As Micro LED advanced display technology continues to advance, the trend of Taiwan's LED industry shifting towards heterogeneous integration is becoming increasingly important. TrendForce held the Micro LEDforum 2025 forum on the 12th, inviting several experts to analyze the commercialization process of Micro LED and future business opportunities.
In his speech at the Micro LEDforum 2025 forum, Huang Zhaonian, senior assistant of Lextar Electronics of the Fucai Group, mentioned that MicroLED, like Moore's Law, is on the path of chip miniaturization, but one drawback is that the external quantum efficiency (EQE) has not improved after thinning.
To meet the explosive market demand for high-efficiency, low-cost, and miniaturized new applications, achieve heterogeneous integration in the LED industry, and bring advanced packaging concepts to the LED industry, Fuco began developing the i-Packaging™ platform several years ago to integrate various resources, technologies, and equipment, but only recently officially announced it to the public.
The four core process technologies behind i-Packaging™ are: Thin-film, Mass Transfer, Wafer Level Packaging, and IC Embedded.
Fu-Cai promotes the i-Packaging™ platform .<br /> Huang Chao-Nian explained that thinning creates a lot of new value for LEDs. Only thinning can enable mass transfer, and then wafer-level packaging high-precision semiconductor manufacturing processes can improve chip precision.
Mass transfer emphasizes two key processes: array transfer and selected transfer. The former is not the traditional single-die bonding packaging, but rather a process performed on an entire area; the latter has significant economic implications, as it can transfer smaller source wafers to a package substrate with a larger pitch, thereby achieving economic benefits.
For MicroLED, pitch is more important than size. Without standardization of the former, standardization of the latter is useless. If the industry can standardize the pitch, it will not be difficult to reduce costs.
Wafer-level packaging (WLP) also differs from traditional chip-level packaging (CLP). Traditional chip-level packaging requires five different packaging steps to integrate five different components. However, wafer-level packaging uses mass transfer to place the source wafer onto the same component at the front end, so customers receive a compact functional unit that can be directly used in end products.
Finally, through IC embedding, components can become more "intelligent".
In summary, the i-Packaging™ platform can handle a wide range of possibilities, including LEDs, lasers, and passive components. As long as customers provide wafers, i-Packaging™ can integrate these four processes to provide solutions for OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and more. These innovative applications ultimately need to address the four most important customer goals: time to market, smaller size, lower cost, and improved performance.
Practical Applications of Integrated Process Platform <br /> In addition, Huang Zhaonian introduced some innovative ideas of Fucai's i-Packaging™ platform in practical applications of automotive lighting, such as the "Slim Core" solution for ADB smart headlight systems. After thinning, the AP layer is moved to the bottom, and high-quality phosphor glass (Phosphor In Glass, PIG) is attached on top to achieve good photoelectric color conversion characteristics.
Compared to traditional unthinned LEDs, its AP layer is raised, so the light with a larger angle passes through the PIG path for a longer time, resulting in a yellow halo. However, Slim Core technology has virtually no yellow halo problem.
Huang Zhaonian stated that ground projection is the future trend of automotive lighting development, with several characteristics including enhanced road visibility, improved nighttime driving safety, and collision warning and avoidance.
Another application of i-Packaging™ is the optical interconnect interposer architecture for high-speed AI data transmission, which focuses on solving two major challenges brought about by the explosive growth of AI computing: extremely high bandwidth requirements and energy issues. Its advantages include excellent heat dissipation due to its ultra-thin design and cost savings.
MicroLED Measurement Challenges
Micro LEDs are being rapidly adopted in various high-end display applications. As new micro LED technologies develop and the size of micro LEDs continues to shrink, the optical characteristics of each micro LED may vary slightly, leading to increasingly drastic changes in the spectrum of the micro LED array. Traditional calibration methods are no longer sufficient to handle this, and a higher resolution measurement system is required.
Instrument Systems has developed a high-end testing camera based on the CAS 140D high-precision spectrometer, achieving extremely high resolution in photometric and colorimetric measurements to meet the precise detection requirements of nanoscale Micro LEDs.
Thomas Attenberg, International Business Manager at Instrument Systems, also introduced traceable and accurate color measurement of Micro LED wafers at the conference. The purpose is to conduct testing in the early stages of the manufacturing process, allowing manufacturers to ensure that their products have excellent color and brightness uniformity from the early stages of mass production.
In addition, Instrument Systems has developed a proprietary calibration algorithm that can compensate for spectral differences in individual light-emitting elements, ensuring accurate and consistent data. When combined with an optical excitation system, the accuracy of color measurement is also improved, with the error reduced by up to 4 times. The entire Micro LED wafer can complete color and brightness analysis within minutes.
(Image source: AI generated)
