Micro-LED

A year ago, Garmin launched the world's first microLED wearable, the Fenix 8 Pro MicroLED smartwatch, with a 1.4" 454x454 round microLED display (produced by AUO), that offers up to 4,500 nits of brightness.

That display was received quite well, and reviewers praised the high brightness, and excellent viewing angles. The microLED, however, came with a price: the watch is much thicker than the AMOLED alternative (the touch layer was not integrated into the display), the power consumption is almost double, and at launch it had a $700 premium. 

The following is a guest article by Karl Guttag of KGOnTech, a display industry veteran and one of the leading independent analysts of AR and VR display technology - and a good friend. We asked Karl why we do not see transparent OLED or MicroLED displays placed directly in front of the eye in AR glasses - and this is his detailed answer.

Introduction

Ron Mertens of OLED-Info, MicroLED-Info, the MicroLED Association, and one of the organizers of MicroLED & AR/VR Connect asked for my input on “Why is there no 'simple' solution, where we place a transparent display in front of the user [for AR]?” Or more simply, why aren’t ‘transparent’ OLEDs/MicroLEDs being used in optical-see-through (OST) AR headsets?

When evaluating OST AR solutions, we need to consider the following:

• Effect on the see-through image
  • Darkening
  • Distortion and uniformity (including diffraction) of the real world
  • Artifacts such as diffraction light capture (so-called rainbow capture)
• Effect on the virtual image
  • Uniformity in brightness and color plus image contrast
  • Efficiency (power-in in Watts to light to the eye in nits)
• Forward Projection (“Eye Glow”) and other adverse social effects
• Cost, weight, thickness, and overall size

I often say that the most important measure of an AR display is how it behaves when the display is off (#1 above). As will be discussed, this is not possible with a so-called “transparent” display that is near to the eye.

Value Electronics, an independent Audio/Video retailer in New York, hosted its well-respected annual TV Shootout Evaluation event a couple of days ago, bringing together several flagship TVs side-by-side to compare picture quality attributes. The TVs, which were professionally calibrated to their best potential, were reviewed by a panel of judges using test patterns.

The judges looked at six flagship displays. Three OLED models (Samsung's S95H, Sony's XR80M2 (also known as the Bravia 8 II) and LG's OLED G6), and three Micro-RGB LCD models (Samsung's R95H, Sony's XR90M2, and LG's MRGB95B).  Judges evaluated picture quality attributes in SDR and HDR categories. Every display delivered outstanding performance, with exceptionally close results overall and across many of the individual picture quality attributes. 

Tianma Microelectronics released its interim financial results for the first half of 2026, reporting a net loss of around $105-$110 million USD (before non-recurring items that expand the loss to $133 million).

Tianma says that the rising memory prices which caused a decline in the smartphone market is the main reason for its increased losses. The flexible AMOLED market, according to Tianma, was particularly impacted by the weak demand in the Chinese smartphone market. 

The MicroLED Industry Association reports a strong momentum in 2026, adding 16 new member companies since the beginning of the year alone. This rapid influx underscores the the association's rising influence as a central industry platform - and more interestingly for OLED developers, signals an increased interest in microLED technologies for displays and optical I/O.

The association reports that its new members span a wide range of technologies and capabilities across the MicroLED value chain, representing a diverse cross-section of the MicroLED ecosystem, spanning materials, equipment, device design, manufacturing, and testing.

China-based display driver IC designer Viewtrix Technology is set to IPO at the Hong Kong stock exchange (Main Board), on May 27. The company will trade with the ticker 3310.HK.

Viewtrix (also known as Yunyinggu Technology), plans to offer 52,9 million shares, with an initial price of 20.8 HKD. Viewtrix hopes to raise around 997 million HGD (or $127 million USD) from the IPO.

Tianma is showing its latest OLED display prototypes at SID Displayweek 2026. First up we have a 6.58" AMOLED that adopts Tianma's latest U11 OLED stack, which utilizes a a PSF emitter system (likely green, but Tianma did not specify) and also a new fluorescence emitter system which Tianma calls NFT (New Fluorescent Technology) based on New Fluorescent Blue (NFB). 

Tianma says that the new NFT device structure improves exciton utilization efficiency, and utilizing these new technologies, the U11 reduces overall power consumption by approximately 12% compared to Tianma's previous stack, while doubling lifespan. The optimized RGB spectrum and light-extraction design also enable an ultra-low blue-light ratio while maintaining high efficiency.

A couple of months ago we posted an article, discussing India's goal of becoming a global display producer, speculating on whether the country will bet on LCD, OLED or microLED technology.

Today we hear that the country has approved its first display project, Crystal Matrix's $336 million miniLED/microLED project. 

Samsung Display is showing its latest OLED displays, prototypes and technologies at SID Displayweek 2026.

First up we have Samsung's new Flex Chroma Pixel technology, that combines a PSF OLED emitter platform (this is the first time that Samsung Display shows a PSF OLED prototype), with a polarizer-free OLED architecture (Samsung LEAD) to enable high brightness and a wide color gamut: the new display achieves up to 3,000 nits brightness in HBM mode, while supporting the BT.2020-96 color space. 

The OLED Marketplace is expanding its microLED display catalog, and now offers a new 0.13" VGA (640x480) 2.7 million nits green monochrome microLED microdisplay.

This is the second microLED microdisplay on the OLED Marketplace, following the 0.12" VGA microdisplay (from a different producer) that was added last month.