Monitors with mini LED backlight may hit the market at the end of this year jaar

AU Optronics has started supplying samples of LCD panels equipped with a backlight consisting of many small LEDs. Monitors with such a mini LED backlight may be released at the end of this year.

Michael Tsai, president of AUO, told Digitimes that samples for gaming monitors are available from manufacturers and that commercial deliveries are likely to begin in the fourth quarter of this year. Manufacturers could then release monitors with the panels.

Displays based on the mini LED technology use a traditional LCD panel, but the lighting consists of many small LEDs behind that panel. That can enable convincing HDR reproduction and high contrast. It is not clear exactly how many LEDs are used.

AUO has already shown various screens with mini LED backlight at a trade fair in May. It involved a 27″ panel with a 4k resolution and a refresh rate of 144Hz, a 15.6″-4k panel for laptops, a 6″ panel for smartphones and a 2″ panel for VR headsets. Although these variants have been shown, it is not yet certain whether all of them will be released.

In addition to mini LEDs, manufacturers are also working on screens based on micro LEDs. They do not use an LCD, but the LEDs themselves are the pixels. The challenge is to make the LEDs small enough to produce a high-resolution monitor or TV. Samsung has indicated that it will release a microLED TV this year. At the beginning of this year, the manufacturer showed a 146″ prototype.