Research Background:
With the pursuit of color and practicality, the display has undergone a radical change in the last century. Display tech has replaced printing tech as the main way to disseminate knowledge and information. From CRT, PDP, LED to LCD and OLED, display tech is evolving at an accelerated pace. In 2021, catalyzed by the concept of the metaverse, VR/AR has once again become the object of investment pursuit. According to Sigmaintell’s data, global VR/AR HMD shipments will be about 11.5 million in 2021 and are expected to exceed 60 million in 2026. Driven by new applications, the accelerated development of Micro display tech is coming.
According to the different principles of display tech, Micro display tech has also undergone different stages of development. The micro display industry has successively appeared LCD, LCOS, OLEDoS, MiniLED and MicroLED, and other different technologies and products. According to Sigmaintell’s data, the global Micro display market (MiniLED BLU, MicroLED, OLEDoS) will ship about 8.2 million units in 2021, with MiniLED BLU accounting for about 77% of the total. With VR/AR top brand Meta, Apple, etc. in 2023 using OLEDoS, OLEDoS shipments will show a greater growth. Meanwhile, MicroLED will be accelerated penetration in the field of AR in 2024.
MiniLED BLU chapter: based on the high-end market, cost reduction is still the main theme
MiniLED BLU and LCD combination will far surpass ordinary LCD, especially in brightness, contrast ratio, color reproduction, HDR and other aspects. At present, MiniLED BLU is mainly used in the field of high-end TV. With LGD WOLED and Samsung QD-OLED production capacity gradually rising, high-end TV market competition will gradually become fierce. From the layout of major TV brands on MiniLED BLU TVs in 2021, it can be seen that MiniLED BLU TVs are positioned in high-end product lines, with the average product price above USD 1,500. From the number of partitions, the differences between brands are large, and the top brand Samsung, TCL, LGE and other brands partitioned above 2000. In 2022, TCL launched 5000 CNY point MiniLED BLU TV, which also indicates that MiniLED BLU tech began to penetrate the mid-range market.
In the field of the monitor, it is usually to follow the tech trend of TV. Because the cost of MiniLED BLU is still high, MiniLED BLU penetration speed in the direction of the monitor is slower, and the product is positioned in gaming and professional monitors. The key to the increase in product penetration is still the rate of cost decline and the pull-effect of the top brand.
With the gradual overcapacity of rigid OLED in the direction of smart phones, notebooks and tablets are the main positions of capacity transfer. When OLED life and battery life problems are gradually improved through technologies such as Tandem and LTPO, it will form direct competition with MiniLED BLU tech in the high-end market. Therefore, the market penetration of MiniLED BLU notebooks and tablets is closely related to the development of OLED, especially after 2024, Apple's choice of tech direction of Mini LED and OLED will play a very important role and impact on the two market segments.
With the gradual popularization of new energy vehicles, the trend of electronic application in autos has led to a significant increase in the area of vehicle display, and the application scenarios have become more extensive. MiniLED BLU has significant performance advantages in the vehicle display, high brightness, long life, stable performance in the high-temperature difference range, etc. Compared with other applications, the car project use of new product verification cycles is longer, and the penetration of MiniLED BLUs is slower. From the perspective of the adoption specifications of the brand, MiniLED BLU tech can be applied in many scenarios in the vehicle display, including central control, instrumentation, co-driver, HUD, external display, etc. However, due to the low shipment volume, the product does not have standard specifications, resulting in high costs. In the medium and long term, the application prospect of MiniLED BLU in the direction of the car is relatively clear. According to Sigmaintell’s data, it is expected that in 2026, the global MiniLED BLU car revenue will account for about 13% of the overall Micro display shipment scale.
In addition, MiniLED BLU is applied to VR display, and compared with traditional BLU, the advantages are outstanding: on the one hand, it can greatly improve the overall brightness of the display; On the other hand, combined with the fine Local Dimming partitioning scheme, higher contrast ratios can be achieved. In addition, the MiniLED BLU can shorten the OD distance and reduce the thickness of the set.
MicroLED: The layout of the application of ultra-large and ultra-small is expected to penetrate all fields after the tech matures
Due to the immature tech, MicroLED displays are only adopted by a very small number of brands. At present, the main applications include two aspects, ultra-size spliced low-PPI display and Micro display high-PPI display, which are applied to ultra-size TV and AR/VR respectively. According to Sigmaintell’s data, it is estimated that TV applications and AR/VR applications will account for more than 90% of the global MicroLED revenue scale in 2026.
MicroLED has the size advantages of large-size TVs, especially in the market above 100inch, which are difficult to break through by glass substrates lithography techs such as liquid crystals and OLED, and the self-emissive advantages that are difficult to compare with the picture quality of laser TVs in bright environments. Therefore, large-size TV became the earliest commercial application area of MicroLED. Samsung Electronics released the 110inch MicroLED TV in December 2020, using a PCB backplane, RGB LED flip chip tri-in-one package, and then a huge transfer. In 2022, Samsung Electronics will mass-produce MicroLED TVs with LTPS backplanes, and the cost will be improved while the huge transfer tech and backplane tech capabilities will be further improved.
The requirements of AR display include ultra-high PPI, fast response, ultra-high brightness, and so on. Traditional LCDs, OLEDs, and even OLEDoSs cannot fully meet these requirements. MicroLED, on the other hand, is unmatched in terms of performance requirements in terms of pixels. In 2024, the top brands such as Meta, Google, and other plans to release MicroLED AR glasses. Therefore, driven by the AR market, the MicroLED market will usher in explosive growth. In terms of VR, due to the cost advantage of Fast-LCD and the gradual penetration of OLEDoS, the opportunity for MicroLED penetration is smaller within 5 years.
In addition to TV and AR/VR, smartwatches need 1 ~ 1.5inch panel, 200 ~ 300PPI resolution, chip size in 10 ~ 30μm LED, the mass production process is lower than TV, AR / VR difficulty, which is close to the current MicroLED tech development state. In addition, MicroLED's low power consumption and high brightness can also provide differentiated features for the product. Therefore, as MicroLED tech gradually matures and costs decline, it may promote the application of MicroLED in the direction of smartwatches.
In mainstream products such as smart phones and IT (Monitor, Notebook, Tablet), due to the high cost and good performance of OLED and LCD, it will be difficult for MicroLED tech to have the opportunity to enter the mainstream market before 2026.
OLEDoS: Seize the opportunity of the meta-universe and accelerate the development with the help of the VR/AR industry
OLEDoS is still in the growth period of the tech development cycle, and the existing applications mainly include EVF, military, defense, industrial, and so on. The vigorous development of the VR and AR industries will drive the rapid growth of the OLEDoS display industry. According to Sigmaintell’s data, it is expected that the global shipment of OLEDoS panels in the VR/AR field will reach 67.6 million pieces in 2026, with a compound growth rate of about 180% in the past 5 years.
In the VR field, the main display technologies are Fast-LCD, OLED, OLEDoS, and so on. OLEDoS is a display tech that combines the CMOS process and OLED process. OLEDoS adopts monocrystalline silicon, which has the characteristics of high mobility, stable performance, and high life. OLEDoS can achieve high pixel densities that ordinary OLED cannot achieve through the mature CMOS process. OLEDoS has a high pixel density and fast response speed, which is considered to be the trend for the next generation of VR displays. At present, due to the cost advantage of Fast-LCD, there are still few VR manufacturers using OLEDoS solutions. In 2023, driven by the top brands such as Meta and Apple, OLEDoS shipments will increase significantly.
The requirements of AR HMDs for OLEDoS are completely different from VR, with a size of less than 0.5inch and a brightness of at least more than 1000nit. Due to problems such as yield and cost, the current AR HMD using the silicon OLED scheme has a resolution of less than 2K.
Summary and Outlook: Opportunities and challenges coexist, requiring the coordinated development of upstream and downstream of the industrial chain
Despite the high enthusiasm for investment, the industrial environment is gradually maturing. At present, there are still some factors that inhibit the rapid development of the industry: the high cost, the immature tech, and the unexpanded application ecology. Therefore, there is still uncertainty about whether Micro display tech can gain living space compared with LCD and OLED tech have wide applications and a deep industrial foundation in the future.
MiniLED BLU shipments are concentrated in the top brands, and the brand effect brings opportunities for MiniLED BLU but also hides a crisis. In terms of large size, white OLED and QD-OLED technologies are gradually accelerating their maturity. In terms of small and medium-size, RGB OLED production capacity is penetrating from smart phones to other applications, coupled with the advantages of OLED panel thinness and foldability, the solution to OLED brightness and life problems is mature, and the cost is reduced, which will pose a greater threat to MiniLED in various application fields.
MicroLED is currently far from large-scale applications, there are still many technical bottlenecks, including chips, backplanes, huge transfers, full color, bonding, driver, and detection&maintenance. Compared with traditional LED displays, MicroLED has extremely high yield requirements for LED chips, huge transfers, and backplane assembly, requiring wafer-level defect management strategies. In addition, there is currently a lack of a huge transfer process with the mass production value to transfer micron-scale LED chips from epitaxial plates to carrier boards.
The OLEDoS is too dependent on the development of the VR industry: from the current development of the VR industry, the game attributes are strong. If there is no breakthrough outside the game in the future, the shipment will be limited. In the AR field, the lower brightness property of OLEDoS can only be used as a transitional solution before MicroLED matures.
All in all, with the help of the rapid development of VR/AR, the opportunities and challenges of the Micro display industry coexist, and it still needs the cooperation of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain.
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-Data and information surveyed during May-June.2022.
-Our analysts investigated many supply-chain companies, which including at least as :
聚飞光电 JFLED
瑞丰光电 REFOND
兆驰股份 MTC
京东方 BOE
深天马 TIANMA
友达光电 AUO
视涯 SEEYA
湖畔光电 Lakeside
TCL TCL
三星 Samsung
歌尔声学 Goertek
小鸟看看 PICO
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