Micro LED roll transfer technology
Development by Kim Jae-hyun, Director of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials
Establishment of YTS, a research institute for commercialization


Micro LED roll transfer technology, which will improve the productivity of Micro LED (Micro Light Emitting Diode) displays, which are attracting attention as the next-generation display following OLED, is being commercialized.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 19th that it established YTS Microtech, a research institute company for the commercialization of micro LED roll transfer technology developed by the research team of Kim Jae-hyun, Director of the Nano Applied Mechanics Laboratory at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, and held a plaque ceremony.

Micro LEDs place a single-crystal inorganic micro LED in each pixel of the display, improving response speed and luminous efficiency compared to existing OLEDs. It has the advantage of having better luminous efficiency than OLED, lower power consumption, superior durability, and fewer restrictions on the substrate, so it can be manufactured on flexible rubber materials or transparent plastic materials.

Micro LED roll transfer technology is a technology for making micro LED panels by lifting micro LED elements on a temporary substrate using a roll stamp and then placing them on a desired location on a flexible circuit board.

In July 2017, the research team succeeded in developing a technology to produce micro LED displays with a panel size of 4 inches using roll transfer technology, but the transfer area was limited, making it difficult to apply to mass production processes.

However, this time, we successfully developed a metastructure—an artificial material with properties not found in nature—by arranging metaatoms smaller than the wavelength of light. By applying this to the roll transfer process, we were able to improve transfer yield and transfer area. As a result, we can expect a 100-1,000-fold increase in productivity compared to existing technologies.

The research team is currently reviewing technical specifications with various smart pad manufacturers to commercialize the developed technology, and plans to establish a research institute company to develop micro LED roll transfer equipment capable of transferring 10-inch smart pad panels at once and build a prototype mass production line.

Kim Jae-hyun, head of the Nano Applied Mechanics Lab at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, said, “The establishment of the research institute company has provided an opportunity to pursue the production of application products and verification of mass production based on the highly productive micro LED roll transfer technology,” and added, “We will do our best to commercialize smart pads using micro LEDs so that they can be mass-produced and widely used.”