- Manufacturing a 101-inch micro-LED can cost more than $50,000…according to a report…
- …and that’s just the pure manufacturing cost
- All the cost is on the panel, so don’t expect it to change imminently.
We are very excited about the potential of micro-LED TVs, the premium TV technology currently being showcased by firms like Hisense with its spectacular 163-inch micro-LED and Samsung’s great idea for a micro-LED TV where the bezel is also a screen.
However, we’ve always been a little less enthusiastic about the cost of each model released, as they regularly approach or reach six figures, and that hasn’t changed much over time. Now, a new breakdown of how much it costs to make these TVs today has made us cringe and makes it clear that we shouldn’t expect a big change, because the most difficult and expensive part is the micro-LED-only part.
The new report comes from respected research firm UBI and is called “101-Inch Micro-LED TV Bill of Materials Analysis Report… Signaling a Game Changer for the Consumer Electronics Market.”
BOM is short for Bill of Materials, and the report suggests that there is nothing micro in the bill of materials for a micro-LED TV.
According to UBI, the bill of materials for a 101-inch micro-LED TV will be in the region of $52,000 (around £38,550 / AU$73,815). And that’s just the manufacturing cost. Then there are all the other costs and the manufacturer’s profits: at best, the bill of materials is usually about half the cost of a TV, although it can be less.
So we’re looking at around $100.00 for a 100-inch micro-LED, and compare that to $5,999 for the TCL QM9K 98-inch mini-LED, $24,999 for the 97-inch LG G5 OLED TV, or $29,999 for the 116-inch Hisense 116UX Next-Gen RGB TV.
Why do micro-LEDs cost so much?
The analysis breaks down the bill of materials into 46 different elements and estimates that in a 101-inch TV, panel materials including micro-LED pixels will account for 86.2% of the total bill of materials.
In dollars, the backplane costs $15,932 and the pixel layer costs $28,913. The motherboard costs $4,188, the driving circuit module $1,168, the backplane $1,325, the front plane $501, and the frame $9.
One of the reasons core panel components cost so much is manufacturing efficiency and scale: established technologies like OLED and mini-LED panels are manufactured in large quantities and production has become much more efficient with less waste. (Although OLED still has more difficulty with this than mini-LED.) Therefore, prices have dropped.
According to Dr. Joohan Kim, Senior Analyst at UBI Research, “For Micro-LED TVs to become commonplace in the large premium market, it will be essential to improve process performance and reduce costs through vertical integration.”
However, TechRadar has been told that micro-LED has a similar problem to OLED for years, in that the core materials are really difficult to produce and haven’t significantly improved in terms of cost reductions and production difficulty, so the changes Dr. Kim says need to happen seem a long way off.
But when that happens, eventually, the future of technology will be very bright. As UBI explains, the micro-LED’s self-emissive structure offers “virtually unlimited scalability beyond 100 inches while delivering perfect black performance.”
Micro-LED is ideal for really large displays because it adapts well to modular designs, with multiple smaller panels joined together to create something much larger.
That modularity is likely what will eventually reduce manufacturing costs: it’s much easier to make smaller modular panels than massive, individual panels.
TV makers are still telling us that it will be about five years before micro-LED goes mainstream, but some in the team are skeptical that these costs can be reduced quickly enough, so if, like me, you have much more modest ambitions and spending power, you may want to stick with the technology in today’s best TVs.
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