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For many years, micro-LED has been promoted as the next big thing in TV technology (and screen technology in general). Micro-LED technology works as the best OLED TVs in that each pixel emits its own light, which means you get pixel-precise contrast with infinitely deep black tones – however, pixels can be much brighter than can ever be possible with OLEDand they should be more durable and longer.
But despite being first introduced to TVs several years ago, there hasn’t been a ton of movement in micro-LED TVs. They are extremely expensive, and are usually only available in very large sizes, mostly breaking the 100-inch battery (although Samsung managed to put the technology into a 75-inch set). And these huge sets are still there 4KWhen you can expect the likes of Samsung to do it 8K.
So why hasn’t more progress been made, and will this change soon? I have already heard from a large manufacturer of technology that is between five and 10 years away from being remotely mainstream, so to a recent one. Hisense event to highlight the company’s even huge (but much less expensive than micro-LED) laser TVs (which combine ultra-short projection technology with a specially designed light-rejecting screen), I spoke with Dr. Liu Xianrong, Chief Scientist and General Manager. of Hisense Laser Display, about the future of giant screens.
He explained that the problem with micro-LEDs, similar to OLED TVs, is that they have some fixed costs and complexities in their production process that are not really reduced by making the sets smaller, and there is no obvious way to change cost and complexity on the horizon – so the economics of building micro-LED screens may not be able to bring it to the mainstream anytime soon.
Dr. Liu explained that the problem in the case of micro-LED TVs is that each pixel is made of three sub-pixels (red, green and blue) and that these pixels are created by different companies, and they have to be assembled and later combined during the manufacture of the panel.
The OLED equivalent to this could be considered as the masking process, which requires new material from different places to be deposited with an elaborate and expensive system, which has not changed much since the launch of the technology, so that the price has been high. Inkjet printed OLED is supposed to be the solution to this in the case of OLED, but we have been promised that the technology is around the corner for a long time (although TCL CSOT, screen manufacturing and development arm of TCL, he says indeed is spreading this technology for smaller screens).
Funny, it is possible to make very small micro-LED screens with an extremely high pixel density – think of something designed for the the best smartwatches – like very large micro-LED screens, but getting something done in the middle is where it falls, but that’s what we really need for most TVs.
Separation of powers
Dr. Liu said there is another complication with micro-LED TVs in development, however, which stems from the fact that the pixels do all the work for brightness and color. When you want to make a transformation adjustment to the brightness, you can’t help but influence the color, and vice versa. It makes the whole panel extremely complicated to keep looking perfect, again affecting how expensive the whole system is to develop and produce.
In most TV technology, including mini-LED, laser TV and OLED when used in TVs, there are separate elements that can help mitigate this. Mini-LED uses a network of tiny LED lights to generate brightness, behind a series of color-changing pixels (usually with quantum dots). You can control these elements individually to compensate for any changes you’ve made to each other and keep things consistent. QD-OLED is similar, in that a blue/green OLED pixel layer sits behind a quantum dot color filter layer.
And while laser TVs handle color and brightness in one from the projector, the screen is an element that can be developed separately to help improve brightness, for example – Hisense packs a screen that rejects ambient light with its Laser TVs that can almost double the brightness compared. to a basic screen – so you can also use the fact that they are separate to help refine the picture.
Packing everything into a set of RGB sub-pixels for micro-LEDs adds complexity that can certainly be overcome (OLED phone screens use an RGB sub-pixel structure), but again just factors in why televisions are likely be expensive, and because it will be slow for that reason to change.
Micro-LED and mini-LED were introduced to the world at the same time – Samsung announced its first mini-LED and micro-LED TVs at the same event. But the the best mini LED TVs have fallen rapidly in price so that instead of being only in elite televisions, the technology is now available in cheap sets, such as the Hisense U6N and TCL C805 (UK and Europe only).
The micro-LED seems to be very far from having the same moment of revolution at an affordable price, although giant TVs have become more and more popular, which should be ideal for it. It’s probably still the next big thing in TV; just don’t expect “next” to be right around the corner.
