Last Saturday, the fourth global Mini/MicroLED display technology event of 2023 was grandly held in Zhuhai, China. In 2022, there were over 40 investment projects in this industry, with a total investment of 81.3 billion yuan.

MicroLED backlight technology has been widely applied in fields such as car displays, esports displays, and televisions. With the continuous breakthroughs in Mini/MicroLED display technology, the industry has ushered in the best investment opportunity period.

01 | Industry Status Micro-LED is a miniaturization technology for LED based on the third-generation semiconductor gallium nitride material with extremely high efficiency and stability. It is a display technology composed of self luminescent small inorganic display pixels and can work for long periods of time in extreme environments such as high temperature, low temperature, humidity, toxicity, ultra-low pressure, and space radiation. It combines all the advantages of LCD's high pixel density and OLED's autonomous luminescence and fast response speed, and is considered the next generation display technology by the industry. Usually, Micro LED is defined by the size of the emitting LED chip. Generally speaking, we will reduce the size to less than 50 μ The LED chip of m is called Micro LED. A brief review of the development history of Micro LED reveals that important advancements in this field have all come from breakthroughs in integrated processes. It can be expected that the future development of Micro LED displays will continue to move towards miniaturization, integration, array transfer, and full color. Mico LED technology has attracted widespread attention in the past 20 years, gradually entering the company's development projects from early laboratory research work, and some have already entered the commercial product stage.

02 | Display application field According to research and predictions by semiconductor analysis firm Yole, the next 3-5 years will be a critical period for Micro LEDs to move towards consumer grade applications. MicroLED will first begin mass production applications in VR/AR, smartwatches, and large screen displays. In terms of VR/AR, MicroLED will develop from monochrome glasses in 2022 and enter consumer grade applications in 2025; In terms of smart watches, MicroLED will also enter a rapid application development stage starting from 2024; In terms of large screen display, MicroLED is expected to enter the high-end consumer TV market in 2025, while the time for mobile phone and car display applications is relatively late.

Short term: High PPI displays - AR/VR devices with high PPI displays are mainly used in VR/AR/MR, and the rapid development of VR/AR has driven the demand for near eye displays. The growth of VR/AR was initially driven by markets such as enterprises, military, and healthcare, and later entered the large and widespread consumer electronics market. According to IDC's prediction, by 2023, the scale of VR/AR market expenditure in China will reach $65.21 billion, which is higher than the 2019 forecast of $6.53 billion

There is a significant increase. Meanwhile, during the forecast period (2018-2023), the 5-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) will reach 84.6%, higher than the global market's growth rate of 78.3%. Short term: Medium to low PPI display - Small size wearable display mainstream wearable electronic devices mainly include smart wristbands and watches, requiring their display screens to be able to reliably display in various indoor and outdoor environments, and to work for long periods of time under battery power. The screen requires high brightness, low power consumption, and light weight. A smaller screen size (1 inch to 1.7 inches) helps reduce the process cost of Micro LEDs, making smartwatches the easiest niche market to break through. Manufacturers can first accumulate experience and improve technology in this field. According to Bloomberg, Apple is planning to adopt Micro LEDs on its high-end Apple Watch Ultra as soon as the end of 2024 and gradually expand it to include iPhones and other devices.

Long term: medium to low PPI display - small and medium-sized applications represented by smartphones and tablets, if introduced

IMicro-LED shows that it will bring another reshuffle of the industry. The reason is that Micro LED has a better energy-saving effect than OLED. The rapid development of small and medium-sized display applications, especially in the rapidly changing demand of the smartphone market with a huge stock size, is committed to improving the battery life of mobile phones while pursuing display effects, leading to structural changes and quality improvements in the panel. However, due to the technical difficulty and cost-effectiveness compared to LCD and OLED technology, it is not enough for Micro LED to be commercialized in this field in 3-4 years.

03 | Non display applications: With the rapid development of the economy and the improvement of consumer living standards, global passenger car sales have been increasing year by year. The importance of internal displays in passenger cars for driving safety, as well as the diversity and aesthetics of display functions, are becoming increasingly important for consumers. The in car display area is expected to increase by 49.3% over the next six years. Non display applications - Key technologies in the automotive market need to apply Micro LED technology to the automotive field and achieve mass production. From upstream LED chip preparation, development of bonding materials, innovative design of transfer technology and equipment, development of driver ICs, to the improvement of driver circuits by midstream panel manufacturers, all require the joint cooperation of manufacturers and technical personnel from all aspects of the industry chain. Non display applications - According to international authoritative institutions, the visible light communication industry has a long chain and involves multiple links. In the future, the industrial scale of visible light communication technology applications can reach a trillion yuan level. Micro LED can achieve transparent and flexible display, with long lifespan, high brightness, and good reliability. It has great potential in the field of visible light communication, and is expected to have a market size of hundreds of billions. Non display applications - Biomedical Micro LED also have broad development space in the field of medical detection. Baggable device promotes hair growth: The Korean Academy of Sciences and Technology (KAIST) has recently developed a Micro LED wearable device that successfully helps mice regrow hair. The research findings can provide a new method for treating human hair loss. Implantable LED device for cancer treatment: A research team at Waseda University in Japan has developed an LED implantable device consisting of LED chips and bioadhesive nanosheets, which successfully reduces tumors in mice through phototherapy. Non display application -3D spatial interactive imaging 3D spatial imaging system is a mid air imaging system that suspends 3D images in a cabinet real scene. Based on the principle of spectroscopic imaging, a special processing method is used to construct a 3D model of a product through actual shooting, and then the captured product image or 3D model image is superimposed into the scene to form a dynamic and static product display system. Viewers do not need to wear any polarizing glasses, and can view three-dimensional images with the naked eye, resulting in a more three-dimensional and realistic imaging effect. The advantage of the Mico LED array lies in its high density and fast response speed, which enables the implementation of a massive three-dimensional spatial display lattice. At the same time, the Mico LED array can achieve precise positioning of multiple people and objects in space by emitting different patterns and collecting reflection patterns. A single Micro LED can already achieve real-time transmission of full HD video, and as a whole, the Micro LED array can achieve a huge signal transmission bandwidth. Its product form may no longer be traditional display screens, and it is highly likely to be organically integrated into indoor and outdoor decoration.

04 | Jingtai Investment Suggestion: It is reported that in 2022, there were more than 40 investment projects in the Mini/MicroLED industry, with a total investment of 81.3 billion yuan. MiniLED backlight technology has been widely applied in fields such as car displays, esports displays, and televisions. MicroLED has taken the lead in the development of two types of terminal applications, one large and one small. It is expected that the overall shipment growth rate of various applications will reach 18% in 2023. From the analysis of the overall growth momentum of the market, it can be seen that the fields of direct display, intelligent wearable, AR/VR/MR products, and automotive applications have significant growth potential in the future, and there are high growth opportunities for related industry chain enterprises. At the same time, MicroLED faces challenges in technology, materials, equipment, costs, and other aspects. It will take some time before large-scale production, and it requires the upstream and downstream industry chains to work together to connect the intermediate process path and achieve breakthroughs in the application of MicroLED.