2025-03-20
Silicon-based Micro-OLED displays are set to embrace huge market development opportunities.
Omdia, a market research firm, states that Micro LED, silicon-based LED, and silicon-based OLED are expected to account for about 5% of the total display panel market by 2031.
According to statistics from CINNO Research, the average annual compound growth rate of the global AR/VR silicon-based OLED display panel market size from 2021 to 2025 will reach 119%, and the market size is expected to reach $1.47 billion in 2025. How Does Silicon-based OLED Work? A Breakdown of Its Working Principle
What are the fundamental technologies of silicon-based Micro-OLED? How did these technologies emerge? This article will introduce in detail the seven fundamental technologies of silicon-based Micro-OLED displays.
In silicon-based Micro-OLEDs, the single-crystalline silicon substrate provides a stable and fundamental platform for circuit integration. The single-crystalline silicon substrate features high flatness and uniform material.
In subsequent manufacturing processes, such a flat platform also provides high reliability for technological upgrades.
Moreover, it forms the basis for the miniaturization of silicon-based Micro-OLEDs and is suitable for precisely manufacturing tiny and complex circuit structures.
In the next decade, the processing of single-crystalline silicon substrates will become more refined to achieve smaller sizes. This relies on more advanced lithography technology to fabricate tiny transistors and circuits on the single-crystalline silicon substrate.
In addition, the manufacturing processes of single-crystalline silicon substrates, such as chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and other technologies, are constantly reducing costs to lower prices, enabling this product to be more widely available in developing countries.
Scientists are making improvements to further reduce the generation of defects and production costs.
CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) is the mainstream technology for modern integrated circuits. Before, it was not applied in the manufacturing of displays.
However, with the widespread popularization of VR technology, CMOS driver circuit integration technology is gradually being applied in the manufacturing of Micro-OLEDs.
In silicon-based Micro-OLEDs, tens of millions of transistors are integrated on the single-crystalline silicon substrate to form the CMOS driver circuit. These driver circuits are used to precisely control the brightness and color of each pixel.
For example, in silicon-based Micro-OLEDs using the active matrix (AM) driving method, each pixel is controlled by an independent transistor, resulting in extremely low latency and a very high display refresh rate.
In the future, new CMOS driver circuits will continuously optimize the signal transmission path, reduce circuit impedance, and shorten signal transmission latency. In addition, the use of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) technology will further reduce the chip size and defect rate of chips.
In silicon-based Micro-OLEDs, highly efficient luminescent organic materials are required. These organic materials are divided into hole transport layer materials, electron transport layer materials, and luminescent layer materials.
For example, Micro-OLEDs using phosphorescent organic materials can utilize singlet and triplet excitons for luminescence, with high luminous efficiency.
The luminescence of organic materials in silicon-based Micro-OLEDs is based on a unique electroluminescence phenomenon. Microcircuits generate an electric field, triggering a series of complex physical phenomena, and then photons are generated through exciton radiative transitions.
Thanks to advanced lithography, etching, and thin-film deposition processes, silicon-based Micro-OLEDs have high resolution but a small size.
This gives silicon-based Micro-OLEDs great advantages in the fields of microscopes, medicine, and near-eye display devices.
For example, in VR devices, the small and lightweight silicon-based Micro-OLEDs avoid the fatigue caused by wearing for users. The more lightweight VR devices significantly improve the consumer experience, making people more willing to wear them daily.
With the continuous progress of lithography technology, the pixel size of silicon-based Micro-OLEDs still has the potential to be continuously reduced, achieving higher resolution.
Since OLED organic materials are overly sensitive to water and oxygen and are easily affected by the external environment, resulting in performance degradation, encapsulation technology is required to isolate them from the outside world.
Currently, the commonly used encapsulation methods include glass cover encapsulation and thin-film encapsulation. Glass cover encapsulation seals the glass cover and the silicon-based substrate with a sealant.
Thin-film encapsulation deposits a thin film on the surface of the OLED to form a barrier layer. Thin-film encapsulation is thinner and more flexible, so it is more suitable for the encapsulation of silicon-based Micro-OLEDs.
Some flexible silicon-based Micro-OLED displays use this encapsulation method and can be curled, which can be used in the manufacturing of flexible screen mobile phones.
The luminous efficiency of silicon-based Micro-OLEDs is easily affected by various external environments.
Microlens array technology can improve its luminous efficiency and make the light distribution more uniform. Microlenses have the functions of focusing and collimating light.
Engineers install microlenses above the OLED luminescent layer to create a microlens array, guiding the light in the direction of the viewer and making the display image more uniform.
To reduce the reflection of sunlight and ambient light on the surface of the display, silicon-based Micro-OLEDs adopt anti-reflection and anti-glare technologies.
Scientists coat an anti-reflection coating on the surface of the display, greatly reducing the reflectivity and reducing the interference of ambient light reflection, allowing us to see more clearly.
MOT: A high-performance, low-power and economical OELD display supplier.
With its exclusive FSL technology, MOT provides global manufacturers with solutions that combine high performance, low power consumption and cost-effectiveness. It not only achieves the high performance and low power consumption of silicon-based OLEDs, but more importantly, solves the biggest problem faced by silicon-based OLEDs — the cost issue, clearing the obstacles for their mass production and reducing the overall costs for VR and AR manufacturers. Link：Top 10 Micro OLED Display Manufacturers in the World in 2025
Through this technology, MOT is able to achieve higher grayscale and resolution for silicon-based OLEDs on the basis of lower costs. Thanks to the digital drive and the simple and stable structure, the silicon-based OLED substrate chips produced by MOT have a high yield rate.
Contact： https://www.micro-oledtech.com/contact/
