LEDinside hosted Micro LEDforum 2018 last week in Taipei, Taiwan and welcomed international speakers and attendees to join the pioneer event of the industry. Several leading institutes shared their innovative approaches of Micro LED and the technology of mass transfer is definitely the biggest focus. QMAT and Tesoro Scientific, two U.S. based start-up companies, introduced innovative materials and equipment concepts to enable ultra-fast mass transfer methods.

(Francois Henley, CEO, QMAT&Tesoro Scientific)

The mass transfer technology and equipment developed by the companies is called Beam-Addressed Release (BAR) which utilizes a laser beam to quickly transfer a massive amount of Micro LEDs from a specially prepared source substrate to a target substrate. The CEO of QMAT and Tesoro, Francois Henley, introduced its technology while addressing the importance of functional testing, which is essential for ensuring the yield, according to Henley.

Mr. Henley put emphasis on lowering the defect rate of micro LED before the steps of assembly and connection for the aim to realize zero ppm defect and high throughput in the mass transfer process. Thus Tesoro’s proposed in-process test equipment with photoluminescence (PL) and electroluminescence (EL) test capability. During the presentation, Henley showed the result of PL and EL test and disclosed that measuring in EL mode could detect more defects. According to Tesoro, the in-process test can efficiently eliminate the substrate material and Micro LED process defects and the result helps to reduce the time and cost for repairing and subsequent process.

Henley also shared his insights of Micro LED application roadmap. He considered using Micro LED backlight units to make better displays with good yield and performance for TVs and cellphones. As for native Micro LED, it will begin with large displays and small displays with low resolution such as wearable devices.