What will 2020 be remembered for? In our industry, of course, we hope it’s not COVID-19. Fabs are still operating in an orderly manner, and although business has been affected, we have been relatively unscathed compared to many sectors of the economy.

2020 will likely go down in history as the year that tiny light-emitting diode (microLED) displays started to gain traction. Making them is not easy, as it often requires moving millions of micron-sized LED chips from the wafer to the display backplane while ensuring zero errors. But the efforts paid off, with the resulting displays offering breakthrough brightness, incredible efficiency, extraordinary contrast and resistance to burn-in.

A huge amount of money has been invested in micro-LED technology. So far, funding totals up to $4.8 billion, according to Yole DéDevelopment. Apple accounted for $1.8 billion, a figure that includes the acquisition of Luxvue and internal development.

Facebook is another tech giant with big ambitions to use microLEDs in future products. It is working with Plessey, a British company that has overcome the mass transfer problem by producing LEDs on GaN-on-silicon wafers and then attaching them to silicon backplanes. It is known that blue and green LEDs can be made with GaN, but red LEDs are more challenging to make with GaN. However, last December, Plessey announced that through strain engineering it had achieved red light emission from such devices, opening a new door to making full-color displays.

In addition to displays, micro LEDs have other applications. This summer, CEA-Leti engineers broke the data transmission record for visible light wireless communication (Light Fidelity Technology) (LiFI) technology, using 10μm micro-LEDs to transmit data at 7.7Gbit/s. This transmission method can ensure the security of communication in the room, which is a function that WiFi or 5G does not have.

By straining GaN-on-silicon light-emitting diodes, Plessey can produce red, green and blue emitters on the same wafer. This helped create a full-color microLED display, a technology that allowed Plessey to collaborate with Facebook.

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