Apple is widely expected to make the move to Mini LED displays which are LED-backlit LCD with Mini LED-based backlighting supporting over a thousand of Full-area Local Area Dimming (FLAD) zones. This allows deeper blacks and higher contrast ratio. Mini LED is not to be confused with MicroLED.
Prior to moving to the currently very expensive MicroLED, Apple’s plan is to transition much of the company’s Mac and iPad lineups to Mini LED display technology. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects the first Apple products with Mini LED to begin appearing next year.
LCD panels used by Apple use LEDs, or light-emitting diodes inside for backlighting purposes to light up the display. Mini-LEDs, as the name suggests, are smaller diodes that are less than 0.2mm… Compared to a traditional LCD, a panel light with mini-LEDs uses many more LEDs, which means there are more total dimming zones to work with. A traditional display might use hundreds of LEDs, but a mini-LED display could have more than a thousand. Apple, in fact, is said to be exploring mini-LED displays that use 10,000 LEDs, each one below 200 microns…
Because there are more LEDs and more dimming zones, mini-LED displays can offer deeper, darker blacks, brighter brights, richer colors, and better contrast because there’s more control over what’s displayed on the screen with so many LEDs…
LED-backlit LCDs are much more power efficient than the cold cathode fluorescent lighting used for LCD panels in the past, and mini-LED LCDs will have additional power efficiency gains.
MacDailyNews Take: Back in December 2019, DigiTimes reported that Taiwan-based supply chain makers including Epistar, General Interface Solution (GIS), Taiwan Surface Mounting Technology (TSMT), Zhen Ding Technology and Flexium Interconnect were poised to receive orders for components to be used in a 12.9-inch Mini LED iPad Pro that Apple was said to launch in calendar third-quarter 2020.