US-based Solar-Tectic has launched a new low-temperature backplane technology that could replace LTPS in future high-end mobile displays and bridge the performance gap between IGZO and LTPS.

The main target application for this new backplane are OLED displays, but the company says that its new technology could also be used in micro-LED displays. Solar-Tectic process, called LT1CS (Low temperature single crystal silicon) is a silicon based technology that creates highly oriented c-axis aligned or "textured" silicon crystals. Solar-Tectic says that the performance of LT1CS backplanes will be higher than IGZO performance.

Digitimes posted an interesting article, stating that AU Optronics is set to adopt mini-LEDs in its LCD display backlighting units in 2018 (mostly for higher-cost applications such as gaming notebooks and professional displays). The company, however, still sees many challenges towards the commercialization of micro-LED displays.

AUO's chairman and CEO, Paul Peng, estimates that Micro-LED will still be in the development stage in 2018-2019, and while we will starting seeing many prototypes and even product samples, real commercial displays will take longer to appear. Peng says that Micro-LEDs, with their higher cost, will initially be adopted for AR and VR devices which will enable to pay a premium for the advantages over OLEDs (resolution and efficiency, probably).

According to reports from Korea, Samsung is developing large-area micro-LED TVs, and the company is set to reveal its first Micro-LED TV as soon as CES 2018 (January 2018).

Samsung's first TV, according to the report, will be a huge 150-inch set, which will be marketed for home use. Samsung is looking for a new premium TV technology as Samsung's QLED TVs failed to keep up with LGD's OLED TVs, and has seen its premium TV market share fall from 57% in 2015 to 20% in 2016 (LG, meanwhile, managed to increase its market share from 17.5% in 2015 to 43% in 2016).