Tech That Pours Transistor-Filled Inks On MicroLEDs Touted As Way To Realize Mass Market Pricing
November 26, 2024 by Dave Haynes
A UK chemicals company is teaming up with one of the world’s largest display manufacturers to co-develop a new kind of transparent display that would be made, at least in theory, without much of the costs and complexity of current microLED manufacturing.
Manchester-based Smartkem suggests that displays built by its partner, Taiwanese manufacturing AUO, would use its organic thin-film transistors technology, with the potential to reduce costs to a point that super-premium fine-pitch displays would be available at mass market prices. Currently, the Samsung 89-inch microLED, that comes out of AUO’s white label manufacturing facilities, retails at $110,000 USD.
The particularly mind-wobbling aspect of this approach to making microLED displays is that the transistors are in inks and they are poured on to the display infrastructure. Yes, poured. It may seem nutty if you don’t have cause to pay attention to this stuff, but it’s not all that kooky when you consider there are also processes to effectively print OLEDs, micro OLEDs and microLEDs. There is even inkjet printing for OLED.
Smartkem says its semiconductor and dielectric inks, or liquid electronic polymers, help make a new type of transistor, with inks that enable low temperature printing processes that are compatible with existing manufacturing infrastructure, which leads to lower-cost displays. The substrate would also be plastic, and not glass, which would remove cost and allow for flexible displays. In fact, the first product would be a transparent microLED that is also rollable, which I guess will be buzzy and get lots of attention at shows like CES. But the real story is the potential to drive costs out of manufacturing and make large-format microLED displays affordable.
“We believe that collaborating with global display industry leader AUO to develop a novel microLED display puts Smartkem’s technology on the frontier of microLED display commercialization. Our unique transistor technology is expected to enable display manufacturers to efficiently produce microLED displays, making mass production commercially viable. Smartkem’s technology has the potential to take today’s microLED TVs from high end market prices of $100,000 down to mass market prices,” says Ian Jenks, Smartkem Chairman and CEO.
“Because our transistors are processed at such a low temperature compared to other technologies, we are able to pour them directly on top of the microLEDs, completely eliminating the problematic mass transfer and laser welding processes required with other technologies,” adds Jenks. “The key feature that enables the development of this microLED display is our unique low temperature process that allows the use of low-cost, flexible plastic rather than glass. We believe that, if successful, this collaboration will be a significant milestone for Smartkem in its road to commercialization, and for microLED display product development using our technology.”
“AUO has dedicated years to developing the ultimate MicroLED display technology, forging alliances with ecosystem partners to enable mass production,” says Dr. Wei-Lung Liau, Chief Technology Officer of AUO. “In this collaboration, AUO has developed groundbreaking technologies that boost the high transparency and free-form in applications of MicroLED. With proprietary materials from Smartkem and the OTFT production process from ITRI, we are collaboratively developing the world’s first rollable MicroLED display for potential commercialization with cost advantage. We believe this will create new opportunities for the display industry and continue to expand value chain partner cooperation and influence.”
Smartkem is a materials company, a bit like Nanosys for OLEDs, and is positioning this co-development as an effort to come up with a new class of microLED displays that are low-cost, thin, transparent, flexible and lightweight.
This is made possible by Smartkem’s OTFTs that are processed at an industry comparatively low temperature, enabling them to be processed directly on top of microLEDs in the manufacturing of microLED displays, eliminating the need for mass transfer and laser welding processes required by existing technology. This introduces an entirely new “Chip-First” display architecture to the display market that is not currently possible using other transistor technologies.
Additionally, Smartkem’s low-temperature feature enables processing of Smartkem’s OTFTs on a plastic substrate, rather than glass, that is low-cost, thin, transparent, flexible and lightweight.
The project formally starts in the new year, and is running, at least in part, off grants from Taiwan and UK tech R&D funds.
Interesting stuff. I was at AUO in Taiwan earlier this month, talking with the company’s head of display R&D, and this did not come up – likely because it is a project that only kicks off Jan. 1, 2025. The big potential for microLED hangs a LOT on R&D efforts to reduce manufacturing costs and absolutely minimize production flaw counts, so that final pricing can indeed come down.
As mentioned, there are very, very few true microLED products on the market (most are just miniLED and their manufacturers are fibbing), and the highest profile real product is Samsung’s 89-inch The Wall TV, which you have to play midfield for Real Madrid to afford.
But when I was in Taiwan, I saw an 81-inch diagonal 0.9mm microLED from an AUO partner company that was about $30,000, so prices are already coming down.
Does Auo is looking for potential projects in US. Have a working relationship with number one special effects lighting company inn movie industry. How do I reach out to them?
Steve Molaf CEO/President
S. Molaf & Associates