JBD Advancing Mass Production Architecture Upgrade: MicroLED Micro-displays Move into the 12-inch Wafer Era
Years ago, Jade Bird Display (JBD) pioneered the industrialization of MicroLED micro-displays through its wafer-level “hybrid integration” technology. This milestone transitioned the display technology from laboratories to mass manufacturing, laying the foundation for lightweight and daily-wearable AR smart glasses. Today, Shanghai Jade Bird Display Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as “JBD”) announced that it has successfully upgraded its mass production architecture by reconstructing its MicroLED micro-displays from 4-inch to 12-inch wafers. This marks an overall leap in the company’s manufacturing efficiency, cost structure, and large-scale supply capabilities.
Left: Seven 4-inch epitaxial wafers; Right: A 12-inch silicon-based reconstructed wafer.
In the early stages of the industry, competition in MicroLED micro-displays primarily focused on performance indicators such as brightness, size, and power consumption. As technological pathways become clearer and the demand for high-performance displays in AR/AI smart glasses accelerates, manufacturing capability is emerging as the core variable driving industry progression. Achieving large-scale, low-cost production while ensuring stable quality has become the focal point of this new round of technological competition.
Yield rate and cost remain the central challenges restricting the large-scale popularization of MicroLED micro-displays. Although the current mainstream “wafer-to-wafer” bonding pathway offers high production efficiency, it still faces a fundamental structural contradiction: advanced silicon-based backplanes have fully entered the 12-inch era, whereas due to material systems and manufacturing difficulties, MicroLED epitaxial layers have long remained predominantly 4-inch. This wafer size mismatch has become a major factor impacting costs and utilization rates.
JBD’s 4-inch Wafer Manufacturing Process
At the current stage, the industry typically dices 12-inch silicon backplanes to accommodate small-size epitaxy. However, the theoretical utilization limit of the backplane with this approach is only 77%, making it difficult to fully unleash the value of advanced-process backplanes. Considering that the cost of silicon-based backplanes per unit area is significantly higher than that of epitaxial layers, these losses translate directly into device costs, undermining the economics of large-scale production.
Currently, many companies in the industry have proposed using an 8-inch wafer solution for MicroLED micro-display mass production. However, this solution still faces two fundamental challenges:
- Due to the size mismatch between epitaxial wafers and silicon-based backplanes, geometric calculations show that approximately 56% of the silicon-based backplane area cannot be utilized effectively.
- Experimental results consistently indicate that 8-inch wafers yield low success rates in critical steps such as bonding and substrate stripping, which has become a major bottleneck restricting large-scale manufacturing.
Based on these factors, JBD chose to bypass the 8-inch architecture entirely and leap straight into the 12-inch reconstructed wafer system.
8-inch Wafer Manufacturing Process (Approximately 56% of the silicon-based backplane is left unutilized)
JBD’s 12-inch Reconstructed Wafer Manufacturing Process
(Supports die sorting; silicon-based backplanes are fully utilized)
In terms of the specific implementation path, JBD has officially introduced the “die-to-carrier-to-wafer” bonding solution into its mass production system:
- Step 1: Small-size epitaxy is first diced into individual dies, and defects are filtered out through pre-inspection and sorting.
- Step 2: The qualified dies are reconstructed onto a temporary 12-inch substrate, achieving highly consistent epitaxial integration.
- Step 3: Finally, wafer-level bonding is completed with a matching 12-inch silicon-based backplane.
This solution achieves highly efficient utilization of silicon backplane wafers, eliminates the impact of epitaxial defects on finished products right from the source, significantly reduces uncertainties in backend manufacturing, and drastically improves yield rates.
More importantly, this pathway effectively fuses the process advantages of mature, small-size epitaxy with the scale capabilities of advanced 12-inch backplanes. It achieves a manufacturing system upgrade before breakthroughs are made in native 12-inch epitaxy, establishing a more stable manufacturing foundation for high-precision hybrid bonding. Furthermore, as pixel pitch continues to shrink, the dependence of MicroLEDs on advanced-process backplanes will intensify further.
Looking Ahead
Currently, JBD has overcome the technical bottlenecks and process pathways for 12-inch reconstructed wafers. The pilot line has completed full-line verification, with the wafer reconstruction yield rate breaking through 98%, and is accelerating synchronization into the mass production lines.
Dr. Qiming Li, CEO of JBD, stated:
“The 12-inch reconstructed wafer solution breaks through the critical bottleneck of large-scale manufacturing in the MicroLED micro-display industry, achieving an optimal balance between efficiency and cost. This achievement embodies years of continuous innovation by our company’s engineering and technical teams. We believe this solution will become the core pathway for MicroLED micro-displays moving toward mass production. Furthermore, light is becoming an important carrier for next-generation information technology. The establishment of the 12-inch MicroLED mass production platform also opens up new possibilities for the evolution of broader ‘optical computing’ technologies.”
The transition from 4-inch to 12-inch is a critical leap for the MicroLED micro-display manufacturing system toward mature application phases. Through this architectural upgrade, JBD not only solidifies its large-scale supply capabilities but also provides a definitive underlying driving force for the industrialization process of global AR smart terminals.
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