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Probing of microLEDs
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Gain Early Insights into the performance of microLEDs
As computing is increasingly embedded into daily life across smartphones, gaming, augmented reality, and virtual reality, there is constant demand for smaller, sharper, and more energy-efficient screens. Since display components are typically the largest energy consumers in mobile devices, there is enormous pressure to reduce screen energy consumption to extend battery life.
To address this, there has been significant investment and research geared towards the development of micro-light emitting diodes (microLEDs). MicroLEDs are considered next generation display technology as they offer higher display resolution, better color, higher brightness, faster display switching speeds, and, critically, are substantially more energy efficient.
MicroLED Testing (20 μm pitch)
MicroLED is a self-emissive display technology that consumes less than half the power consumed by conventional displays [1].
However, yield issues caused by the introduction of new materials into the microLED manufacturing process, chip transfer, and array-to-driver bonding plague the commercialization of microLEDs. Because the human eye is very sensitive, it can detect a single faulty microLED pixel in a display, so extensive optical and electrical testing of microLEDs during manufacturing and packaging is required. Unfortunately, existing probe card technologies lag microLED scale down placing the microLED industry at a quandary as systematic and random faults during manufacturing could persist across multiple batches, with negative impact on yields and time-to-market.
Xallent’s fine pitch parametric probe cards, NanoProbers, and metrology software are used by researchers and production facilities to gain early actionable insights into the performance of microLEDs during manufacturing. Using that detailed information, manufacturers can quickly determine which microLEDs are viable for transfer, determine potential process variations which could significantly reduce device design cost by 25%, shorten manufacturing iterations by 2X, and accelerate time-to-market by 4 months.
[1] Frost & Sullivan, “Opportunities of MicroLED Revolutionizing the Display Industry,” D99E-TV, 2020.
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