According to a new supply chain report out of Taiwan this morning, Apple's first use of miniLED backlight technology will boost sales of related products, as the market has focused on the upcoming launch of a new generation of MacBooks and iPads. The UDN news report byline indicates that Apple has chosen the company Macroblock for backlight drive chips for their miniLED displays.  

Regarding the characteristics of MiniLEDs, Macroblock said that the difference from traditional LCD backlights is that the former can achieve "zone dimming", that is, the backlight light source is divided into hundreds or thousands of LED light points to display the bright part of the screen. The area light source is illuminated in layers according to the brightness of the picture, which can improve the contrast of the picture and achieve a refined display effect such as HDR.

Macroblock stated that MiniLED partition dimming backlight technology helps displays to achieve HDR image specifications, but the higher the number of zones, the doubled number of driver chips and wires used will increase the cost.

The UDN report lastly noted that TrendForce estimates that miniLEDs will be more competitive than OLED in 2022 and are expected to reach $4.2 billion in 2024, and with the advent of Apple's miniLED backlight products, the impact and transformation of miniLEDs on displays will quickly spread.

According to the Taiwanese company's 'About Us' page, Macroblock is the world-leading LED driver IC provider.