AGENDA
Time & Speakers

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Since the development of the blue LED in the latter years of last century, LED technology has revolutionised the display industry. Now with demands for small high resolution displays used for AR/VR/XR applications and as a competitor to OLEDs for use in watches and mobile phones, a concerted effort is being made to transfer this technology to the much smaller microLEDs, with typical dimensions in the range of 1 to 10 microns. This transfer is far from straightforward as size effects begin to dominate. Our discussion herein has explored various etching methodologies for GaN and AlInGaP mesas, isolation, and pillar etching related to LED or microLED applications. The excellence of these etching processes holds paramount importance in shaping the ultimate performance of microLED devices. Our presentation will elucidate strategies for achieving well controlled profile angles, smooth surface, and sidewall with optimised processes. OIPT has an ongoing programme investigating correction of size effects, for the transition to the smallest devices <5 microns, where the damage in sidewalls begins to dominate in a way that is not seen in typical larger devices.

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One of the intriguing yet largely unexplored technological approaches to fabricating microLED displays involves utilizing UV micro LEDs alongside colloidal quantum dots as light-converting materials. A main difference from traditional blue LEDs backlighting lies in the necessity of integrating hard-to-make and hard-to-get blue QDs in addition to red and green QDs. Despite this challenge, this approach offers several significant advantages, such as the lack of blue light leakage or better absorption efficiency of red and green QDs in the UV range as to name the most important ones. In this presentation, we will show the properties of our UV curable inks, which are based on heavy metal-free, blue light-emitting QDs known as PureBlue.dots, which can be used for UV light conversion to high quality 455 nm blue light which can be used in microLED displays. Furthermore, we will showcase our recent findings obtained from electroluminescent devices utilizing PureBlue.dots as the active material.

In the category of near-eye displays used in AR/XR devices, the Micro-LED technology pathway is widely regarded as the ultimate display solution due to its advantages such as high efficiency, brightness, and energy savings. However, at the current stage of development, achieving full colorization of Micro-LEDs is a challenge that the industry generally cannot overcome. Addressing the production bottleneck of Micro-LED micro- displays, we have developed a solution based on Nano-Porous Quantum Dot (NPQD®) technology, which enables direct integration of red, green, and blue colors at the wafer level on low-cost blue LED substrates. Through electro-chemical etching, nanometer-sized pores are etched into gallium nitride material, in which quantum dot materials are then injected. This structure serves as a natural container to help quantum dots perform color conversion, with highlights including high conversion efficiency and reliability. Simultaneously, the team has independently developed a complete set of technologies from epitaxy to module,making it possible to mass-produce new full-color Micro-LED display chips and micro-display modules that are high-efficiency, low-cost, small-sized, and highly reliable.

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The rapid advancement of Micro-LED technology has brought forth unprecedented opportunities, yet significant challenges remain in achieving scalable manufacturing processes. In this presentation, we delve into the critical issues of mass transfer efficiency and cost barriers that hinder widespread adoption. We propose a transformative approach of Continuous Roll-Transfer Printing to overcome these challenges, paving the way for the realization of high-performance Micro-LED displays on a commercial scale.

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Many aspects of today’s modern society are enabled by advances in semiconductor technologies. Most of those innovations have been driven by the incumbent corporates in the industry but some of them have come from ambitious startups globally. Despite the size of the market and the potential for key innovation, startups active in semiconductor technologies have often struggled to raise sufficient capital in the past decade, even in times when other sectors of the venture capital market have been very active. Since one to two years, though, we start to see a change in sentiment of venture capital investors towards semiconductor technology startups. This is driven by external market factors, such as the onset of artificial intelligence technology, driving global increase of data center traffic and compute performance, as well as geopolitical considerations and dependencies.imec.xpand is one of the world’s largest independent venture capital funds dedicated to early-stage semiconductor innovation. Since 2018 we have been investing in ambitious startups where the knowledge, expertise and infrastructure of imec, the world-renowned semiconductor and nanotechnology R&D center, can play a determining role in their growth. imec.xpand has an outspoken international mindset towards building disruptive global companies and strongly believes that sufficient funding from the start is key to future success. Our position gives us a unique view on the startup landscape in the sector, which we will share with the audience.