LED displays shine bright amid innovation, industrial clusters

NANCHANG, March 20 (Xinhua) -- In a workshop of an LED display manufacturer in Nanchang, capital of east China's Jiangxi Province, Liu Jianwen is piecing together A4 paper-sized LED display modules to build a 12-square-meter LED screen.

The completed screen is then tested for image quality. After testing, this Mini COB LED display product will be delivered to the client, said Liu, a technician at Jiangxi MTC Visual Display Co., Ltd. (VMTC).

"Compared with traditional LED display products, this type of screen features higher picture quality, is crash-resistant, and has a high load-bearing capacity. The modules can be assembled into screens of various sizes," said Liu.

A signature product of the company, the Mini COB LED display, which has been well-received in the fields of e-sports and home theaters, possesses a domestic market share of over 50 percent.

Founded in 2022, VMTC achieved mass production straight away as it was put into operation with 600 production lines in November 2022.

According to Yang Changfang, deputy general manager of VMTC, the company's overall sales volume exceeded 500 million yuan (about 70.5 million U.S. dollars) in 2023. To meet the surging orders, it added 300 new production lines in 2023 and plans to add 300 more in March.

So far, the company has developed up to 17 display products, which have been applied in commercial and public scenarios such as shopping malls and stations.

The company's strong development momentum is credited to innovation. According to Liu Junhong, head of research and development (R&D) at VMTC, nearly one-sixth of employees are engaged in R&D, with the annual investment in R&D exceeding 10 million yuan.

"Taking the circuit board as an example, square boards are commonly used in the LED industry, but they result in wasted space. So we innovated the board design into an E-shape, optimizing the circuit layout and clipping off the redundant area of the board," said Yang, adding that in this way, one-third of the material has been saved, thus cutting production costs.

Thanks to the R&D efforts, more than 120 projects have been launched to improve the core production equipment, thereby promoting process yield. The COB's manufacturing process has been optimized to make it capable of being mass-produced.

"Through innovation, we have significantly upgraded product quality while maintaining a clear price advantage," said Liu.

The company has flourished, banking also on talent support and improved industrial clusters provided by the local government.

The company is located in the Nanchang National High-Tech Industrial Development Zone, which boasts a complete LED industrial chain covering materials, chips, packaging and applications.

Jiangxi Zhaochi Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (SMTC), a chip supplier and the upstream company of VMTC, is located across the street. "Any problems can be handled in time, and sometimes can even be tackled on the same day," said Wang Rong, a member of staff with SMTC.

The industrial clusters facilitate close cooperation, which effectively reduces the time and economic costs, and strengthens the competitiveness of VMTC.

Yang is optimistic about the future, saying the company will continue to expand production and enhance its innovation capabilities, to facilitate high-quality development.