Advantage in the big screen? The first massive scene of Mini LED victory over OLED appeared

In recent years, Mini/Micro LED display technology continues to be popular. It has become another "mainstream technical route choice" after liquid crystal and OLED. Mini/Micro Led covers the full chain market from large-screen projects (such as digital cinema large-screen) to micro-displays for XR virtual reality applications (such as AR glasses). And in the competition of the future display king, it has a head-on confrontation with OLED technology. Big screen Jun noted that TrendForce statistics recently estimated that in 2024,Mini LED backlit TV shipments increased by 55% year-on-year, reaching 6.35 million units; Higher than the OLED product growth of 15.9%, 6.23 million units - this will be, in the field of OLED and Mini/Micro LED direct confrontation, the first Mini/Micro LED to win and have a large number of sales of the "segment". Big Screen believes that this means that Mini/Micro leds are accelerating to play out their advantages.

Supply diversity, the advantages of Mini/Micro LED

Compared with the development of OLED color TV, the big screen king wants to say that "everyone adds firewood and high flame" is the key to Mini/Micro LED display technology really win:

TrendForce consulting data show that the global OLED TV TOP5 in 2023 are: LG (53%), Samsung (17%), SONY (15%), Philips (4%), Panasonic (4%). It can be seen that the share distribution of OLED TVS is "highly concentrated". In the upstream panel market, LG and Samsung have captured 100% of the OLED TV supply. This certainly highlights the advantages of both, but it also inhibits market competition and more full innovation.

In this regard, the large screen Jun should be particularly explained that with the introduction of Samsung's W-OLED display screen provided by LG, the market share of Samsung's OLED TV is still further improving. SONY's position as the second largest brand of OLED TV has relatively continued to decline. The monopoly of the Korean system in OLED TV actually leads to the loss of the competitiveness of other camps, and then rejects the increase of the OLED TV market. The Mini/Micro LED display technology is quite different: almost the world's most valuable color TV brands have launched products with this technology. The number of market brands and models greatly exceeds OLED, and the product size is covered to 98-115 inches, which is the size that OLED does not have. Under the same size of product price, there are both products comparable to OLED, and there are also products that are half or more cheaper, especially for high-end users. Under the same price is to choose a smaller size of OLED or a larger screen of Mini/Micro LED become a "must answer"... These supply-side advantages, more precisely the wide support for Mini/Micro leds, have allowed the market to rapidly grow beyond OLED TV products. Of course, the big screen king has to admit that today's Mini/Micro LED display beyond OLED is still not complete - it appears in the way of LCD backlight. However, this does not prevent the Mini/Micro LED+LCD products observed that the application of Mini/Micro LED technology has the advantage of "supply side diversity". Especially for the competition of OLED TV, which is a category with scarce upstream resources and highly concentrated market share, this "diversified supply" is the potential and heritage. In fact, the number of brands that have launched Mini/Micro LED direct display large screens worldwide, that is, LED direct display all-in-one machines that do not require LCD screens, is still higher than OLED TV display products. That is, OLED TV companies, such as Samsung and LG, have launched Mini/Micro LED all-in-one, LED direct display companies and other color TV head brands have also launched Mini/Micro LED all-in-one. Professional displays, security and many IT companies (such as TPV AOC, Lenovo, etc.) have also launched Mini/Micro LED all-in-one machines... Under such a pattern, the big screen king wants to say, "Who can guarantee that the LED direct display will not copy the path of its LCD backlight screen and surpass OLED?"

Cost reduction and efficiency increase, Mini/Micro LED can see the progress

Mini/Micro LED direct display TV products, the world's largest support brand Samsung, is just one of the only two OLED TV giants. Big Screen learned that at the latest IFA2024 Berlin show, Samsung showcased a new 65-inch Micro LED TV. This allows Samsung Micro LED products to further cover the size line of 65 inches, 76 inches, 89 inches, 101 inches, 110 inches, 114 inches - product size options wider than its own OLED product line. In addition, the number of Samsung Mini/Micro LED backlit LCD TVS also reached a new high.

Big screen Jun saw from Samsung that Mini/Micro LED achieved the "hunt" of OLED. And in the eyes of the industry, the hunt is just the beginning: Including Konka self-built Mini/Micro LED display industry chain, Hisense through the acquisition of dry light Optoelectronics to establish a complete Mini/Micro LED industry chain, BOE through the acquisition of Huacan Optoelectronics self-built Mini/Micro LED complete industry chain, TCL Huaxing and Vicinone through foreign investment or joint investment in the construction of Mini/Micro LED industry chain, etc., the color TV industry in the Mini/Micro LED action is "rapid and huge".

On the other hand, the industry has formed an accurate path for the cost reduction and efficiency of Mini/Micro LED (whether it is backlight or direct display) : including backplane upgrades, such as improving the utilization rate of PCB boards in the backlight market, and introducing glass substrates in the direct display market; LED chip cost reduction, through higher light efficiency products, and smaller size products to reduce the unit luminous flux or unit pixel cost; Driver IC cost reduction, mainly including higher integration, more drive channels, more advanced process IC, and from PM to AM driver evolution; Process material cost reduction, including large volume technology, progress in detection and repair technology, progress in MIP packaging, further cost reduction in COB packaging, and so on... For cost reduction and efficiency, Peng Shuanglang, chairman of AU Optronics, Samsung's Micro LED TV panel supplier, recently made it clear that in terms of cost reduction of Micro LED, it is expected that it will be able to achieve the same as OLED panels in five years. (In 2023, it also said that it "expects the cost of Micro LED to decline at the same rate as Moore's Law, and the cost will be halved every two years.") This means that upstream manufacturers believe that Micro LED TVS have a cost reduction of at least 90%. Large screen should point out that once the Micro LED TV and OLED TV cost the same, the Micro LED TV can be more fully used: 1. The supply is diverse and sufficient, 2. The large size is unlimited, 3. There is no burning screen hidden concern, 4. The unique value of highlighting characteristics in special applications such as commercial display and transparency, 5. Low brightness high gray scale display capability and high quality image quality brightness adjustable space is larger... And so on OLED display technology can not match the advantages. Just because there is such a (i.e. high-end TV market, OLED and Mini/Micro LED direct display contrast, Micro LED TV advantage may be greater; In the low-end TV market, the cost of OLED TV continues to be higher than that of LCD, even higher than that of Mini/Micro LED backlit LCD products, and the competition is weak) "there are blocks before and after the chase" pattern, so that LG and Samsung as the only two panel suppliers of OLED TV. In the expansion of production, "temporarily stopped", but more and more in the Mini/Micro LED layout.

With a variety of large screen applications, Mini/Micro leds are winning the future 

For the development of Mini/Micro LED display, in addition to cost matching OLED is not impossible, big screen Jun believes that its advantages in the mainstream key application form are particularly prominent:

For example, Huawei recently launched a three-fold OLED mobile phone, showing the latest achievements in the flexibility of OLED screens. However, at the same time, LG also showed a pull-up Micro LED display - the original size of the product is 12 inches, with up to 20% stretch capacity, allowing it to easily expand to 14 inches. Similarly, Samsung showed off a similar technology: only instead of horizontal deformation, it has the ability to deform perpendicular to the surface of the screen - stretching up to 25% vertically and having a resolution of 120 pixels per inch. These demonstrations demonstrate the flexibility potential of the Micro LED.

At IFA2024, Hisense showcased transparent Micro LED screen products. It uses micron-level Micro LED chips, with a penetration rate of more than 60% and a broad viewing Angle, a Pitch pitch of 0.69, and a touch function. Although Transparent Display is a function that LCD and OLED can also achieve, the high brightness and large size advantages of Micro LED are still conducive to large size, high transparency, and high definition transparent product design. And Hisense this product is "fully functional" and has achieved a marketable design. Taking advantage of the transparent display, AU has even developed a prototype of a double-layer Micro LED display product to achieve better 3D visual effects. Of course, the biggest advantage ofMini/Micro LED is still "no LCD and OLED glass substrate size limitations." Therefore, LG, Hisense, TCL and other brands have launched 4K Micro LED TV products at the 16X inch level. In the movie giant screen, engineering large screen, Micro LED splicing display is more than the absolute king of OLED. "OLED can do Micro LED can do, and better, OLED can not do Micro LED can also do!" With such confidence, Lee Yunli, chairman of Neptunium Technology -KY, a leading Micro LED technology company in Taiwan, said: Although at this stage, I dare not think of micro-LED technology replacing existing liquid crystal display (LCD) panels and organic light emitting diode (OLED) panels, there is still a chance to become a reality in the future. Because costs continue to decrease, innovation is better, only have confidence in the future!

Full PK, Mini/Micro LED and OLED war is raging

Big screen Jun noted that if the TV, with the help of LCD, Mini/Micro LED to achieve the first surpass of OLED, is a small step for the industry; Then the "queue beyond" in more areas will be a "solid step" in the future.

For example, in the micro display, or XR, category, TrendForce expects AR devices to ship 25.5 million units in 2030, with a CAGR of 67% from 2023 to 2030. Among them, LEDoS technology (that is, silicon-based Micro LED) will become the mainstream of the market, and the penetration rate will reach 44% in 2030. OLEDoS market share will decline from 54% in 2024 to 25% in 2030. Another example is the display, the current OLED growth momentum is good, the growth rate exceeds the Mini/Micro LED backlit LCD. This is mainly because the backlight required by the TV is mainly Mini, because of its larger size; Displays require Micro technology. The latter is a newer technology for leds. However, logically, Mini/Micro LED as LCD backlight supply diversity, cost accessibility and other potential is significantly higher than OLED. Therefore, the future display market is likely to continue on the scale of Mini/Micro LED OLED. "Cost is the disadvantage of Mini/Micro LED direct display, but backlight LCD can achieve cost optimization of OLED; At the same time, the direct display of Mini/Micro LED has obvious advantages for OLED performance!" Big screen king think, such "Tian Ji racing logic"; The competitive logic of "Mini/Micro LED highly diversified" on the market supply will jointly promote its future display competition with OLED "without falling wind"; The progress of Mini/Micro LED technology and the decrease in cost will inevitably make it eventually "gradually gain the upper hand"! At present, the only "big problem" with Mini/Micro leds is that the development of Mini/Micro leds is later than OLED. -- At least 10 years later. Once the advantage of OLED stock created by time is gradually lost, the battle for future display will be self-evident. For Mini/Micro LED technology, the big screen Jun should add that "as the weight of the global display industry, manufacturers in Taiwan directly skip OLED and choose Mini/Micro LED". This further proves the future potential of Mini/Micro leds.