Kulicke and Soffa Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ: KLIC) today announced it has entered into a licensing agreement with Idaho, US based Rohinni LLC (Rohinni), to facilitate the design, commercialization and distribution of next-generation micro and mini LED solutions.
Next-generation LED technologies have the potential to further enhance performance, improve efficiency and reduce the size of existing lighting technologies. Significant high-volume end-markets including automotive, display, consumer electronics and general lighting are anticipated to drive adoption and benefit from this emerging technology. While micro and mini LED benefits are compelling, high-volume production challenges must be addressed prior to widespread market adoption of these emerging lighting solutions.
Rohinni has developed promising solutions that directly address production challenges and have enabled greater design flexibility in end-use applications. In parallel, Rohinni has also established a network of partnerships in several key segments poised to benefit from this technology.
Kulicke & Soffa’s existing market positions, R&D competencies, supply chain and manufacturing capabilities provide scale to further extend Rohinni’s leadership and its effort in driving adoption of new LED technologies.
“K&S has recently taken a much more proactive approach in targeting and identifying complementary partnerships with a clear path to value creation,” stated Chan Pin Chong, Senior Vice President of Wedge Bond and EA/APMR Business Unit. “We are very excited to work together with Rohinni’s talented team to commercialize this high-potential and innovative technology.”
“Our team has spent the past several years developing precise, high-speed placement technologies for micro and mini LED products,” stated Matt Gerber, Rohinni’s CEO. “This agreement with K&S provides capabilities to quickly scale development and global production for our customers. This is really an exciting moment for designers to be able to produce lighting products that haven’t been possible with existing production technologies.”
LCD displays incorporating these latest developments in LED backlighting technologies deliver an unparalleled High-Dynamic-Range (HDR) viewing experience and are significantly brighter than OLEDs. To produce an HDR LCD display with over 10,000 LEDs in a backlight assembly requires a completely new generation of high speed production technologies. With an estimated 220 million square meters of flat-panel displays estimated to be produced in 2018, the growth potential of new backlighting technologies is significant. The unique and highly-complementary contributions of both organizations are anticipated to accelerate the global adoption of leading micro and mini LED-based solutions.