Is Samsung's Micro LED technology ready to enter mass production in 2020?

Micro LED ready to take centre stage?

by Andy Bassett

South Korean electronics juggernaut and No.1 global TV seller Samsung may be planning to pump extra investment into Micro LED production in the first half of 2020.

The speculation comes from industry insiders linked to firms that sell the vital equipment used in the micro LED manufacturing process, according to ETNews.com.

The report states that Samsung is considering capital expenditure for the mass production of micro LEDs during the first half of next year with one official from an equipment supplying company quoted as saying, “Samsung Electronics will start investing in micro LED mass production facilities in the first half of next year, and have been testing the performance and quality of major equipment.”

ETnews reports that industry members confirm that Samsung is 'finishing performance evaluation on domestic and overseas equipment related to micro LED and is sharing schedules with its partners in the first half of the year to invest in facilities'. The companies supplying tenders for the contract to supply this equipment would most likely have been privy to some of Samsung’s due diligence so the comments come with a certain amount of insider knowledge.

However, not all industry watchers agree and the report goes on to state a counter view that production technology is still not capable of producing enough numbers for the cost to reach the level of general TV mass production.

One display expert was quoted as saying, “Though the price of one micro LED chip has dropped to the so-called 'unit level', the thin film transistor (TFT) technology is not stable and considering the newly introduced core process costs such as mass transfer and repair the price gap that actually enters the market is inevitable.”

As we head to 2020, the TV landscape is shifting away from LCD based TVs towards other display technologies. Samsung’s roadmap includes Quantum Dot based OLED TVs and here the company recently announced $10 billion worth of investment. However, Samsung also has plans for its micro LED technology which packs a microscopic red, blue and green self-emitting LED into each pixel allowing for high brightness and wide colour gamuts.

The technology is also modular which allows for flexibility in screen sizes and it recently went on sale for custom installations for businesses and other enterprises. The ultimate goal is to get a consumer facing product to the TV market but manufacturing the panel sizes that consumers are interested in has proved challenging.

The expected investment sends a signal that Samsung may have found a way to address those challenges and is ready to move to the next stage. 
Samsung is expected to confirm the size and schedule of investments after CES 2020 in January and even if mass production is still some way off, the announcement that expenditure on production equipment is imminent indicates a degree of forward momentum for micro LED as a consumer TV technology.

Source: www.etnews.com
Image Source: ETNews
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