Currently, the traditional edge-lit LED backlight commonly used in LCD TVs uses about 50 LED chips, while the mini-LED backlight is composed of more than 20,000 mini-LED chips. Unlike gaming LCD monitors, high-end laptops and LCD TVs, mini-LED backlights in the smartphone segment face fierce competition from OLED panels that are falling in price.
Since the beginning of the second quarter of 2019, demand for LED backlights has rebounded, but demand for LED lighting remains weak, causing prices of related mainstream packaging products to fall by about 5-10%. LED epitaxial wafer and chip manufacturer Optoelectronics reported that due to weak demand, its comprehensive revenue in the first quarter of 2019 was NT$3.753 billion, a month-on-month contraction of 10.98% and a year-on-year contraction of 27.09%. Sources said that the corresponding capacity utilization rate is expected to decline by more than two percentage points month-on-month.
Through its equity investment in LED packaging service provider Weitian Technology, Optoelectronics actively promotes the use of mini-LED chips to manufacture RGB (red, green, blue) small-pitch displays and backlit gaming LCD displays, tablet computers and automotive displays.
According to data, vertically integrated LED manufacturer Lextar Electronics began to launch mini-LED backlight units (BLU) for 32-inch gaming LCD monitors and 15.6-inch notebook computers in the second half of 2018. Lextar Electronics has received many inquiries about mini-LED BLU and is developing several new models. LED packaging service provider Dongbei Optoelectronics is certifying mini-LED BLU for gaming LCD monitors and LCD TVs, and shipments will begin as early as the second half of 2019.
Macroblock Technology, an LED driver IC design company, began shipping small batches of driver ICs for gaming LCD mini-LED backlights in the first quarter of 2019. The mini-LED backlight of a gaming LCD monitor usually requires 2-6 driver ICs, while the number of driver ICs required for the backlight of a 65-85-inch LCD TV may exceed 16.
ANNA