Micro LED is about to be commercialized, is the mass soldering technology ready?

According to Korean media, Samsung plans to set up a new plant in Vietnam to produce a new model of Micro LED TV, which will be put into production in 2022. Due to the high cost of Micro LED TVs, Samsung plans to introduce TFT glass substrates to reduce costs and prepare for the full commercialization of Micro LEDs.

In addition to Samsung’s recent developments in Micro LED, this year, Apple, Sony, AUO, Techuang, Leyard, Konka, Tianma and other domestic and foreign Display manufacturers have made strong moves on Micro LED many times and released new products frequently. , Additional production lines, technology upgrades… The following table summarizes the investment situation of industry players in the Micro LED field from last year to the present.

The commercialization process of Micro LED has attracted much attention from the industry. On the eve of the commercialization of Micro LED, many large manufacturers successively launched new products and invested in production lines, which undoubtedly further promoted the commercialization of Micro LED. Micro LED is a next-generation display technology. Micro LED chips are small, as small as 50 μm or less, with a thickness of only 5 μm. At the same time, there are 8.3 million pixels on a 4K display panel, which is nearly 25 million pixels. For Micro LED chips, the original die-bonding technology is no longer suitable, and mass transfer technology and mass welding technology are required. Therefore, related equipment and solutions have become the focus of industry attention.

According to experts, Research understands that the main process of Micro LED from a single light source to a display substrate is divided into two steps: massive transfer and massive soldering. Mass transfer technology currently has many manufacturers’ layout, and there are not many manufacturers that realize the integration of mass transfer and mass welding. ASM Pacific is one of them, and there is a patented layout in mass welding: ASM Pacific’s ” TWI693648B-Multi-point bonding technology for assembling a matrix of light-emitting elements” was filed as early as 2017 for a patent application and was approved in 2019.

According to the disclosure of this patent material, TWI693648B is a method for bonding a matrix of light-emitting elements to a substrate, which includes the following steps:

? A conductive material is formed on the bonding pads of the substrate arranged in a matrix including a plurality of pads;

? Use the pick-up head to pick up multiple LED light-emitting elements and place them on a temporary carrier;

? Combine the temporary carrier containing multiple LED light-emitting elements with the bonding head, and separate the bonding head from the temporary carrier;

? Connect the temporary carrier to the bonding head to realize the contact between the electrodes on the multiple LED light-emitting elements and the conductive material on the substrate;

üWhile heating the LED light-emitting element, use the bonding head to apply pressure to the conductive material to complete the electrical connection between the LED light-emitting element and the substrate.

It is understood that the various sizes and different applications of Micro LED display products exhibited in major exhibitions, such as smart watches, transparent displays, mobile phones, automotive displays, splicing large displays, etc., are mostly Welded by the above-mentioned patented technology. This technology can also be applied to Mini LED RGB displays, suitable for high-end application markets that have higher and stricter requirements for color and brightness consistency at different viewing angles.

If you want to do well, you must first sharpen your tools. Micro LED is regarded as a new generation of display technology that can subvert the industry. If you want to integrate countless isolated light-emitting source LEDs on a display substrate, high-efficiency and high-yield massive welding Technology is a key link in the Micro LED era. Therefore, in the early stage of Micro LED commercialization, the patent layout of related solution manufacturers is worthy of attention.

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