Smartkem, a company that makes semiconductor polymer transistors, has just debuted its first demo of a microLED display using its proprietary OTFT materials at Display Week 2024 in San Jose.

Evident from the exhibitors at Display Week 2024 is that they recognise the inherent advantages and inevitability of microLED display mass adoption – high durability, extremely strong brightness, a de-coupled production process and high aperture ratio – all of which Smartkem’s OTFT technology can deliver at a much lower cost due to its low temperature processing.

Smartkem’s demo was a sapphire wafer with 96x96 arrays of patterned microLEDs which had been planarized with Smartkem’s materials. Vias were then formed down to the device contact pads using photolithography and etching, and finally a metal layer was sputtered and patterned to form the anode and cathode contacts to the microLEDs. The metal connections were made selectively to generate the patterned images shown.

These types of samples are subsequently further processed to deposit Smartkem’s OTFT materials and direct drive connection is replaced with a connection from a drive TFT which can then be addressed in a matrix format to make an active matrix display.

TrendForce 2023 Micro LED Market Trend and Technology Cost Analysis
Release Date: 31 May / 30 November 2023
Language: Traditional Chinese / English
Format: PDF
Page: 160 / Year