SBIR Phase II: Diamagnetically Directed Self-Assembly of Light Emitting Diodes for Fabricating Large Area, Direct View Displays

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is that if successful, the results of this project will revolutionize large area LED array assembly manufacturing, leading to unprecedented growth of the direct view LED display market. Direct view LED displays, or video walls, are becoming more ubiquitous in everyday life. First only appearing in sports stadiums, they have gradually started appearing in retail advertising, and now are starting to appear in cinemas and control rooms. These types of displays are much brighter, have better contrast ratios, faster refresh rates, and are more energy efficient than other competing display technologies. Despite these advantages, rate of adoption is very slow, limited by the cost and time required to make these displays. Current manufacturing tools are facing a bottleneck as display resolutions increase. A massively parallel assembly technology could drastically increase production speeds while reducing cost-of-goods. Additionally, the knowledge gained by the research into this self-assembly technology has the potential to unlock new opportunities in semiconductor packaging including lighting and concentrated solar. The proposed project seeks to speed-up the LED placement process by leveraging the parallel nature of directed self-assembly. Rather than placing individual LEDs into a grid-array as it is done today, this technology utilizes confining magnetic fields to quickly and simply arrange hundreds or thousands of LEDs into a neat and ordered grid-array. The objective is to achieve assembly speeds at least 5 times faster than conventional tools. The research will focus on the effects of LED size and geometry on accuracy, rate, and yield. Additionally,  new magnetic field stages to enhance assembly precision will be developed. The key anticipated results are (1) a system that will be able to rapidly assemble thousands of LED die with the precision necessary for high-resolution displays and (2) a fully operational LED display panel constructed with this technology to demonstrate the manufacturing potential of this technology. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.