Macroblock

Macroblock held the LIVE product launch II on April 17th to announce a series of 64-scan driver ICs. The following is a brief compilation of the launch.

After the host, Macroblock’s Deputy Manager of Sales Department, Sandra Tseng’s opening, Larry Lee, General Manager of Macroblock(China) welcomed audiences to the online product launch and affirmed to work with our customers to pass the coronavirus crisis with outstanding products to stun world’s visual experiences.

The first speaker is Freddy Lo, Product Manager of Macroblock. He explained why Macroblock announced the new concept of “New Basics,” and its’ importance for next-gen LED displays. “New Basics” consists of six elements, including image quality, minimum gray, HDR-Optimized, 64 scans, low power, and highly-integrated. The definition of the first four elements was presented in the beginning. Freddy especially focused on “Minimum Gray” and used the “Display Color Analyzer” instrument to measure the brightness of the P0. 9375/MBI5359 LED cabinet by grayscale level 0, grayscale level 1 and grayscale level 255 (contrast ratio of the P0.9375/MBI5359 cabinet is around 70,000:1). The demonstration is to elaborate minimum gray and share a new method of measuring contrast. Besides, all of the Hawkeye series driver ICs have embedded the minimum gray feature that enables accurate gradient of the lowest brightness level. Before the end of Freddy’s talk, he introduced three new 64-scan driver ICs, MBI5254, MBI5754, and MBI5264. Since MBI5264 has the PWM enhancement function that helps to decrease GCLK frequency so that it can achieve a higher display performance of 16-bit grayscale at 4K refresh rate at over 32-scan design. 

Followed by Macroblock’s Product Manager, Owen Tu continued to talk about the last two elements “Low Power” and “Highly-integrated” of “New Basics.” The concept of “Highly-integrated” can be easily understood by the structure of mini-/micro-LED driver ICs. The demonstrations of two mini-LED cabinets adopt MBI5759 and MBI5864, respectively. The nature of these two highly-integrated drivers differentiates from applying to common-anode(MBI5864) or common-cathode(MBI5759) displays. Also, MBI5864, a flagship product of 2020, features a scan-sharing architecture and supports a maximum 64-scan design. The lowest recommended pixel pitch of MBI5864 is 0.4mm. As the pixel pitch of LED display shrinks, the driving current of LEDs must be decreased, too. Therefore, the minimum driving current of MBI5864 is 100uA that is a new milestone for the LED display industry. For the “Low Power” session, Owen said, “we can achieve an energy conservation goal through several ways, including common-cathode architecture, IC’s Dynamic+ power saving function, and adopting the IC with less IC power consumption; MBI5864 is an example of achieving power saving by less IC power consumption.” He shared how MBI5864 can achieve low power performance by a module experiment. When comparing the power per pixel of between MBI5864 and MBI5759 on the modules, the power per pixel of MBI5864 is lower by 47%. Moreover, low power consideration is not only related to electricity cost but also image quality, and end-user experience as well. It can help reduce the “cyan blocks” of the modules, decrease surface temperature and extend the life span of LEDs.

The launch ended with responsive Q&A with online guests, and there are more details in the video. Click the video link to have a deeper understanding of our new 64-scan products.

Look forward to seeing you online next time.