit market adoption of the new technologies, which will be clearly better in several important aspects, among them visual performance, acquisition price and operational cost.
While Surface Mount Devices (SMD) pioneered the Direct View LED marketplace, its future is expected to be relegated to 1.5mm and larger pitches. Integrated Mounted devices (IMD) are a relatively short-term solution to fragility issues below 1.2mm and reduce the assembly costs by a factor of the pixels combined into a single package, typically 2, 4 or 16. These variants have the cost burden of packaging and pick-and place manufacturing.
Flip Chip on Board (CoB) is really MiniLED due to chiplet size, PCB backplane and passive driver technology. CoB is expected to prevail at 1.5mm and below, co-existing with CoG until the latter attains the price advantage from mass economies of scale. Yet, mass transfer capabilities are still being perfected, hampering expected price erosion.
True MicroLED, also known as Chip on Glass (CoG), is destined to dominate the LED marketplace and drive LED dominance over LCD technologies by the end of the decade. CoG is sub-100-micron chiplets mass transferred to glass or TFT with an Active Matrix. True MicroLED will eventually deliver high pixel density and superior visual and price performance compared to Flat Panel Displays (FPD) today.
The last point is particularly interesting. While no end of manufacturers fib about their products being microLED, when the LED chips/lights don’t meet the technical definition for being smaller than 100 micrometers, Romanowitz says what is True MicroLED is not just based on the bacteria-level size of the teeny lights, but also the substrate they sit on. He says they need to be on glass (Chip On Glass) and not printed circuit boards, and also use active matrix technology, not passive matrix.
The chart below is a helpful guide.
Trying to stay on top of this and keeping it all straight is a monumental challenge!
Exactly what my last article on LED types explained…just saying.