A few months ago we reported that Taiwan-based Foxconn is increasing its Micro-LED involvement, but now a new report from Taiwan says that the company canceled its microLED R&D project as it aims to improve its profitability.

Foxconn had an internal team that aimed to develop microLED displays for smartwatches and smartphones. Foxconn stopped the funding, and the team failed to find outside financing and so had to disband.

Switzerland-based deposition equipment maker Evatec has secured a 2nd order for automated thin-film production tools from microLED developer PlayNitride. The equipment will enable PlayNitride's microLED production ramp-up.

Evatec says that PlayNitride first ordered its cassette-to-cassete production tool in 2017.

UK-based GaN-On-Si MicroLED microdisplay developer Plessey Semiconductor announced a new microLED segmented microdisplay platform, which it calls Direct-Drive. Such displays can be used in applications that require high brightness, low power - and a simple display that is not dot-matrix but segmented.

Plessey says that its native green segments can emit 2 million units, and the total input power can be only 250 mW (probably for a monochrome green display, it is not clear). The Direct-Drive displays will be available in a size of less than 5x5 mm, will include a small size rechargeable battery and include Bluetooth, USB, UART, I2C and SDI interfaces/protocols.

Samsung Electronics announced that it now offers its large-area tiled "consumer" microLED "The wall Luxury" displays globally. The model number of the Wall Luxury is IW008R, and it is based on 0.84 mm microLED pixels offering a 120Hz refresh rate, a peak brightness of 2,000 nits and a maximum brightness of 250 nits.

The Wall Luxury is configurable and customizable to a variety of sizes and ratios from 73-inches in 2K definition, 146-inches in 4K, to 292-inches in 8K. Each Wall "Tile" is 806.4 x 453.6 x 72.2 mm (WxHxD) in size, with a resolution of 960x540.

A few days ago we reported that Foxconn canceled its microLED R&D project as it aims to improve its profitability. Foxconn however denies this and says that indeed an R&D group was dismissed, but it did not belong directly to the Foxconn group.

This was indeed a surprise as only a few months ago Foxconn was reportedly bullish on its microLED project , had commented that it may produce such displays in the US in the future and also asked three of its subsidiaries to push forward with Micro-LED development - Advanced Optoelectronic Technology (AOT) Epileds Technologies and Marktech.