Display Show learned that since 2020 Mini LED direct display gradually mass production, and applied to monitoring command, high-definition broadcast, high-end cinema, office display, conference interaction, virtual reality and other fields, Mini RGB (direct display) more and more attention by the market, this year has been part of the LED screen enterprises announced in the Mini RGB products to achieve mass production, therefore, the industry generally believes that 2021 is Mini LED is mainly divided into two technical routes: one is Mini backlight, the other is Mini direct display. In the field of direct display, Mini RGB (direct display) what is too "screen", Mini RGB and Mini backlight which is more "money" scenario? Can Mini RGB occupy the mainstream of the market in the future?
Mini RGB has the advantages of self-luminous, thin, wide color gamut, high contrast ratio, long life, high reliability and long life. While the commercial application of Micro LED display products still need a long time to mass production, before the maturity of Micro LED technology, Mini LED as a transitional solution should be born. In addition, Mini LED direct display as the next generation of new display technology Micro LED outpost, in the technical difficulty is higher, directly build high Mini RGB product costs.
Mini RGB several technical routes analysis
COB package
Mini RGB packaging technology is mainly based on COB technology and IMD technology. COB technology is to directly package the LED bare chip onto the PCB substrate, and then perform the overall mold sealing for each unit; while IMD technology is to integrate multiple groups (two, four or six groups) of RGB light beads into a small unit.
Since COB package attracted attention in 2016, diving into Mini/Micro LED technology development and combining COB package technology has become popular in the LED display industry. With the explosion of China's ultra-high-definition video industry scale market, the user's requirements for LED display ultra-high-definition picture quality are becoming more and more demanding, 5G + 8K technology boosts Mini LED products to market, accelerating the development of LED screen enterprises on smaller point pitch. Because PCB board and other materials make the material cost increase, P1.0 below the module development is limited, the complexity of the process makes the process cost increase, in order to overcome this problem, COB packaging technology in the LED display field to make a big show. Coupled with the advantages of COB package with low power, good heat dissipation, high saturation, high resolution and unlimited screen size, front-mount COB and flip chip COB products are becoming more and more popular in the market.
However, for LED displays with flip chip COB technology, the main difficulty is that the manufacturing process and layout of production line equipment are extremely different from those of traditional discrete devices. It needs to integrate the chip, packaging, display the whole industry chain, in addition to the huge cost investment, in each link facing the core technical difficulties also need enterprises to break through one by one. This not only limits the capacity of enterprises, but also lengthens the product technology replacement cycle. The lack of product yield, ink color consistency, high cost of dead light maintenance, module color difference and other issues are still plagued by LED display industry pain points, the urgent need to break through the bottleneck.
At present, the COB industry chain is gradually established and perfected, the cost per unit area of COB products is higher than SMD, in the future, as the COB display packaging industry chain gradually mature, COB display packaging market share will be rapidly increased, and the cost will gradually come down. In addition, COB does not have the limitation of single lamp size and SMD technology, and the dot pitch can be smaller. In Mini LED application, COB package has high reliability and stability, and it is easier to realize ultra-small pitch display, therefore, COB package is one of the future development technology trends of Mini RGB. With the continuous maturity of COB technology, Hida electronic flip-flop COB has broken through to 0.4mm Mini LED boundary, PCB board ink color consistency and optical consistency has been continuously improved, COB technology will play a "booster" role in the Mini RGB field.
IMD Package
IMD packaging is a compromise technology between SMD and COB, in which two or more pixel structures are assembled in one package unit. Although the IMD process follows the surface mount process, it combines the advantages of SMD and COB. At present, the application of four-in-one technology is more mature. IMD "four-in-one" means that there are four basic pixel structures in one package structure, which is still essentially four "light beads" synthesized by 12 RGB-LED chips. The "four-in-one" LED module uses a positive chip, but as package manufacturers make many requirements for the chip, "six-in-one," "eight-in-one" and even "N-in-1" and various other solutions are also being introduced to the market.
In 2018, with the emergence of IMD packaging, it has quickly been sought after by the market. Mini LED IMD is a product of ingenious innovation based on the mature process of traditional SMD, with high yields and significantly improved product stability and reliability. IMD inherits the advantages of traditional SMD, industry chain friendly, and is the mainstream solution for the current Mini LED direct display, and after three years of development, IMD After three years of development, the micro-pitch products of IMD package can reach 0.9mm. With the shrinking pitch, IMD program has a certain physical limit, and it is basically difficult to realize mass production of products with pitch below P0.7mm.
Mini RGB direct display boosts future display industry change
IMD can be wavelength and brightness of the devices are carefully selected, and the devices from different molds are evenly dispersed before banding, effectively avoiding the slight differences in packaging that lead to local color differences after the board is attached, so the color consistency is very good. Decide it can't be divided light and color for each unit pixel in the module, different batches of glue, different batches of board thickness, different period of proportioning, liquid high temperature fluidity, there are more or less small differences. imd technology enhances the application side mounting efficiency, improve the chip RGB package reliability. the COB technology invest large capital, high cost, make many display enterprises discourage, have been Do not dare to invest heavily in COB market. At present, the IMD program is widely used, COB program although the performance of leading but technical difficulties, the future development prospects.
Mini RGB direct display to help push the future of the display industry change
At this stage, compared to COB technology, the RGB display market using IMD technology is the majority of manufacturers, but there are also performance deficiencies of the problem. In general, technical challenges are constantly breaking through, and the Mini LED display industry is working hard to achieve the technical goals of Micro LED. Whether it is COB technology or IMD technology, the key to each technical route is to quickly reduce costs and achieve mass production. With the explosion of the small-pitch market, the market demand for ultra-high-definition technology to enhance the COB package and IMD package two different technical routes of packaging forms, will make a favorable exploration for small-pitch improvement program.
In addition to using COB and IMD, the two traditional mainstream technologies, there are some enterprises that adopt distinctive technical routes to enrich and develop Mini RGB.
COG Solution
Lazard is actively studying glass substrate technology on Mini RGB (COG glass-based packaging technology refers to the LED chip directly solid crystal to the glass substrate, the use of TFT drive to achieve display), and a strong joint venture with TCL Huaxing to jointly develop the COG mode of Mini LED direct display products; there is also BOE actively layout MLED products to create active drive, COG as the core The BOE announced not long ago that it has achieved mass production of glass-based MLED direct display products.
COG solution using glass substrates, in flatness, line width line spacing, heat resistance has a natural advantage, can meet the needs of high-precision splicing, cost compared to PCB substrates, glass substrates are cheaper, COG glass-based more has a unique advantage. Due to the material limitations, PCB substrate heat dissipation is relatively weak, in terms of stability and accuracy can not meet the requirements of emerging display products, but the PCB substrate technology development is more mature, the supply chain is relatively complete, yield is also much higher than COG glass-based, the current high penetration rate in the display market. While the glass substrate in the punching, solid glue, cutting and other links easy to break, relatively speaking, the maturity of the industry is low, at this stage of glass-based Mini LED products yield is much lower than PCB-based Mini LED products. And the larger the size of the glass substrate more fragile, resulting in lower production yields, so in the field of medium and large size, PCB substrates dominate. The COG glass substrate has great potential value, and it is believed that after solving the technical yield problem, COG is expected to have the advantage of cost performance and occupy a place in the Mini RGB market.
Mega Transfer Technology
It is noteworthy that Zhongqi Optoelectronics uses self-produced chips and self-developed Micro LED mega-transfer technology (mega-transfer refers to the transfer of a large number of Micro LED die or devices to the target substrate or circuit by some high-precision equipment) applied to Mini LED products to solve the pain points of Mini RGB. Chung-Ki Optoelectronics has made efforts in seven major elements such as equipment precision, process yield, process time, process technology, inspection method, repeatability, and processing cost, and has now achieved 99.99% mega-transfer yield. With the support of mega-transfer technology, Mini RGB mega-transfer technology has enabled the further popularization of products below P1.0 while ensuring the high display effect of the display, and has also brought down the production cost.
In general, Mini LED technical problems are being tackled in an orderly manner. Compared to Micro LED's giant transfer technology, Mini LED's chip size is larger, so the transfer difficulty is relatively small, combined with giant transfer and COB packaging technology, thanks to the gradual increase in LED small pitch penetration and the decline in LED display costs, Mini RGB can be effectively enhanced. The mass production cycle of the Mini RGB industry explosion may be imminent.
Mini RGB direct display market applications
Mini RGB Market
Mini RGB direct display is mainly used in the commercial display market, such as cinema display, traffic display control hall, rental display, stadium display and public display field splicing TV wall, etc. Mini direct display market potential is huge, the market space is much higher than the Mini backlight market, but Mini direct display in the technical maturity still has more room for improvement, so many LED display upstream and downstream enterprises Therefore, many LED display upstream and downstream enterprises have laid out Mini RGB, focusing on the future, in order to establish a firm foothold in the future display market.
Market size: Mini LED commercial applications are now mature and are becoming popular on a large scale, with huge market prospects. Related institutions report that the global market size of Mini LED reached 0.61 billion USD in 2020, of which the Mini LED market is growing rapidly and is expected to expand to 931 million USD in 2023. By 2024, the global Mini/Micro LED market size will reach $4.2 billion. For the domestic market, the national Mini LED market size will be about $3.78 billion in 2020, and the market size will reach $43.1 billion in 2026, with a CAGR of 50% from 2020 to 2026.
Shipment area: the global LED small pitch display market shipped an area of about 410,000 square meters in 2019, up 54% from 2018. The compound annual growth rate is expected to reach 34% from 2019 to 2023, continuing to maintain high growth.
LED display has been promoted in the commercial large screen for decades, the rise of small pitch and the import of COB and other technologies have led to the rapid development of the Mini RGB market. From an international perspective, Apple, Samsung, Sony and other major manufacturers launched Mini LED displays are also mostly using COB technology route. From the domestic panel giant BOE, Huaxing 2020 launched one after another using COB technology route Mini/Micro LED screen, the so-called crowd gathering firewood, which will be a favorable trend for the COB industry. In the LED display industry chain of leading manufacturers in each link vigorously promote, Mini RGB as a new generation of display technology solutions are rapidly penetrating down, the market scale is rapidly increasing, while Micro LED is limited by the micro process, huge transfer and other technical bottlenecks in the technology, industry and cycle of short-term commercialization is difficult, the next few years Mini LED market demand is expected to usher in an explosion.
It is worth mentioning that Mini RGB direct display products, in the field of oversized 110 inches has a huge application advantage, while Mini LED backlight products in the 110 inches below the dominant, Mini RGB and Mini LED backlight products in the commercial sector to form a good complement. In addition, some industry insiders said that if Micro LED technology is slow to make a breakthrough, Mini RGB is a non-temporary transitional technology, it is likely to "take over" and really become the mainstream of the next generation of display technology. At the moment to speed up the application process of Mini LED direct display products, quickly reduce costs and improve product yields has been imminent!
Mini LED has become the new cycle of LED display development has arrived, Mini RGB direct display industry chain has the key technology, mass production, product yield conditions. Mini RGB technologies, whether COB, IMD and other mainstream technologies, or COG and other technologies, will still be in the direct display market fierce competition to kill, which technology can laugh to the back, still waiting for the market test. In the future, Mini RGB upstream and downstream product value-added, industry integration is more obvious, the innovative display technology requirements are also increasingly high, if you want to be proud of the "screen" lake, Min RGB must strengthen the cultivation of their own "internal strength", increase investment in research and development In order to be proud of the "screen" lake, Min RGB must strengthen its "internal strength", increase investment in R&D, and strengthen technical innovation, in order to continue to play a key role in leading Mini/Micro LED towards the commercialization journey.
Related companies layout Mini RGB situation
Hida Electronics
Product Layout: At present, Hida Electronics has achieved a breakthrough in flip-flop COB technology and a full range of flip-flop COB can be supplied in bulk. Hida leads the industry in the field of ultra-high-density small-pitch LED displays and is the first to complete the development of smaller point pitch P0.4mm flip-flop COB tiny-pitch LED displays.
Lehman Optoelectronics
Product layout: Lehman Optoelectronics takes the national "5G+8K" strategy as an opportunity to focus on the development needs of the ultra-high-definition video industry and carry out exploration of cutting-edge packaging technology based on COB, and the capacity utilization rate of Lehman Optoelectronics COB display products is about 80%-90%. We continue to expand production capacity of COB products, and the output value has increased, and the process yield rate has reached 98.49% to meet the dynamic demand of COB business development.
CK Optoelectronics
Product Layout: At the end of 2019, Sino-ki Optoelectronics officially released P0.77 and P0.925 full flip-flop COB products and introduced them to the market. Sino-ki Optoelectronics continues to push the industry forward by pioneering two technical routes of full flip-flop COB (UFP Mini COB series products) and single-chip package (Mini COB Lite series products). 2021, Sino-ki In 2021, Zhongqi Optoelectronics has creatively proposed the single chip packaging technology and launched Mini COB Lite products. In terms of production capacity, it is estimated that in the fourth quarter of 2021, the monthly production capacity of CK's full flip chip Mini COB will reach 4,000 square meters, and in 2022, it will reach 10,000 square meters, supporting various products from P0.4 to P1.8.
New Light Station
Product layout: In early 2017, after years of experience in LED packaging technology, SKT took the lead in breaking the traditional packaging technology barriers and launched the new COB (chip on board) packaging technology. 2017, SKT began to achieve mass production of COB modules, and launched COB solid mount screen, COB strip screen and COB poster screen. 2018 COB packaging products won the "2017-2018 China LED Innovative Technology and Product Award". In 2020, SKT launched two models of COB conference all-in-one, which are full-color COB common negative energy-saving small pitch (P0.9375) all-in-one and full-color COB common positive small pitch (P1.25) all-in-one. Among them, COB's full-color COB common negative energy-saving small pitch (P0.9375) all-in-one has won the LED display excellent product award in the ISLE2020 International Large Screen Display Technology Exhibition and the International Audio and Video Wisdom Integration Exhibition.
BOE
Product layout: In July 2021, BOE launched P0.9 COG Mini LED direct display products, using industry-leading glass-based display process and advanced micron-level packaging process, using AM drive method, can achieve 1000 nits high brightness, millions of ultra-high contrast ratio and 115% NTSC ultra-high color gamut, with no screen flash, low power consumption and other It can also achieve pure black seamless splicing, and many technical indicators are at the leading level of the industry. Compared with COB products, the glass base can be reduced by 20% under the same brightness and transmittance.
Jingtai Corporation
Product layout: Since 2017, Epistar has invested in research and development of COB display panels, and launched the first generation of "Jacked Screen" products in 2018. In the past 5 years, Epistar's COB products have been widely used in telemedicine, video conferencing, big data, command center and other intelligent display needs. With a complete layout of Mini COB patents, Jingtai's current COB production capacity reaches 2500 square meters/month.
Hongli Zhihui
Product layout: Mini LED direct display uses RGB LED chips as direct display modules, which are mainly used in commercial display fields such as security, cinema, shopping malls and smart cities. Since Hongli entered the Mini LED field, it has been focusing on the research and development of flip chip COB technology. Hongli Zhihui said to the public that the yield rate of Mini LED direct display products reaches more than 90%, including 99.99% of giant transfer yield rate.
Abyssin
Product layout: In the first half of 2021, Abyssin developed the "Eye of Delight" series of Mini/Micro LED COB flagship products, the new product is based on Abyssin's independent intellectual property rights HCCI technology, flip chip COB packaging technology display products, to achieve high brightness, high contrast, low power consumption, intelligent display and other functions The new product is based on Abysson's proprietary intellectual property HCCI technology and flip-chip COB packaging technology, which achieves high brightness, high contrast, low power consumption, intelligent display and other functions, and more perfectly solves the industry pain points such as black screen modularity and poor white consistency of current SMD and COB products in control room market. In addition, Abixon has accumulated and reserved many core technologies in the fields of giant transfer technology, high-precision placement technology, packaging materials and packaging process, control system and drive technology, picture quality improvement and intelligent interaction.
Ruifeng Optoelectronics
Product layout: Ruifeng Optoelectronics has more mature COB packaging process and optical design and other capabilities, and can provide suitable high-quality solutions for consumer electronics and automotive display applications with large growth potential. mini/Micro LED direct display technology is the direction of long-term development of Ruifeng Optoelectronics, steadily promoting the development of RGB direct display technology, Ruifeng Optoelectronics announced that Mini LED direct display products will achieve batch delivery.
Huachan Optoelectronics
Product layout: As an important domestic full-color display and backlight application chip supplier, Huachan Optoelectronics is one of the first manufacturers to enter the Mini LED chip field and conduct related research. At present, in the backlight application of Mini blue light chip to the display application of Mini-RGB chip, has launched more mature chip products, basically covering the current MiniLED applications required for all kinds of products and size models.
Guoxing
Product Layout: The Mini LED for display released by Guoxing Optoelectronics in June adopts IMD integrated packaging technology, i.e., four-in-one burst packaging, with small units composed of 2 lamp beads horizontally and vertically respectively, where each lamp bead is still packaged with RGB tricolor chips, breaking through the traditional design thinking and collecting the advantages of SMD and COB, which will be a prelude to COB packaging. It is reported that from last year to this year, the revenue of Guoxing's Mini direct display business segment has also grown significantly, especially the cost-effective Mini direct display P0.9 standard version products, which are popular in the market and are currently in the off-sale state.
Blueprint Vision
Product layout: In the first half of 2021, LempoVision released a full flip-flop common shade COB display panel. The full-flip COB display panel adopts Micro-type pixel pitch and Mini chip, while the full-flip COB packaging technology with common shade, which largely ensures the high reliability, stability and energy saving of the product.
Tristar Optoelectronics
Product layout: In 2020, Tristar formally launched the Black Diamond Crystal series with full flip chip, which has been widely recognized by the market for its excellent quality and advanced COB technology, and the Black Diamond Crystal series has quickly become the main product of Tristar. At present, the production capacity of the company is 1500KK/month, and the production capacity of full flip chip COB ranks the forefront of the industry, and the equipment used is newer.
The above is the display exhibition editor for the Mini RGB direct display introduction, hope that through this article can make you have further understanding and awareness of it.