Building Active MicroLED displays By Additive Manufacturing

The BAMBAM project aims at reintegrating the display manufacturing industry in Europe while enabling the era of the low energy µLED for this application. Microprinting of electrical and optical structures and active LEDs pixels (µLED on CMOS) are the solutions implemented in BAMBAM to get rid of the Thin Film Transistor (TFT) arrays controlling LCD and OLED displays; all of them being manufactured in Asia in dedicated expensive, enormous and energy-intensive plants. The new BAMBAM technology relies on the unique active µLEDs on silicon by ALEDIA, where each µLED has its own CMOS driver that can be connected to a low cost substrate by printing of micron scale bussing on any substrate. Following micro-printing by University of Stuttgart of the XTPL's ink, containing Qustom dots color conversion components, on the µLED of Aledia, and their transfer on a low cost substrates by XDC and Xceleprint, the contact ink is micro-printed to connect the active pixel elements to the substrates. The 2 types of display demonstrators, manufactured with this technology, are then adjusted and operated by Barco to achieve the best picture quality at the low energy consumption of the µLED for TV and video walls. The solution is compatible with a high pixel count and low pixel size on flexible substrates. Manufacturing displays in Europe, with a low energy consumption along the life cycle of the product, on low end flexible substrates and low cost, is being prepared by Aledia in its new european manufacturing-line, which is under construction with the help of partners from all over Europe.