South Korea's Seoul Viosys Starts Mass Production of Rare-Earth-Free White Micro-LEDs for AI Optical Interconnects
Seoul Viosys announced the start of mass production for GaN-only white micro-LED chips, claiming near 100 lm/W efficiency and plans to use the tech for high-speed, low-power AI data center connections.
South Korean semiconductor manufacturer Seoul Viosys announced on October 28 that it has begun mass producing micro-LED (Micro Light Emitting Diode) chips capable of emitting white light without the use of rare earth elements. The company stated that traditional white LEDs rely on rare earth phosphors such as YAG (Yttrium Aluminum Garnet) for packaging, whereas the new technology generates white light using only Gallium Nitride (GaN). This eliminates the need for rare earth materials and complex packaging processes, reducing manufacturing costs by half.
According to the company, the first mass-produced chips measure 25 micrometers by 10 micrometers and achieve a luminous flux of 0.015 lumens within the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) standard white color coordinates. The luminous efficacy approaches 100 lm/W, with a target of reaching 200 lm/W within two years. This development overcomes the technical challenge of achieving efficient white light at ultra-small scales, which was previously limited by packaging constraints that prevented white LEDs from shrinking below 100 micrometers.
Seoul Viosys plans to extend this technology to the field of large-capacity data transmission for Artificial Intelligence (AI). By integrating approximately 1,000 10-micrometer LED chips into a matrix structure within one square millimeter, the system transmits data using photons instead of electrons. The company claims that this optical interconnect solution can be 10 times faster than traditional copper wire communications while consuming only one-tenth of the power.