On October 29th, JSLJ Microelectronics Technology Group held a production ceremony and a press conference for the establishment of Mini/Micro LED Research Institute. Micro LED is a new generation of display technology. JSLJ's China base is the world's first mass production base of Micro LED. After the projects are fully put into production, the annual sales are expected to reach 5 billion yuan.
BJLY Optoelectronics Technology Group and TWJD Optoelectronics Technology Group, two industry leaders, have joined forces to invest 1.3 billion yuan in the construction of Mini LED and Micro LED display project bases. The base all adopts mass transfer technology to produce, and is the first to achieve mass production of the smallest display modules in the industry. The display products produced are mainly used in Mini/Micro LED backlight displays and Micro LED self-luminous display modules. After being put into production, BJLY's sales channels will be used to promote self-luminous products. At the press conference, the Micro LED Research Institute jointly established by BJLY, JY Optoelectronics and JSLJ was unveiled.
Background of the project
Currently, the global new display industry has entered a critical period. BJLY’s early deployment of Micro/Mini LED display technology has become more prominent in the reform of the new display industry structure, and has gradually become the mainstream trend.
According to the statistics of LEDinside, from the beginning of 2019 to the present (May 2020), the total amount of projects with Micro/Mini LED investment in mainland China alone has reached 22.08 billion yuan. Numerous investment projects also show that enterprises in the industry are optimistic about the application prospects of this industry and are expected to activate the LED display market. The current market demand continues to increase.
In March 2020, the JSLJ Microelectronics Technology Group, jointly invested by BHLY and TWJD, was formally established. The two parties jointly created the world's first industrial base that uses mass transfer technology to achieve mass production of the smallest size Micro LED display products. The base aims to accelerate the development and production of Mini LED backlight display and Mini/Micro self-luminous display products with flip-chip packaging and mass transfer as the main production process. After the base is completed and put into production, the original industrial chain structure may be broken.
From the perspective of the existing industrial chain structure of LED display, the entire industrial chain includes upstream chip companies, midstream packaging companies, and downstream application companies. BJLY is an application company in the downstream of the industry chain. When the JSLJ Microelectronics Mini and Micro LED production base is completed, it may break the original industrial structure, in which upstream chips still occupy a basic position.
This means that JSLJ Microelectronics is expected to restructure the Mini LED industry chain, unlike the horizontal extension of the original business of most other projects. In the future, its production of Mini/Micro LEDs through mass transfer technology will eliminate the need for intermediate packaging. Therefore, only close cooperation between upstream chip companies and downstream applications can achieve a win-win situation.
The industrial structure is facing a "shuffle", and technological changes are pointing towards the "high-end market"
Mini and Micro new technologies are gradually becoming the future of display, and the market space is just around the corner; once Micro mass transfer technology matures, its market space will be gradually opened up. Especially with the maturity of these new display technologies, it will provide more choices for the application of LED display terminals.
From the display market, Mini LED is optimistic about the indoor small-pitch LED display industry. Since 2017, the price of COB products per square meter has fallen below 100,000 yuan, which has opened up the first pot of gold in the "high-end market". The integration of Mini LED and COB will inevitably achieve better display performance. Even for SMD/SMT, small-pitch LED screens with chip packaging/surface-mount technology, Mini LEDs can also get better low-brightness grayscale control capabilities and possible lamp beads cost advantages.
As for Mini backlight, JSLJ Microelectronics is following up with some notebook computer and LCD panel manufacturers, and the communication is smooth. At present, the traditional model and packaging are still the mainstream, and then the cost can be greatly reduced through the massive transfer method.
In terms of Mini/Micro self-luminous display modules, BJLY's sales channels will be used to promote self-luminous products. With the substantial reduction in the cost of Mini/Micro self-luminous products, the cost can still be similar to the existing display products under the premise of smaller size and higher grain size. Then, many existing products will be Instead, the future potential market will be several times larger than the small-pitch market, or even expand geometrically.
Complementation of advantageous resources to reduce investment risks
The combination of TWJD and BJLY, on the one hand, guarantees basic technology and seed customers; on the other hand, Mini LED technology can be used in both self-luminous and backlight fields, while BJLY can guarantee the self-luminous market demand. Jingdian has a relatively rich Backlight customer resources, the two have strong customer base complementarity, and can achieve a certain degree of scope economy in operation.
Since Mini LED chips have higher technical requirements than traditional LED chips, there are currently fewer manufacturers that can supply Mini chips. TWJD, as a supplier, has a greater say in choosing which packaging module factories to cooperate with downstream and can give the joint venture more chip resource support.
Through the establishment of a joint venture, BJLY and TWJD have jointly increased the degree of vertical integration, avoided the double marginalization of product pricing, and increased the winning rate in the industrial reshuffle caused by the changes in Micro/Mini LED technology.