In the field of display devices, there are LCD and OLED, but also mini LED, micro? Subdivision terms such as LED, QLED, ULED, etc. Here, we briefly introduce what mini LED is.
mini LED is a backlight technology rather than panel technology, it is still attached to the LCD screen. It is characterized by using a large number of tiny LED beads to form backlight partitions for light control, improving the contrast and image quality of LCD screens; Micro LEDs are similar to o LEDs and belong to self-luminous panels, but do not use organic materials as light sources, but use micron-level light sources. , Micron pitch LED beads (inorganic material) as a light source, have most of the advantages of OLED, eliminate the shortcomings of short life, easy to burn the screen. However, the production process is complex and difficult, and it cannot enter mass production in a short time; QLED is the technology currently used for LCD backlight layer to enhance the display color gamut, but it also has the same name concept of "quantum dot self-luminous panel" similar to OLED; ULED is Hisense The patented LCD screen backlight technology has joined the combination of partition light control and so on.
Mini LED is widely used in 2020 and is also known as mini LED in the first year of the era. However, LED itself was used as LCD backlight earlier and also experienced a period of market competition with CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) backlight. These two years may be affected by OLED technology. The LCD camp also needs a technology to improve contrast and enhance the expressiveness of the picture. Mini LED and zoned light control technologies have been applied to TVs, monitors and other products.
Increasing the contrast is all about making blacks darker and whites whiter. OLED TVs by themselves have no advantage in peak brightness, but you can call it infinite contrast. Precisely because it can turn off black pixels completely. For mini LED TVs, although the light cannot be controlled at the single-pixel level, it is also possible to obtain "blacker" by adjusting the brightness of the backlight area in the dark part. With better peak brightness performance, it can greatly improve the contrast of the picture and enhance the details in light and dark.
However, mini LEDs are not without their drawbacks. Take the iPad Pro, the most popular product so far this year. Since its launch, there has been a lot of feedback on screen "rollovers", including optimization problems caused by Apple's first use of mini LEDs on mobile devices, as well as various display problems such as green edges and light leakage, especially "halo". But I think the halo is mini? The common problem of LED is not Apple's overturning. It can be observed in some evaluations of mini LED TV, which is determined by the display principle of LCD and the characteristics of partitioned backlight. If the previous integrated backlight is used back, the black area of the entire screen will be slightly whitened visually or in invisible places, and the "halo" will never be seen. I don't know which one is more acceptable to users. However, one more thing to say is that although the halo phenomenon cannot be completely eliminated, it can be weakened as the number of backlight partitions increases. This generation of iPad Pro itself is equipped with more than 2,500 backlight partitions on the 12.9-inch screen, which is far more luxurious than the mini LED display. Apple's own light control optimization problem is still inseparable.
To sum up, mini LED is still an imperfect display (backlight) solution, and its advantages are obvious. Improving the backlight on the basis of the original LCD technology has advantages in cost, and the display performance is close to OLED. The disadvantage is that some low-end mini LED TVs with general quality control may appear "halo" in some cases. It is recommended to choose a relatively high-end product. In my opinion, it is an intermediate solution for the transition from LCD to OLED, but it is worth pondering that OLED itself is also a screen type with many defects including price factors, so it is difficult to completely replace all kinds of products on the market. LCD screen, LCD liquid crystal display will still be the mainstream display products.
Is the application of mini LED technology an LCD transition solution or the future of display devices?
2022 08/12