NANO X, a micro and mini LED inspection equipment company, is attracting investment and expanding their operation. They announced that they have received investments worth €4m from C&CI Partners and others. The company revealed plans to use this investment to build a mass production line for micro LED inspection probes in the Gosaek Industrial Complex in Suwon, South Korea. Their goal is to complete the production line in May, which will have the production capacity to churn out 600 probe cards per month.
Probe cards made by NANO X are used to measure micro LED chip performance. These probe cards are able to inspect whether the micro LED is operating normally by checking the voltage change, wavelength, and intensity of light when a current is applied.
Since Micro LEDs have a size of 100µm or less, inspecting these chip units have been difficult. Traditionally these micro LED chips would be collected and made into modules or panels, in order to check for abnormalities. However, this method was problematic and ineffective because when a defective product is found, the LED chip must be removed from the module and replaced with a functioning chip, which resulted in decreased productivity and increased costs.
The NANO X probe consists of 5-10 μm sized pins that directly come in contact with and inspect each micro LED. It was emphasized that each pin has a separate spring structure to solve issues regarding non-contact that can occur when micro LED heights are different.
