April 19, 2021
Published online: https://www.microled-info.com/elux-installs-new-automated-fluidic-assembly-rd-tool-unveils-new-microled
Press contact: Jong-Jan Lee, President and CEO, jjanlee@eluxdisplay.com
Vancouver WA – eLux, Inc. is pleased to announce the successful achievement of two important milestones in the drive to commercial development of microLED displays.
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Optimization and automation of the fluidic assembly process with selective harvest of microLEDs has produced a 12.3” microLED display with a natural yield of 99.987%.
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An automated fluidic assembly tool manufactured by an accomplished display panel tool maker is operational in the eLux prototype fab located at Taiwan.
The 12.3” demonstration display with 99.987% natural yield consisted of 518,400 GaN microLEDs assembled in 10 minutes for an assembly rate of 3.1 million devices per hour. There were 34 failing subpixels, of which 33 could be laser repaired to achieve after repair defectivity approaching one part per million. Given that a 4K television has 8.3 million pixels this result is approaching the quality level require for a microLED television. Of the 34 defective sites 19 were caused by shorted microLEDs so additional refinement of the inspection and selective harvest processes will be required to produce defect free displays that do not require repair.
The new assembly tool shown in the photo has demonstrated fully automatic cassette-to-cassette fluidic assembly of ten display panels up to 15” diagonal. The tool has provisions for capture and recycle of microLEDs and assembly fluids to minimize operating costs, and two additional modules can be added to the main frame for increased capacity. The manufacturing process includes automated inspection at each stage (assembly, clean-off, recycling and drying) for throughput optimization and yield enhancement. Unlike mass transfer equipment, fluidic assembly can be scaled up to substrates much larger than 15” so this tool will be used to develop equipment modules and processes for a proposed Gen 3.5 fluidic assembly tool.
eLux proprietary fluidic assembly technology has several significant advantages over conventional mass transfer methods used for competing microLED displays. Most important is that massively parallel assembly can achieve assembly rates over 5 million devices per hour using simple equipment and assembly can be scaled up to Gen 6 backplanes. Inspection and selective harvest techniques developed by eLux prevent defective microLEDs from entering the assembly process, so displays are fabricated using only known-good microLEDs. Fluidic assembly randomizes the microLEDs in liquid, which prevents the mosaic patterns caused by epi-wafer non-uniformity. The fluidic assembly methods are quite gentle so GaN microLEDs grown on PSS substrates or brittle AlGaInP red microLEDs have been demonstrated. The technology is suitable for microLEDs sized between 5 and 200 microns offering flexibility to make a wide variety of displays.
eLux, Inc., with headquarters in Vancouver WA, was founded on October 13, 2016 as a spin-out from Sharp Laboratories of America. eLux has developed low-cost direct emission displays based on microLED technology targeting large format displays for video wall and television applications. Development of fundamental microLED assembly technology is carried out in the US, while prototype displays are made in our lab in Taiwan. eLux holds 56 US and 37 foreign patents with an additional 31 pending applications covering all aspects of the fluidic assembly technology for microLED based displays.
For additional information see the eLux website: https://www.eluxdisplay.com/
Automated fluidic assembly tool
12.3" display with 99.987% natural yield
July 8, 2020
In this featured article on CompoundSemiconductor.net, the team at eLux, Inc. details the fluidic assembly process that is the foundation of our industry leading microLED display technology. We cover the basics and discuss challenges of bringing this technology to market.
Read the full article at the link below.
March 18, 2020
eLux fluidic assembly technology is explained by CEO JJ Lee in a recent interview with MICROLED-Info.
"eLux's technology is based on a unique approach that moves microLEDs from wafer to the target substrate without the need of a pick-and-place process. The so-called fluidic process uses microLEDs dispersed in liquid and wells built onto the substrate. The microLED dispersion is spread over the substrate and the LEDs simply fall into place - a sort of self-assembly process, which can be seen in the video above."
Read the full article at the link below.
https://www.microled-info.com/eluxs-fluidic-microled-technology-and-business-explained
August 23, 2019
eLux will exhibit our latest 12-inch micro-LED color display at Touch TAIWAN in Taipei, Taiwan on August 29-30th.
Detail of the conference can be found at the link:
https://www.touchtaiwan.com/en/
June 20, 2019
eLux will present 12-in micro-LED color display at Display China 2019 at Shanghai, China on June 27. At the meeting, eLux CEO Dr. JJ Lee will present the fluidic assembly principal that can complete the mass transfer on a 12” display within 15 minutes.
Detail of the conference can be found at the link:
https://www.displaychina.com.cn/Onsite-Events/2019-Micro-LED/
June 20, 2019
eLux fluidic assembly technology is featured in an article by LEDinside including an interview with eLux CEO J.J.Lee.
December 4, 2017
eLux, Inc announced today that the U.S. Patent Office has issued US Patent No. 9,825,202 titled “Display with Surface Mount Emissive Elements”. This is the first issued eLux patent which covers the foundational work done on massively parallel fluidic assembly of µLEDs to make high resolution displays. The µLED display technology covered by this patent and 11 other filings currently in progress has the potential to revolutionize the display industry. The inorganic µLED display will have a wider color gamut, higher efficiency and better reliability compared with competing OLED technology.
“We believe that the fluidic assembly methods developed at SLA and eLux will enable low cost µLED displays for video walls and ultimately television,” explained Paul Schuele, eLux’s CTO and an inventor of the technology. He went on to describe how the µLED display uses two nature low-cost technologies; namely the TFT backplanes developed for LCD displays and high brightness GaN LEDs developed for general lighting to fabricate components of the display. Unfortunately, the pick and place and stamping techniques proposed to position µLEDs on the display backplane are both time consuming and subject to significant yield issues. eLux directly addresses these limitations using simple highly scalable fluidic assembly techniques to achieve massively parallel assembly of µLEDs at fill rates over 50 million devices per hour.
As part of the initial round of funding the company has acquired the fluidic assembly patent portfolio of Sharp corporation, which consists of 20 patent families. Patents acquired from Sharp which are most closely related to the technology covered by US 9,825,202 are:
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US 9,722,145 covering a direct emitting display with vertical µLEDs manufactured by fluidic assembly methods.
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US 9,755,110, which covers the well structures used to precisely position the assembled µLEDs in an array.
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15/190,813 (allowed) is the foundational patent for the structures that can be used to orient µLEDs (or other components) with one polarity.
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15/266,796 (allowed) covers the use of through-hole vias to enhance the yield and selectivity of fluidic assembly.
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15/197,266 (allowed) is a color conversion structure using quantum dots to generate red and green colors from blue µLEDs.
About eLux
eLux, Inc. was founded on October 13, 2016 as a spin-out from Sharp Laboratories of America. The eLux objective is to develop direct emission displays based on µLED technology targeting large format displays for video wall and television applications. Core personnel of eLux, including Jong-Jan Lee (President and CEO) and Paul Schuele (CTO), had extensive experience in display development working at Sharp Labs. The principal investors in the company are FoxConn through the subsidiary CyberNet Venture Capital Corp. and Sharp Corporation.
May 22, 2017
In late May 2017, Hon Hai Precision Industry and Sharp Corporation in partnership with CyberNet Venture Capital, Innolux and Advanced Optoelectronic Technology announced investment in eLux, Inc.
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