Apple ignites Mini LED trend Taiwan supply chain is the first choice

As Apple is about to launch Mini LED backlight products to drive demand growth, it also stimulates the relevant supply chain to expand production capacity. According to the TrendForce LED Research (LEDinside) survey, Apple expects to launch the 12.9-inch Mini LED-backlit iPad Pro in the first quarter of 2021, and will also open 14-inch and 16-inch laptops. This technology is currently selected by Taiwan’s display related suppliers. Because Taiwanese manufacturers develop new products that have the advantages of stability and technology maturity, they will drive upstream and downstream supply chains into this application area, including LED chip manufacturers Jingdian and inspection and sorting manufacturers. Whitney and Sote, parts maker Taiwan Watch, PCB backplane manufacturer Zhen Ding, etc., all play an important role in the new Mini LED backlight display.

The Mini LED backlit display has high brightness and high contrast characteristics, which can increase the contrast ratio of the existing display from 10,000:1 to 1,000,000:1, and a large contrast improvement, as well as excellent characteristics with high reliability, in a severe environment at high temperatures of 60 The high-quality characteristics such as stable luminous display effect can be maintained at low temperature and negative 10 degrees, and it is favored by major brands. Therefore, in the planning of new display products in the future, Mini LED backlight will be included in the path of key technology development. One.

Although Chinese manufacturers have large capacity in the LED upstream and downstream supply chains at this stage, combined with the advantage of low cost, in order to avoid the impact caused by the Sino-US trade war, Apple turned to Taiwanese manufacturers with more stable supply chains to cooperate. In addition, Taiwan has been cultivating LED-related fields earlier than China. In addition to the relatively mature technology, patents are also undoubtedly concerned; coupled with the advantages of easy access to raw materials and components, the development of new technologies will be more efficient.

TrendForce pointed out that since Apple’s 12.9-inch iPad Pro is expected to use 10,384 Mini LEDs, and backlight partition control to achieve high contrast and high color saturation, the requirements for cost and yield will be the biggest challenges faced by suppliers. From the discussion of LED chips, first of all, because of the uniformity of the products, high cost performance, and patent protection, Apple still takes it as the first choice; furthermore, Mini LED backlight technology requires a large number and rapid strict detection of LED chip wavelengths and specifications Compared with sorting, Whitt and Sote have become key manufacturers with cost-effective advantages.

As for the stamping manufacturer Taiwan Watch Division, it has been paired with Apple's designated K&S, using a special fast stamping process to try to break through the mass production bottleneck. The PCB backplane chooses to cooperate with the brand of Hon Hai Group, which is closely related to Apple, and YP Electronics, a Korean manufacturer. The backlight module factory and panel factory are currently dominated by HEESUNG Electronics and LG Display in South Korea. With the advent of new models in the future, it is expected that more suppliers such as GIS, Ruiyi, Sharp, BOE will join in one after another.