Looking back at 2021, Mini/Micro LED investment development has not stopped when the whole LED industry is facing a series of problems such as supply chain shortage and cost increase.

13 Major Mini/Micro LED related projects were initiated

According to relevant statistics, a total of 13 Mini/Micro LED related projects will be established in 2021, covering industrial chain equipment, materials, packaging and other links, including 5 projects of more than one billion level.

In terms of equipment, two equipment manufacturers, Zhiyun And Shenkeda, established Mini/Micro LED related projects in 2021.


A public announcement in March 2021, ZhiYun shares, to promote wuhan r&d center, the implementation of the construction project plans to invest 420 million yuan to build semiconductor production base automation equipment research and development project, the main research and development production of a new display of LCD module, OLED module production line and the integrated circuit related binding machine, glue machine, laminating machine and other precision core assembly automation equipment.


It is understood that Zhiyun has completed the research and development of Mini LED related equipment. The first batch of equipment includes bunding, dispensing, attaching machine and other equipment. Relevant equipment has received orders and completed shipment. Micro LED related equipment has also been developed and implemented, and will be delivered in batches in 2020. In the future, relevant market share will be gradually expanded.


The wuhan R&D Center construction project will focus on the development of OLED module equipment, Mini LED equipment and Micro LED equipment, and provide technical support for the research of semiconductor sealing equipment.


In October 2021, Shenkeda issued convertible bonds to unspecified objects to raise no more than 360 million yuan, of which 180 million yuan was used for the second phase construction project of Huizhou Flat panel display equipment intelligent manufacturing and production Base, and the products produced are mainly Mini/Micro LED precision assembly and testing related equipment.


In terms of optoelectronic materials, in June 2021, Dongxu Group signed the second phase project of Hunan Huaihua Optoelectronic New Materials Industrial Park, with a total investment of 2.5 billion yuan, covering an area of 300 mu, and a construction area of 54,713.12 square meters in the first phase. A Mini LED backboard and high-end electronic protection glass production line and supporting facilities will be built. The construction area of the second phase is 73,420.72 square meters, mainly for the expansion of the first phase production line and capacity improvement.


In terms of driver chips, in January 2021, Fuman Electronics announced that it planned to raise no more than 1.05 billion yuan in non-public stock offering, and invested in the construction of LED chips, 5G radio frequency chips, power management chips and research and development centers.


Among them, the r&d center project plans to invest nearly 390 million yuan. One of the key research and development directions of the project is to upgrade the packaging of Mini LED display driver chip from high-pin QFN to BGA (above 104Pin), so as to realize the highly integrated design of LED display driver.


In terms of packaging, in January 2021, jingtai Semiconductor Display project with a total investment of 5.1 billion yuan was signed and settled in Pinghu Park, Science and Technology City of Zhangjiang River Delta. The project focuses on the production of Mini/Micro LED and plans to invest and build 3500 Mini/Micro LED product lines. With a total land area of 83.3 mu, the project is expected to produce an annual output value of 10.8 billion yuan and tax revenue of 794 million yuan after completion.


In terms of light source module, In August 2021, Longli Technology announced that it intends to issue shares to specific objects to raise a total amount of no more than 1.002 billion yuan, which will be invested in the project of intelligent manufacturing base of large size Mini LED display module and supplement working capital.


It is understood that the project with a total investment of 850 million yuan, will build a first-class backlight module industry base in China, the main products for the large size Mini LED display module, in order to better meet the future market demand for Mini LED backlight module products. The designed annual capacity of the project is 2,620,800 pieces.


Recently, the project has been accepted by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. On March 15, 2022, Lonli Technology announced that it intends to raise about RMB 1 billion from no more than 35 issuers to invest in the construction of the above projects and replenish working capital.


Lonley technology said that the construction of the project will accelerate the realization of large-scale production of large size Mini LED display modules, and improve lonley's layout in the large size Mini LED display module product line. It is understood that this is longli Technology in 2020 raised 180 million yuan (total investment of 256 million yuan) investment to expand the production capacity of Mini LED display module Mini LED investment again.


In addition, in November 2021, Luo Hua Core signed a high resolution panchromatic display Micro LED chip preparation technology project, planning to invest 3.5 billion yuan, the construction of Mini/Micro LED new display light source and module products research and development and production base.


PCB, in March 2021, Xingsen technology announced an investment of 1.58 billion yuan in Yixing Silicon Valley PRINTED circuit board phase II project, after the project reached, the monthly increase of 80,000 square meters of high-end circuit board capacity, mainly used in Mini LED and other fields.


In terms of panels, TCL Technology invested in the expansion project of the sixth generation semiconductor new display device production line (T5) in December 2021.


In this expansion, Wuhan Huaxing will build a 6th generation LTPS LCD display panel production line with the capacity of processing 45,000 pieces of 1500mm×1850mm glass panels per month. The production line adopts Mini/Micro LED, LTPO, ultra high resolution LTPS, Touch screen (Touch Panel+ active pen technology) and other technologies, producing high-end flagship vehicle-mounted, pen, tablet, VR display Panel and other small and medium-sized high-end flagship display.


In addition to the above industrial chain projects, it is also worth noting that guangdong Everbright Group's third generation semiconductor Research and Manufacturing Center project was signed in Dongguan in December 2021, with a total investment of no less than 15 billion yuan. According to the introduction, the project is mainly engaged in the industrialization of Mini/Micro LED display, and will build the only semiconductor project covering the whole industry chain of substrate, chip, module packaging, etc., to create an advanced semiconductor industry research and manufacturing center.

Four major projects were put into operation and eight were launched

In addition to 13 projects, according to statistics, in 2021, a total of 12 Mini/Micro LED related projects have been started and put into production, involving chips, packaging, panels and other links.

In terms of production projects, the most eye-catching is the Mini/Micro LED chip industrialization project of SAN 'an In Hubei province. It is understood that the investment amount of this project is 12 billion yuan, and it is planned to build a RESEARCH and development production base, producing Mini/Micro LED gallium nitride chip, Mini/Micro LED gallium Arsenide chip, 4K display packaging three product series.


Upon completion of the project, it will increase the production capacity of 1.61 million gallium nitride Mini/Micro LED chips per year, 750,000 gallium Arsenide Mini/Micro LED chips per year (all 4-inch equivalent chips) and 84,000 4K display packaging products per year. In September last year, SAN 'an optoelectronics continued to raise 7.9 billion to invest in Hubei Mini/Micro LED chip industrialization project, recently the application has been approved by the Securities Regulatory Commission.


On February 3, 2021, the main building of the first phase of the project was successfully capped; On March 16, the project substation delivered electricity as scheduled. On April 16th, the project began trial production; In May, the project was put into production.


It is reported that the key components produced by SAN 'an optoelectronics will be supplied to optical Valley tianma Microelectronics, Huaxing optoelectronics and other optoelectronic information enterprises. In addition, as one of Samsung's important suppliers, the Mini/Micro LED chips produced in Hubei SAN 'an project may also be supplied to Samsung.


It is also worth noting that SAN 'an optoelectronics revealed that since the beginning of 2022, it has continuously received Mini LED chip purchase orders from a single important international customer, with a total amount of more than 170 million yuan. LEDinside guessed that the big customer was Apple. It is speculated that The SAN 'an base in Hubei province will also supply Mini LED chips to Apple.


In terms of projects started, the project with the highest investment amount is the Mini/Micro LED new display device and module industrialization project of Xinying Photoelectric located in Ezhou, Hubei, amounting to 8 billion yuan. After completion, it will form a manufacturing base of Mini/Micro LED new display device with 50000KK/ month production capacity. It will become the world's largest PRODUCTION base for LED display devices. The project will be settled in April 2021, and construction will start in July. The first phase of the plant will be capped in December. In February 2022, the news shows that the project has completed investment of 600 million yuan, according to the construction plan, the first phase of the project will be put into production in April.


Since 2022, 3 Mini/Micro LED projects of 1 billion level have been added


In 2021, LED companies will expand Mini/Micro LED production capacity. In 2022, more Mini/Micro LED new projects will emerge in order to cope with the continuous improvement of Mini/Micro LED demand and the continuous expansion of production. Up to now, there have been 3 Mini/Micro LED contracts and projects of more than 1 billion.

On January 7, Hucan Optoelectronics signed a contract to land in Zhangjiagang Economic and Technological Development Zone with a total investment of 1.5 billion yuan for the new full-color Mini/Micro LED high-performance epitaxy and chip r&d and production project, with a planned construction period of four years.


On February 21, Vogel Photonics announced the construction of a glass based Mini/Micro LED substrate production project. The project is located in Voge Science park, Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province, with a total investment of 1.65 billion yuan. After completion of the project, the annual output of glass substrate Mini/Micro LED substrate will be 5.24 million square meters.


March 17, Mega Chi shares announced investment in the construction of Mini LED chip and RGB small spacing LED display module project in Nanchang High-tech Zone, the project is expected to total investment of 5 billion yuan.


Among them, the equipment investment is about 2.5 billion yuan. The project plans to purchase 52-cavity MOCVD equipment and corresponding capacity chips and supporting equipment for the production of gallium nitride Mini LED chips, and at the same time, add 300-500 small-spacing LED display module production lines using COB technology. The project is expected to complete the equipment installation and commissioning and formally put into operation in 2023.

Mini/Micro LED layout shows initial results, demand is coming

According to project statistics, the investment scale of Mini/Micro LED projects continues to grow in 2021, and many projects initiated in 2020 will also usher in construction and production in 2021, or prepare for the upcoming Mini/Micro LED demand in 2022 in advance.


In 2022, there have been three projects of more than 1 billion level established, and new display industry-related development plans have been released around the country, or it indicates that there will be more enterprises to invest in Mini/Micro LED this year.


As the "new favorite" of LED industry, Mini/Micro LED has developed vigorously thanks to the continuous layout of various LED enterprises in the past three years, accelerating the expansion from commercial market to consumer market, and more and more Mini/Micro LED technology products appear in front of our eyes. Therefore, the demand for Mini/Micro LED is increasing year by year.


In CES 2022, we saw the further development of Mini/Micro LED technology. Mini/Micro LED has been applied to TV, laptop, tablet, VR/AR wearable devices and other consumer electronics products.


In particular, Mini LED has been favored by Apple, Samsung, TCL, SONY and other major manufacturers in recent years and has been used as the display backlight source of electronic products. Therefore, Mini LED can accelerate its penetration into TV, laptop, tablet and other display products in 2021, which is enough to see the expectation of terminal brands for new display technology. However, at present, most products equipped with Mini LED technology are still expensive, and they are usually only seen in high-end products.


On the other hand, although Micro LED is still in the product development adjustment stage due to technical bottlenecks such as mass transfer, but with the rise of the metauniverse concept in 2021, Micro LED has attracted much attention because it can bring more immersive experience to VR/AR wearable devices known as the entrance level terminal of the metauniverse. For AR glasses in particular, Vuzix, WaveOptics, Xiaomi, TCL Thunderbird and OPPO have introduced Micro LED microdisplay and optical waveguide technology into their AR products.


Vuzix's Micro LED AR smart glasses are already on the market, and OPPO's Air Glass will officially go on sale in Limited quantities in March. WaveOptics, Xiaomi and TCL's Thunderbird smart glasses and AR glasses are all prototypes.


In addition to wearable devices, large screen application scenes such as outdoor naked eye 3D display and XR virtual shooting have also become an important direction of Micro LED technology implementation in the context of the metasexes.


In the aspect of outdoor naked eye 3D display, Leyard, Zhomin Technology, Lehman Photoelectric, Abisson, Alto Electronics, Lianjianphotoelectric and other display enterprises have naked eye 3D projects all over the world, which can not only bring shocking three-dimensional picture display effect, but also provide a new way of publicity for brands and cities.

In terms of XR virtual shooting, Companies such as Ledio, Leard, Abison and Alto Electronics under Zontech have launched virtual studio solutions, providing immersive virtual scenes for film and television production, improving the efficiency of film and television production and saving a lot of costs.

Conclusion

At the same time that Mini/Micro LED technology is initially applied, the overall investment scale of Mini/Micro LED industry is also expanding day by day, which provides sufficient capital guarantee for the maturity of Mini/Micro LED technology, and also provides a large space for the long-term average cost reduction in the future. With the continuous investment layout of major LED industry chain enterprises, Mini/Micro LED comprehensive application era will be closer and closer.