The Battle for Mini LED Dominance: How TCL Became a Key Player in 8 Years
Should one become a leader and rewrite the future of LCD with Mini LED, or fall into a passive position by following OLED and repeat the fate of history?
This is the ultimate question that a generation of Chinese display experts have spent nearly a decade answering.
The story began at the CES in Las Vegas in 2017. That year, the worship of OLED was at its peak.
In front of the LG booth, 10 latest OLED TVs were lined up, capturing the spotlight. The 77 - inch LG SIGNATURE OLED TV of the W series won the Best Innovation Award at the 2017 CES with its mural - style design.
Not far away, Samsung had already put the sale of its LCD production lines on the agenda. With its newly released foldable mobile phone and its status as the OLED supplier for Apple phones, Samsung precisely targeted the small - size OLED market.
The R & D directors of a group of terminal TV manufacturers at the exhibition gathered around the booths of South Korean companies, filling their notebooks with the technical parameters of OLED.
But is what is favored at the moment necessarily the right choice?
At least for TCL, the answer is no.
In sharp contrast to the OLED frenzy: at the same time, TCL chose to continue to deepen its efforts in the LCD route with Mini LED and create a generation of flagship products belonging to TCL in this uncharted territory.
Because, Mini LED outperforms OLED in terms of technical ceiling, cost control, and even overall size performance. The only drawback is that it takes five or ten years to produce a product that meets all the theoretical ceilings. There is no one to follow and no shortcuts. TCL has to lead the industrial chain to explore from scratch.
To some extent, this is an exploration in the uncharted territory and a technological long - march.
01 Choice: A Difficult but Right Path
In September 2025, when TCL's X11L SQD - Mini LED flagship TV was unveiled, many engineers in the audience might have thought of the difficult decision made eight years ago.
In 2017, within TCL's Pan - Smart Screen R & D Center, the debate about the future ten - year route never stopped.
Pushing open the door of the meeting room, one would often see such a scene:
On one side of the whiteboard, there was a list of the technical advantages of OLED. There were mature paths to follow in product planning, supply chain, and even marketing promotion for each step.
On the other side, there was a roadmap of the Mini LED technology with an unclear future, marked with numerous questions and unsolved problems.
"At that time, the whole industry was flocking to OLED, but we wanted to research a technology that no one was optimistic about - Mini LED." A key R & D personnel at TCL recalled that during that period, the lights in the laboratory often stayed on until dawn, which supported a large number of casserole porridge take - out shops nearby.Any sensible person would choose the former: if the whole industry is optimistic about a technology, then even if it's wrong, it's not your problem alone.
But the problem is that every seemingly simplest choice has already been priced.
Analyzed from the first - principles, the inherent defects of traditional OLED doom it to be difficult to adapt to the TV market.
OLED, or Organic Light - Emitting Diode, is characterized by self - illumination: each pixel can be independently lit or turned off, achieving pure black (no light means black) and infinite contrast, with a strong sense of picture transparency. However, the complex process results in a seriously low yield rate of OLED, and the cost is several times that of LCD.
On the other hand, the stability of the organic materials in OLED decays over time, leading to an irreversible burn - in phenomenon (permanent residual images on the screen, such as the startup image) - which is an unacceptable flaw for home TVs.
If one blindly invests in traditional OLED, it means that on the industrial chain side, the advantages that the Chinese liquid crystal panel industry has just accumulated will disappear; on the terminal manufacturer side, all brand owners, including TCL, will work for the OLED panel manufacturers that have taken the lead.
In sharp contrast, Mini LED has great potential: it is in line with LCD technology. Around 2017, the area of liquid crystal panels produced in mainland China gradually caught up with that of South Korea. Relying on this mature supply chain, the Chinese terminal display industry can gain more initiative. More importantly, it can reuse the large - scale industrial chains of basic materials such as LCD, chips, and PCBs in China, with the potential to reduce costs through large - scale production.
Of course, there are also concerns.
For Mini LED to match the perfect black and infinite contrast of OLED, the backlight zoning technology, precise light - control algorithm, high - density LED chips, display driver chips, and precise packaging equipment and processes need to be mature simultaneously.
So, "Should we rely on others in the OLED race, or spend time and R & D costs to break through independently in the Mini LED race?
The answer is obvious. TCL chose the difficult but right path.
Just one year after deciding on the Mini LED route, in 2018, TCL first showcased a Mini LED prototype at the Berlin International Consumer Electronics Show and achieved mass production of Mini LED products in 2019.
However, this was just the beginning.
In the technology industry, there is a default rule: after being the first to achieve mass production, one usually needs a stable output volume and a real flagship - level product with a substantial lead to confirm the final step of reaching the peak.
As a solution still in the development stage at that time, to create an ultimate product with Mini LED, three long - standing industry difficulties must be solved: ultimate contrast, ultimate brightness, and 100% BT.2020 global high color gamut
The goal was set. Next, TCL upgraded and overcame challenges step by step in these three core directions.
02 Breaking the Deadlock: Achieving Omni - Zoning in Mini LED
Among the three difficulties, the first problem to be solved was the contrast dilemma caused by the lack of dark - field details.
The Mini LED solution is similar to the self - illumination of OLED pixels, precisely matching the brightness changes of the picture. Each small area has independent light control, allowing the corresponding area of the black field to be completely turned off and the high - light area to be individually brightened, while retaining the cost and lifespan advantages of LCD technology.
However, increasing the number of backlight zones is not a simple addition or subtraction but a system - level problem that requires understanding the chain reaction:
In terms of material cost, an increase in zones directly doubles the number of lamp beads; in terms of driving cost, each zone needs to be independently controlled, so the cost of the driving chip doubles accordingly; in terms of the process, the layout accuracy requirements for tens of thousands of lamp beads are extremely high, making the proofing of the lamp board much more difficult. In addition, to control tens of thousands of zones simultaneously, the demand for the algorithm and computing power of the chip also increases significantly.
To solve these problems, in 2021, TCL established the Pangu Laboratory. In this 1600 - square - meter laboratory, top global display talents gathered, with nearly 50% being post - graduates, covering multiple fields such as LED chips, quantum dot materials, and optical design.
More importantly, the Pangu Laboratory also built a Mini LED test line, achieving full - process independent R & D from the lamp board process, PCB materials to quantum dot synthesis, and truly realizing a closed - loop verification from materials to finished products.
The team was no longer satisfied with using industry - standard components. Instead, they delved into the material formula and production process, regarded the lamp board, film, and driving chip as a systematic project for overall optimization, customized core components in cooperation with the industrial chain, and established an insurmountable technological moat.
With the support of this systematic R & D ability, in August 2023, TCL was the first to release the world's largest 115 - inch QD - Mini LED TV, the X11G Max. This product was equipped with an astonishing 20,736 zones, becoming the first TV in the industry with more than 20,000 backlight zones at that time.
Moreover, with a ten - fold improvement in zoning performance, TCL always kept the cost at an absolute advantage compared to OLED, far lower than the industry's expectation.
On the basis of 20,000 zones, TCL also launched the fourth - generation "Condensing Micro - Lens" with a 46.9% improvement in light - control ability, making the light in each single zone more uniform and the zones independent of each other.
Market data also confirms the value brought by technological breakthroughs. According to omdia data: in 2024, TCL's Mini LED TV shipments ranked first in the world; TCL's Mini LED TV sales volume ranked first in China for five consecutive years; in 2024, TCL's shipments of 85 - inch and above TVs ranked first in the world; in 2024, TCL's shipments of 98 - inch TVs ranked first in the world.
These achievements laid the best foundation for the birth of the subsequent flagship X11L.
03 Acceleration: Industrial Chain Collaboration behind the Extreme Brightness
Based on the omni - zoning, the ultimate goal in the field of light control was set at an aggressive figure - 10,000 nits.
To date, the peak brightness of flagship mobile phones is still hovering around 3000 nits. TCL directly aimed at the highest Dolby standard of 10,000 nits, bringing an unparalleled visual impact. This has also reached the limit of human eye perception, and increasing the brightness further will bring limited improvement in visual experience.
This means that whether you are watching "Harry Potter" with the curtains open at noon or the Winter Olympics, you can not only restore the environmental details of the forbidden forest at night in the magical world; you can also perfectly present the pure texture of the snow and the transparent reflection of the ice surface in high - brightness scenes such as ice and snow, clearly capture the subtle trajectory of flying snow particles and the clear lines of the ice skates on the ice; without over - exposure in the bright areas and blackening in the dark areas, enjoying an ultimate on - site experience in the living room.
Achieving 10,000 nits is not a story of a so - called single - point breakthrough or a flash of inspiration in the traditional sense, but a systematic battle involving the entire industrial chain.
The luminous efficiency of lamp beads, the load of the driving chip, the stability of the power supply, the accuracy of algorithm control, and the computing power support of the chip all need to be upgraded simultaneously; at the same time, heat dissipation and product aesthetics need to be considered. After all, the living - room scenario has extremely high requirements for the appearance design of the TV.
In this battle, TCL, leading the entire industrial chain, made all its partners both love and hate it.
What they love is that TCL really understands technology and the industry and can give professional and feasible suggestions, collaborating with the industrial chain to make progress. Many suppliers of quantum dot materials, PCB boards, etc. have had similar experiences: TCL's R & D team would first figure out the technical parameters and process requirements by themselves, form a mature plan, and then hand it over to the industrial chain partners for large - scale production, which not only reduces the R & D risk of suppliers but also improves the production efficiency.
What they hate is that TCL understands too well and often puts forward some "tricky" requirements that exceed industry norms.
The attack on the screen layer was "the first to bear the brunt".
The tolerance of the screen body became the key bottleneck: to achieve a screen brightness of 10,000 nits, the backlight brightness needs to reach 200,000 nits. Such strong light can change the characteristics of the liquid crystal and even affect the optical performance of the transistor circuits in the screen, and there is no ready - made solution in the industry.
Fortunately, the partner is TCL Huaxing, a panel enterprise under TCL Technology. For a long time, TCL Huaxing has maintained high - frequency collaboration with TCL Industrial's Pan - Smart Screen R & D Center, holding technical joint - adjustment meetings every month to synchronize R & D progress and requirements.
In response to the TFT circuit performance problem, TCL Huaxing immediately organized a team to optimize the manufacturing process, added a light - proof layer to the screen body; at the same time, it developed a targeted strong - light irradiation experiment and established a new test standard, filling a gap in the industry.
The advantage of this in - depth collaboration lies not only in the immediate response when encountering difficulties; more importantly, while many competitors can only choose a cost - performance balance solution in the final finished product, TCL Industrial can explore the most suitable screen planning direction and real industrial needs for SQD with its partners in advance.
The attack on the chip link is also full of the wisdom of game - playing and cooperation.
As the leading enterprise in LED chips, Sanan Optoelectronics has a more than ten - year cooperation foundation with TCL, and the communication is often so efficient that "the chip layout can be determined in the morning, the driving requirements can be updated at noon, and adjustments can be made in the afternoon".
To meet the brightness requirement of 10,000 nits, Sanan Optoelectronics was required to adjust one layer of the hundreds of layers of deposited epitaxial structure in the chip manufacturing process. However, chip manufacturing has extremely high requirements for purity and stability, and a slight structural change may affect the performance. From front - line operators to technical directors, everyone at Sanan Optoelectronics' first reaction after seeing the plan was: the technical direction is good, but I can't decide this.
TCL's solution was direct and straightforward: for two consecutive months, the R & D director regarded Sanan Optoelectronics' factory as home, contacting engineers, department heads, and finally the general manager layer by layer.
Fortunately, the result finally progressed as TCL envisioned. And this tough problem became the trump card for TCL, or the entire Chinese TV industry, to win the global flagship product - although the improvement of technology is usually proposed by a single enterprise, the optimization results of the final product can be shared by the whole industry.
04 The Final Push: Restoring True Colors
The omni - zoning solved the light - control accuracy, and the 10,000 - nit brightness broke through the brightness limit. TCL was on the verge of creating a flagship product. All that was left was the last key piece of the puzzle - stably restoring true colors.
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