LED industry creating opportunities for significant growth in cross-strait co-operation

TAIPEI, TAIWAN: The second day of LEDforum is mainly highlighted on the exhaustive analysis of LED TV, automotive LED, and the global LED market reports, and will probe into China’s market in depth.

Ruan Jun, Deputy Secretary of China Solid State Lighting Alliance, said that the Cross-Strait can develop standards mutually in the future, constructing a demonstration area of the semiconductor lighting project together.

Today, Ruan Jun will do a specific presentation on China's semiconductor lighting market and proposes the idea of cross-strait industrial cooperation, which is estimated that China's LED industry is expected to reach 200 billion RMB in 2012 and 500 billion by 2015, not to mention up to one million job opportunities.

In the global market, LEDinside Research Associate Roger Chu indicated that notebooks and LED TVs stimulate LED market growth this year. However, due to economy recression, the sales of cell phones and LED TV offset the LED sales growth.

In the future prospect, it is estimated that LED market will grow significantly from 2010 to 2013, and the upstream chip makers’ CAPEX will also increase substantially.

Tight supply of LED chips is expected to ease in the third quarter 2010. From the LED makers’ perspectives, after Korean LED makers’ in-house production capacity ramp up, market gains will continue to expand, hence, vendors without patents, cost-competitiveness or technological edge will face a considerable challenge.

Moreover, as more and more companies invest in the field, product quality is the biggest concern; therefore, the establishment of lighting standards will lead to a re-organization in the industry.

As for LED-backlit LCD TV (LED TV)'s development, Alpha Wu, Chairman of Amtran, states that after Samsung has launched its first LED TV in the first half of this year, being the forerunner, numerous companies joined the production in second half of the year, changing the high-margin situation. It is estimated next year’s shipments are expected to grow up to 344%, and a 10% drop in gross margin.

In the LED backlight area, Witsview Research Manager, Eric Chiu, said the penetration of LED backlit for NBs is estimated to reach 80 percent next year. In LED monitor area, the price is the key, because once the price has reached a standard that can be acceptable by the market, LED backlit LCD display market expects a robust growth.

In TV products, the design optimization and technology upgrading is important, since the price of an LED backlight module currently costs two to four times that of the same sized CCFL modules. In order to achieve a higher penetration rate of LED backlighting, margin erosion of LED makers and related component makers is inevitable.

Dr. JC Hsieh, VisEra Vice President of R & D and Quality Assurance Group, illustrated that the next generation of lighting will face more challenges. First of all is the ability of technical manufacturing process, including rapid production capability and reduction in costs. At the same time, the thermal management should be strengthened, while designs need to meet with different demands.

Marcus Wong, OSRAM Senior Marketing Manager of Visible LED, Asia Pacific, presented on the topic "Automotive LED Lighting Application: Opportunities & Challenges”. He noted that the field of automotive LED is affected by electric vehicles , energy-saving and low CO2 emissions, creating a newer growth momentum.

He expected that apart from interior LED light, the day-running lights and the front headlights of an automobile are the next growth wave opportunity, particularly when the European Union countries already have relevant laws and regulations in using day-running lights.

Dr. Christian Geng, Vice President Greater China General Manager AIXTRON Taiwan, discussed about "Satisfying the LED industry’s requirements on MOCVD equipment".

He anticipated in the meeting that the importance of producing the uniformity of LED chips is becoming more importance each day, due to increasing demand of LED backlight sources and LED lighting for the panel, and the use of 4-inch and 6-inch wafer MOCVD machines continued to grow.

He took the output efficiency of the four-inch and 6-inch machines as an example, which each were able to produce 2.7 times and 4.5 times the output of LED chips from a 2-inch machine. The company, together with Semileds, also has successfully created a 6-inch sapphire wafer.

The topic in which Dr. LC Yang, Chairman of Macroblock, shares is "Trend of LED Display". He thinks the LED display driver IC will be on the same PCB board in the near future and will import more power-saving technology, so that power consumption on the LED screen will become more efficient and that the color correction and gray-scale capability of a product will be sturdier.

In addition, he said that RGB clusters, architectural lighting, and LED screen rental market trends will be the market focus in the area, and LED Driver IC market will continue to grow.

James Chu, Director of ITRI Opto-Electronics and System Application Division, presents "The Creative Technologies Development of magnetic-field enhances LED", stressing that the 200ml / W LED component technologies will bring tremendous business opportunities in LED lighting.

At the same time, WB and Schottky-type AC LED design can greatly enhance the luminous efficiency of AC LED, accelerating the construction of AC LED industrial chain and the AC LED products.

Additionally, the ITRI’s M-LED increased the electric current uniformity and IQE, in order to use the change of LED magnetoresistive effect and binding energy, created by the external magnetic field. This is completely different from the current LED technologies, opening up another door for LED technology.