2023 is the first year of the explosion of COB LED displays. Data predicts that its growth rate will be as high as more than 50%. Against this background, it has become an industry consensus to further increase COB display technology. Among them, Unilumin Technology’s world-first and market-breaking outdoor COB LED display products and solutions have opened the door to the “new outdoor track” of COB technology in addition to traditional indoor application requirements.
Outdoor 0 breakthrough, COB enters the "all-scenario" era
During the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games, the "world's first outdoor COB" application case created by Unilumin appeared on the shores of the West Lake. It is reported that this product not only has the traditional advantages of traditional COB products such as high reliability, high definition, ultra-thinness, high stability under all-weather conditions, wear resistance and easy cleaning, but also has a higher brightness of more than 7000 nits and a leading contrast ratio of more than 10000:1, achieving a new level of outdoor LED display applications.
The outdoor "0" breakthrough of COB products will inevitably open a new chapter in COB application and market development! Industry experts pointed out that Unilumin COB display technology has achieved leapfrog development in the past 10 years from scratch, from small pitch to micro pitch, from mini LED to micro LED, from small quantity supply to mass manufacturing, and from indoor high-end applications to indoor and outdoor popularization. It has become “one of the sectors with the highest growth potential” in Unilumin’s LED product line.
On June 20, 2023, Unilumin Group held a grand mini/micro full-scenario product launch conference. At the meeting, Unilumin was the first in the world to propose an industrial development concept that fully covers the six major application scenarios of COB. Unilumin Technology shared the group's Mini/Micro COB industry technology layout with six Mini/Micro product series covering P0.4~P4 point spacing, including UMicro, UMiniⅢ Pro, UMiniⅢ, UMiniW, green and energy-saving LMini, and outdoor COB, interpreting the future picture of COB display with "all forms, all scenarios, all applications".
Among the six major application scenarios of Unilumin Technology's COB, UMicro0.4 breaks through the mass production and outdoor COB brand-new products, achieves comprehensive breakthroughs in "technical limits" and "application new frontiers", and once again leads the high-quality development trend of the global LED direct display market. The continuous expansion of technological limits and application frontiers will also be one of the driving forces for the continued growth of COB products in the future. The relevant person in charge of Unilumin Technology believes that COB technology has a large-scale foundation and is expected to achieve a replacement rate of 35 to 50% within three years. Unilumin's COB supply will maintain an annual growth of 30%.
From indoor to outdoor, COB LED enters a new track
What does it mean to launch outdoor COB products for the first time? The traditional LED direct display market is divided into two distinct sectors: indoor and outdoor. Each holds almost half of the market. The move of COB technology outdoors will first of all mean a huge increase in the "potential application scale".
Data from Zhongyan Puhua Industrial Research Institute shows that in the first half of 2023, the market size of my country's LED display screen will be approximately 24.2 billion yuan, of which the market size of small-pitch LED display screens mainly for indoor use will be approximately 9.1 billion yuan. It can be seen that the outdoor and indoor LED screen markets are almost an industry pattern in which each occupies half of the sky.
On the other hand, according to Zhiyan Consulting data, the market size of China's outdoor electronic screen advertising industry exceeded 20 billion yuan in 2019, exceeded 30 billion yuan in 2022, and is expected to exceed 38 billion yuan in 2023 - the rapidly growing outdoor advertising demand is one of the main "monetization" directions for outdoor LED screens. Benefiting from the in-depth commercialization of 5G and the support of creative technologies such as naked-eye 3D, corner 3D, curved special effects and night scenes, the value of LED outdoor applications has been continuously enhanced.
Therefore, COB products actually face dual opportunities in the outdoor market: "stock experience upgrade" and "incremental market expansion". Among them, COB products will bring a "new" experience to outdoor applications and will be its main competitive advantage.
In this regard, Unilumin Technology pointed out that one of the main progress points of "outdoor advertising and display systems" in the 5G and future 5.5G/6G era is the development of "content towards high-definition, ultra-high definition, 3D and holographic" display effects. The demand for higher display effects will inevitably require "better screen" technical support. This includes not only the optimization of traditional technical parameters such as color, brightness, and contrast, but also the improvement of resolution density, optimization of viewing angles, overcoming visual pixel granulation, etc.
COB display technology is moving from indoors to outdoors. It is essentially a scenario that meets the needs of closer viewing distances and higher requirements for image quality and product quality. It is a "technological output and performance upgrade attack" on the traditional outdoor demand market - bringing a performance revolution to outdoor display solutions. This is a key change for COB technology to enter the outdoor market, and it is also an inevitable change to adapt to the "growing demand for high-quality content display" in the future of the outdoor market.
“The traditional understanding of the advantage of COB is that it can reduce the distance between LEDs; but at larger distances, COB technology can also bring about a revolution in visual experience.” Industry analysis points out that Unilumin Outdoor COB’s 0 breakthrough is to break this inherent thinking and allow COB’s technical advantages to shine in larger application scenarios.
From ultra-fine pitch to the outdoor market, COB’s technical advantages are stronger
In 2016, Unilumin took the lead in mass production of Mini LED COB in the world; in 2018, it launched P0.9 COB products and once again took the lead; in 2020, P0.7 The exclusive patented technology release of COB product EBL+ has achieved high-density, ultra-small pitch full flip-chip technology, a comprehensive leap in Molding process optimization and surface technology optimization; in 2022, Unilumin P0.4 products will once again make their global debut, and Unilumin's characteristic cutting-edge technology in eight dimensions opens up a new realm of COB product limits...
It can be seen along the way that the advancement of COB technology continues to be accompanied by the reduction of the "gap index". However, Unilumin's outdoor COB products in 2023 will target p4.0/p1.9 outdoor products. From continuous shrinkage to outdoor use, it can be said that COB technology is moving towards another "powerful extreme" turning point.
Unilumin's outdoor COB technology products inherit the many technical advantages of Unilumin's COB series products in the five major processes of chip, substrate, packaging, driver and system. Among them, the "full flip-chip RGB chip + COB packaging technology" greatly reduces the lamp bead failure rate, Unilumin's self-developed solid crystal mixing algorithm improves the product's higher consistency and uniformity, and EBL + multi-layer optical processing technology (Unilumin's exclusive patent) achieves higher visual contrast. The contrast and Molding design process comprehensively improve the viewing angle effect, EDL+ drive technology makes the adjustment more precise, and is more energy-saving. It is adaptive to Unilumin's independent UOS system, and the "full grayscale correction + HDR support" image quality debugging and display are better.
On the other hand, among outdoor display products, Unilumin has also brought newly developed product details for COB technology applications. For example, the signal adopts LVDS differential transmission technology, which has longer transmission distance, lower cost, and a significant reduction of more than 60% in failure rate; it adopts original dual-chip display technology, which increases the brightness by more than 100% compared to conventional single chips. It has the same brightness, saves more than 50% of energy, and reduces the temperature rise by more than 20 degrees, which not only solves the brightness problem of COB outdoor, but also greatly improves the economy of the overall operating cost; original spray UV technology Technology, the glue filling process on the back of the module is combined with full glue filling technology to achieve IP65 waterproofing. It has obvious advantages in dustproof, moisture-proof, anti-collision, shockproof, cleaning, etc., and can easily cope with various harsh environmental tests; the module is fixed with 8pcs magnetic suction, and the box adopts a four-section independent design. The modular design of the maintenance power supply and receiving card, combined with the front maintenance design, greatly improves the convenience of engineering operations and reduces installation and maintenance costs...
It can be said that Unilumin's outdoor COB products are epoch-making innovative products that combine "indoor technology accumulation" and "outdoor specialties" to meet the new development trend of high-quality outdoor display demand.
ANNA