Tweet
US LED display designer and vendor with Chinese manufacturing SiliconCore had shown its COB (Chip On Board) LED display technology last year, but in reality only this year it is ready to start offering its LED in Silicon Array displays, with first production expected to start in June. COB does not mount individual LEDs like in SMD (Surface Mount Device), but places multiple LED chips on a board allowing LEDs to be placed closer together. SiliconCore promises it will allow it to achive a pixel pitch of only 0.5mm, almost twice the density of the current record holders at the 0.75/0.8mm mark, or three times its own finest pitched display that has a pixel distance of 0.95mm.
"LED in Silicon Array (LISA) is a radical departure of how LED displays are manufactured. We are the first LED display company (or manufacturer) to successfully implement advanced Chip On Board (COB) manufacturing, which combines a direct bonding technique along with our award winning Common Cathode technology to create a highly innovative and robust modular LED display platform. Our first prototype of LISA was showcased at ISE in a 1.9mm pixel pitch display", says Steve Scorse, Vice President Europe, Middle East & Africa at SiliconCore Technology Inc. Adding he expects limited production of the simplified manufacturing proces, more robust, and due to dramatically reduced soldering joint count more reliable LISA LED displays, to begin in June.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xQfCYTps4M
Chip Scale Packaging where the LED package is as large as the actual LED chips, could even reduce future pixel pitch in LED displays down to 0.2mm.
Every 0.3mm reduction in pixel pitch nearly doubles the LED count per meter squared or other constant surface area. Therefore doubling the price per surface area. So, unless manufacturing is simpliefied, and reduced in cost LED displays become more expensive. The Siliconcore video shows some of the increased manufacturing efficiency in the LISA displays, but undoubtedly SiliconCore will remain among the more higher priced vendors in the market.
However at 0.5mm Direct View LED Displays become the high end video display of choice, at the top-end of the market. If brightness and color control improves and therefor near black performance and linearity all the way to the highly saturated and bright peak colors matches current bright and all black (switch off per LED) performance LED will be the perfect Home Theater display.
The common (shared) cathode refered to above allowed SiliconCore to be (one of) the first to deliver a working 1.5mm directview LED display a number of years ago, as it resulted in les heat to dissipate, and overheating was a major point of failure in narowly place together leds.