The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) held a ceremony to commemorate its 46th anniversary and selected Dr. Kwang-Seong Choi, who solved the difficult problems of micro LED, a next-generation display, as the researcher of the year.

ETRI held its 46th anniversary celebration ceremony online at the Research Institute International Conference Hall on the 5th, and presented awards such as the Researcher of the Year Award and encouraged the research achievements of its executives and staff.

This year's ETRI Researcher Award went to Director Gwangseong Choi of the ICT Creative Research Institute, who led the development of the world's first simultaneous micro LED transfer and bonding implementation technology and led a paradigm shift in the related industry.

CEO Choi Kwang-seong combined the processes of moving and planting LEDs, which were previously performed as separate processes, into one using SITRAB film, a new material developed in-house.

Through this, compared to existing methods, equipment investment costs and process time were reduced to 1/10, and material costs, repair costs, and time were reduced to less than 1/100.

In particular, the company has opened up a new market by replacing the transfer and bonding materials that were previously mainly imported from Japan with new materials developed in-house.

Director Choi Gwang-seong published a total of SCI papers last year. The excellence of its research and development achievements was recognized, including the application for 14 patents.

The National Research Council of Science and Technology Chairman's Award, given to researchers who have contributed to the safety and convenience of the people through outstanding research achievements, was awarded to: △Principal Researcher Lim Jun-ho of the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, △Director Jeong Hee-sang of the Communications and Media Research Institute, and △Director Lim Deok-hwan of the Administrative Headquarters.

At this event, in recognition of their contributions to establishing the research institute's COVID-19 quarantine system, △Senior Technician Choi Yun-jin and Technician Kim Gyeong-seon of the Administrative Headquarters were specially awarded the Excellent Staff Award (COVID-19 Response).

The award winner made a significant contribution to preventing the chain spread of COVID-19 among researchers by creating COVID-19 infection prevention measures for researchers and establishing detailed response methods for each situation.

In addition, Airpass CTO Seungchan Lim received an award of merit in recognition of his excellent commercialization efforts, including jointly developing 3D posture and rotation object recognition technology required for an experiential virtual reality platform with ETRI and achieving cumulative sales of approximately KRW 10.7 billion.

ETRI President Myung-Jun Kim said, “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all of my colleagues who have worked diligently in their respective positions to help ETRI grow into a world-class research institute. I hope that you will continue to actively participate in helping ETRI establish itself as an international research institute by developing each individual’s international capabilities, actively collaborating with major European countries, and making efforts to enhance ETRI’s brand value.”

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, only the representative award recipients attended the founding anniversary ceremony, which was live-streamed on the hospital's internet.