Plessey has been speeding up its progress of Micro LED technology development. After announcing the partnership with Jasper Display Corp (JDC) for the backplanes, Plessey has ordered MOCVD equipment from AIXTRON SE to boost its manufacturing capability of GaN-on-Si wafers targeting Micro LED applications.

(Image: Plessey)

Plessy has selected AIXTRON’s AIX G5+ C Planetary Reactor, which is featured with an automatic cassette-to-cassette (C2C) wafer transfer module. The new reactor is scheduled to be installed and operational during the first quarter of 2019 at Plessy’s facility in Plymouth, UK.

Plessey expects the new equipment to enhance the R&D capacity of its monolithic Micro LEDs based on its proprietary GaN-on-Si technology. The company hopes to replace current display technologies including LCD and OLED with the Micro LEDs of its research achievements.

Mike Snaith, Chief Operating Officer at Plessey, noted, “Our continued and valuable relationship with AIXTRON allows Plessey to rapidly bring to market its monolithic Micro LEDs. To help us achieve this, our latest acquisition of AIX G5+ C planetary system combines outstanding on-wafer uniformity and run-to-run performance at the lowest cost of ownership – aspects that are critical for efficient high-volume GaN-on-Silicon Micro LED displays.”