When the concept of 'metaverse' is popular all over the world, the investment scale and market scale of AR/VR/MR head display equipment, smart glasses and other markets continue to challenge new high levels, including display technology. From materials, chips, drivers, packaging, display screens to terminal applications, the number of players has increased, financing and investment have continued, and related products will also accelerate to the market in the second half of the year.

According to incomplete statistics from LEDinside, foreign brands, such as Vuzix and WaveOptics, have released commercial products and sample machines of Micro LED AR smart glasses; domestic brands, Xiaomi, TCL's Thunderbird, and OPPO have also developed Micro LED smart glasses. , OPPO's Micro LED AR glasses have been mass-produced.

As more brands launch terminal application products, the display industry chain becomes more active, such as the chip side. Nanjing Xinshiyuan released the first self-developed chip for AR/VR Micro LED and launched the B+ round of strategic financing to strengthen the layout of the track; HC Semitek's current Mini/Micro LED chip can be used in AR/VR equipment... Recently, another company announced that it will soon launch Micro LED display products for VR.

Seoul Viosys enters the competition, Micro LED products for VR will come out

Today, Seoul Viosys announced that it will launch the WICOP mc (WICOP Micro Pixel) product for the first time at the CES exhibition to be held on January 5, 2022, for the microdisplay of the Metaverse VR headset.

WICOP mc (WICOP Micro Pixel)

According to reports, WICOP mc uses Seoul Semiconductor's WICOP patented technology, which is an LED technology that does not require wire bonding and packaging. Currently, its Mini/Micro LED and automotive LED products are developed based on WICOP technology. Seoul Viosys believes that WICOP technology can meet the needs of Mini/Micro LED production below 100μm.

Seoul Viosys said that the company has successfully developed LED technology for VR, and this technology will be shown separately to VIP customers who pre-order. At CES 2022, Seoul Viosys will also exhibit an 82-inch FHD display with 6.2 million WICOP mc chips, and a 40-inch display with 2.8 million chips.

Micro LED technical problems continue to break through, and mass production of AR/VR equipment is in sight

Seoul Viosys pointed out that AR/VR has attracted much attention, but since high-performance displays that meet the display needs of AR/VR devices have not yet been developed, such devices have not yet been used in daily life.

Compared with LCD/OLED technology, Micro LED technology has obvious advantages in performance such as high brightness, high resolution, low power consumption, and design flexibility, so it is widely favored in the field of AR/VR equipment. However, LCD/OLED technology has achieved mass production, and Micro LED is currently facing many difficulties that hinder mass production, such as the efficiency of Micro LED will decline as the chip size shrinks.

For this problem, many companies and research units around the world have been seeking breakthroughs, including Seoul Viosys. The company is committed to improving the efficiency level of Micro LED miniaturization, helping to solve the problem of mass production of Micro LED, and made a breakthrough this year.

It is understood that Seoul Viosys and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) have continued to maintain close cooperation in the field of Micro LED technology. Trends carried out research and found that InGaN-based red-light Micro LEDs have the opportunity to help create smaller full-color Micro LED displays.

In August of this year, Seoul Viosys announced that it has jointly developed a blue light Micro LED chip and a green light LED with a size of less than 1 μm in conjunction with the US Santa Barbara SSLEEC team led by UCSB physics expert Nakamura Shuji, and successfully combined the 70 μm red light Micro LED chip with the outer surface of the chip. The quantum efficiency is increased by 150%, which significantly improves the brightness of the Micro LED.

In this regard, Seoul Viosys said that it has successfully broken through the problem of external quantum efficiency and started mass production of products using 70μm red light Micro LED chips. On this basis, Seoul Viosys predicts that all Micro LED display applications will soon be commercialized, such as smartphones, AR/VR and other consumer electronics products.

According to its announced plan, 30μm single-pixel Micro LED will be launched in the second half of this year, and 10μm single-pixel Micro LED products will be launched in 2022, but there is no further news yet. However, with the arrival of the CES exhibition in January, more details of the performance of Viosys VR Micro LED products in Seoul may be revealed one by one.

According to the current official news, WICOP mc solves the problem of LED efficiency decline and can achieve 2000 PPI high-resolution VR display, meeting all the requirements of micro-display technology.

For Seoul Viosys, technological breakthroughs and the introduction of new products mean that investments will be realized at an accelerated rate. It is understood that the sales of Mini/Micro LED products of Seoul Viosys have increased for three consecutive quarters this year, especially Micro LED. Related products have continued to achieve significant growth since the beginning of this year, becoming an important driving force for its steady growth in performance, and future growth will be even greater. expected.

This is also good news for the Micro LED industry. At the same time, its partner UCSB has recently made new breakthroughs in the research of InGaN-based LEDs. In addition, foreign Micro LED related technology providers Porotech, Soitec, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) team and domestic Jingneng Optoelectronics have all promoted the process of Micro LED mass production to a certain extent, which also indicates that Micro LED technology for AR/VR is constantly breaking through the bottleneck problem and is gradually approaching the end of commercial mass production. (Text: LEDinside Janice)