Apple released VisionPro fire MicroOLED near-eye display technology, many display manufacturers want to grab MicroOLED a new round of market dividends. In order to seize the ever-expanding XR equipment market, South Korean panel maker Samsung Display has positioned MicroOLED as an important display technology path, comprehensively accelerating the layout.

1.6 Billion Acquisition of U.S. Display Manufacturer eMagin

Recently, the U.S. OLED display manufacturer eMagin announced that South Korea’s Samsung Display has completed the acquisition of the company, the total amount of about 218 million U.S. dollars (about 1.6 billion yuan). After the completion of this acquisition, eMagin will officially become a subsidiary of Samsung Display, specializing in the development of MicroOLED displays for XR devices.

It is reported that eMagin was founded in 2000, mainly producing MicroOLED displays for headset devices. In recent years, eMagin has been committed to the development of 4K MicroOLED displays, hoping to apply them to the next generation of consumer-grade XR headset products.

Market research firm Omdia predicts that by 2028, 139 million XR devices will be shipped. With a minimum of two screens per device, demand for MicroOLEDs will require at least 280 million pieces, a huge market potential. However, eMagin does not have sufficient funds and mass production manufacturing capacity to meet the large-scale mass production of MicroOLED products. From eMagin’s point of view, the acquisition of eMagin by Samsung Display is expected to enhance eMagin’s MicroOLED mass production capability.

Commenting on the acquisition, Andrew Sculley, CEO of eMagin, said, “This transaction validates our technological achievements and helps unlock the full potential of our next-generation microdisplay technology. By partnering with Samsung Display, we will gain access to the resources and expertise we need to drive production at scale.”

From Samsung Display’s perspective, the acquisition of eMagin will advance the rapid development of MicroOLED technology to meet future demand for Extended Reality (XR) headset screens from manufacturers, including Apple.

ChoiJoo-seon, president and CEO of Samsung Display, has said, “XR devices are expected to have huge growth potential, and eMagin has a lot of important technologies in this field, all of which will help Samsung Display supply a variety of innovative products to more customers in the future. At the same time, it will also strengthen Samsung Display’s XR-related business layout capabilities.”

According to industry analysts, the “important technologies” that ChoiJoo-seon emphasized that eMagin possesses are likely to refer to the direct patterning display (dPd) patent, which is one of the feasible options for realizing RGBMicroOLED, and also a key point of Samsung Display’s interest in the deal.

RGBMicroOLED is eMagin’s killer app

In XR products, it is the MicroOLED screen that determines the display effect. Unlike conventional OLEDs that use glass substrates, MicroOLEDs are display panels made by depositing organic materials on a silicon wafer. Because of these characteristics, it is called “silicon-based OLED” (also known as OLEDoS)”. Currently, Sony is the technology leader in the MicroOLED field, and is the only supplier of MicroOLED screens for Apple’s XR products at the moment.

In addition to eMagin and Sony, MicroOLED has also attracted many display companies including BOE, Samsung Display, Kunshan Dream Display, Qingyue Technology, Oread, Xitai Science and Technology, Hefei Vision Ace, Guozhao Optoelectronics, and many other display companies scrambling to layout.

China Electronic Video Industry Association, deputy secretary-general Dong Min, said in an interview with the “China Electronics News” reporter, Sony currently uses the technology is MicroW-OLED, the structure of the “white OLED + color filter”. This technology is more mature, lower cost, but due to the use of color filters, at least 2/3 of the original brightness will be absorbed by the filter, so the entire optical system is not efficient, seriously affecting the brightness performance.

This is also Samsung Display’s biggest attempt to acquire eMagin – RGBMicroOLED technology route. RGBMicroOLED technology route without the need for filter layer, three primary colors OLED direct display, higher light efficiency, lower energy consumption.

However, the layout of RGBMicroOLED is not easy. The current technical challenge of RGBMicroOLED is how to perfectly deposit such dense and tiny sub-pixels.

In this regard, eMagin has developed a technology called “direct patterning display”, which uses separate red, green and blue OLED stacks, does not require color filters, does not use ultra-fine metal mask plate, and can directly deposit RGBOLED light-emitting materials on CMOS silicon, which not only gets rid of the metal mask process, which has been delayed and unable to be improved due to the constraints. Mask process and delayed to improve the fineness, but also significantly improve the brightness. It is reported that eMagin has developed the brightest full-color MicroOLED display to date, with a brightness of up to 15,000 nits.

Samsung display has long-term plans for MicroOLED

Samsung Display has taken MicroOLED as a key display technology path, and has set up a micro display team since the beginning of last year. In addition, samsung display in South Korea Chungcheongnamdo Asan city TangjeongA2 production line also built a MicroOLED pilot production line, in the technology verification is completed, is expected to mass production MicroOLED panel.

It is reported that samsung display for microOLED technology development also made a long-term plan, is expected to realize the mass production of microOLED screen in 2024, and the screen resolution of 3,000PPI per inch, brightness of 10,000 nits. But Samsung display’s ultimate goal is to MicroOLED screen resolution to 6000PPI to 7000PPI, which undoubtedly needs the support of RGBMicroOLED technology.

However, the current RGBMicroOLED is extremely difficult to manufacture, and requires the use of semiconductor processes to achieve. Therefore, in order to grasp RGBMicroOLED technology and seize the market as soon as possible, Samsung Display will eMagin in the bag, but also ordered deposition equipment from SunicSystem for the production of MicroOLED products.

According to industry insiders, since the pixels of RGBMicroOLED must be manufactured on a silicon substrate, the production requires different deposition equipment from traditional vaporized OLED. SunicSystem’s deposition equipment is the key to vaporizing RGBMicroOLEDs. The procurement of a vaporizer for RGBMicroOLEDs will enable Samsung Display to pattern RGB pixels directly on silicon substrates.

At present, Samsung display RGBMicroOLED industrialization of the specific time point is not known, but there is news that Apple is considering a new generation of devices equipped with RGBMicroOLED display, Samsung Electronics, Google and Qualcomm also announced to enter the XR market. XR display market prospects are promising, Samsung display layout of RGBMicroOLED footsteps will accelerate again.