LED vendors have an optimistic outlook toward future

TAIPEI, TAIWAN: LEDforum 2010 is a two-day event organized by LEDinside and the Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute. The agenda for the first day covers on LED components and equipment trends. Focusing on the future direction of LED industry, LEDforum is an advanced conference to grasp new market trend and future opportunities.

George Craford, SSL Fellow, Philips Lumileds
George Craford, Philips Lumiled SSL Fellow, shared with the audience the current development trends of LED component, light source. He remarked that Philips Lumileds' next stage LED light source will reach 220lm/W. This component named LUXEON Rebel is driven by 350mA. The LED's light efficiency is about 120lm~150lm/W.

He highlighted the target of DOE's LED development roadmap is tough, and much effort is needed to reach 1,000lm per dollar. He also mentioned that the LED efficacies are reaching “good enough” levels to enable the volume production of different bulb types. In the near future, LED light source will be widely used in general lighting.

Jia Lee, Director of Marketing, VEECO
Jia Lee, Director of Marketing, MOCVD, at Veeco Instruments Inc. emphasized that achieving high yield and productivity is essential, and advancements in MOCVD technology reduce LED manufacturing costs.

Lee noted, LEDs for general lighting is an emerging sector, and the CAGR between 2009 and 2014 is estimated to reach 46%, while CAGR for LED displays will likely reach 89 percent during that time. Lee also indicated that Veeco’s TurboDisc K465i minimizes variation in each of the key binning criteria, namely, wavelength, brightness, and forward voltage which reduce yield losses. Through Epi cost driver sensitivity analysis, Lee illustrated that the design of the K465i generate high yield from all wafers by providing excellent uniformity repeatability.

Dr. Ming Jiunn Jou, GM of Epistar Co.
The general manager of Epistar Co., Dr. Ming Jiunn Jou, indicated that the packaged device price needs to drop to 500 lm/1USD in order to meet the DOE’s target of the street price @10USD/bulb. Moreover, Epistar has developed HV LED with 160lm/w, and it is believed that HV LED is the best solution for general lighting application. Not only does luminous efficacy increase, thermal dissipation improves as well, since high voltage leads to low current.

Moreover, without the converter, it can also be AC driven with an external bridge. Furthermore, with a record high of 168lm/w of AlGaInP red LED, warm white LED with high luminous efficacy and high CRI is demonstrated by the Epistar Lab.

Marc McConnaughey, Vice President, Rambus
In terms of microstructure technology breakthrough, industry veteran Marc McConnaughey, Vice President, Strategic Development Lighting and Display Technology Division of Rambus emphasized that MicroLens is the only microstructure that can diffuse and direct light, and with advanced manufacturing processes, MicroLens provides the breakthrough needed for lower costs and high volume production.

Specifically, Marc highlighted approaches needed in improving performance, cost and manufacturing efficiencies at the component, subsystem and luminaire level. McConnaughey illustrated that Rambus’ MicroLens light guide solutions for LED edge lighting enable superior performance at lower costs through a high-volume manufacturing process.

Dr. Koukou Suu, ULVAC Technologies
Dr. Koukou Suu, General Manager, Institute of Semiconductor & Electronics Technologies, at ULVAC Technologies, addressed the topic of “LED Equipment Trends”.

He emphasized that the Japanese market has attracted many companies in the LED lighting business, but these companies generally need to reduce costs and improve product brightness, and luminous efficiency. Dr. Suu indicated that the way to reduce production costs for the LED, is through the PSS process, and ITO deposition of equipment. He also mentioned that the company is developing MOCVD equipment, and this new equipment will enter the MOCVD market in future.

Dr. Alfred Felder, OSRAM Opto Semiconductors
Dr. Alfred Felder, president and CEO of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors, addressed the topic of "Innovation LEDs as Market Drivers in Automotive, Pico Projection and Solid State Lighting".

He said that the ThinGaN technology is to improve light extraction efficiency of LED, making the LED Light extraction efficiency more than 80%, which is better than the previous LED products. At the same time, with UX:3 technology, LED brightness will increase by 10~20 percent.

In addition, he also predicted that the market of micro-LED light source projector (Pico Projector), will grow to more than 7 million devices in 2013. He pointed out that Osram's OLED lighting technology is still under development, but OLED light source is already achieving 100 lumens per watt in Osram's Lab.

Fanny Huang, Chairman and President of Excellence Opto
Fanny Huang, discussed the promotion programs of LED street lights in every country and its market status. Take the Chinese market for an example, a total of 250,000 street lights were installed in 2009. The projected installation volume will reach 450,000 in 2010 due to a large-sized LED demonstration program in Guangdong.

Moreover, LED street lights were also adopted in over 200 cities of the US, and more than 100 cities have announced that LED street lights will be massively purchased.

Finally, Ms. Huang believes that it is important to standardize the LED specification. For instance, color temperature should be between 2700K-6500K, natural convection method is adopted, and waterproof IP65 should be met as well.

James, Mu-Tao Chu, Director of W Division Opto-Electronics Device and System Applications Division / Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)
James, Mu-Tao Chu, the Director of W Division Opto-Electronics Device and System Applications Division of Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) indicated that Taiwan’s LED industry has been developing for thirty years. Therefore, qualified professionals and technology are provided. In addition, schools and research centers can be a coordinator between the government and enterprises.

The competition and co-operation between enterprises can accelerate bottom-up vertical integration. Taiwan takes the first place in LED output, but the second place for LED value in the world at this stage.

However, the difference is that International enterprises focus on the epitaxial wafer/chip process while Taiwan’s enterprises and research centers mainly focus on the substrate technology and process improvement. Furthermore, the US enterprises often adopt the group strategy, which has detailed description and regulation to facilitate their patent strategies. Therefore, Taiwan manufacturers should enforce patent strategies in order to compete with others in the world.

Yu-Ting Hsiao, Director, RD Center of TAI Technology
The director of the RD Center of TAI Technology, Dr. Hsiao pointed out that compared to other lighting sources, LED has longer lifetime. However, 80 percent of electric energy becomes heat, and it will reduce the LED luminous efficacy and usage time. Currently, the main LED package technologies are wire bond and flip chip.

Considering cost and dissipation effect, ceramic substrates are more cost competitive and are mainly Al2O3 substrates. Thin film will be the main trend in the near future; also, because of its cost competitive advantage, it can be massively produced and meet LED packager’s needs in thermal dissipation.