interview epistar
RS SD
RS SD
RS SD
RS SD
What do you hope to see from equipment, substrate and materials suppliers in the next year?
From equipment makers, we hope to see more customized, consistent equipment to generate more products in the same running time, so our throughput will be higher. For the substrate and materials suppliers, we expect to receive more stable quality, and maybe a more reliable and consistent product.
Will Epistar increase its chip capacity this year, and if so, by how much?
It’s hard to give you a precise answer. We have some JV in mainland China, so we have different ways to develop capacity. In China, for example, one JV has increased MOCVD capacity, and maybe two or three sites have increased their quality.
Do you expect average selling prices of LEDs to tumble, or will reductions in price start to slow over the next few years?
For high-end LEDs, the demand is still strong. But overall – because of the environment and the application mix – the price reduction will be fast in 2012. But maybe in 2013 there will be a slowing down in price reduction.
How will Epistar’s business evolve, in terms of revenue and profit, over the next two years?
The ASP is going down very fast, making it difficult to deliver a large increase in revenue. This year we hope that revenue will grow by 5- to-10 percent – I think that will be hard work to achieve.
With prices dropping very fast, it is hard to maintain profit and revenue at the same time.
Direct-type LED TVs
One promising market for Epistar is direct-type LED
TVs.The majority of LED-backlit LCD TVs on sale today have an array of LEDs at the sides of the screen, and use a lightguide to channel the emission from these chips onto the display. One weakness of this approach is the high cost of the lightguide, which can be avoided by using LEDs in a similar way to the more traditional CCFL sources.
In this case, known as direct-type LED TVs, the screen is illuminated by an LED lightbox. This trims the overall cost of the TV, but there is a downside to pay – a thicker screen, which is needed to accommodate the lightbox. Space is needed to mix the emission from a battalion of very high brightness LEDs, and this leads to increases in the distance from the screen, which reduces the need for lightguides and diffusers.
This year we are focusing on how to improve market share in this downturn, and we are hoping to cover different application fields. Maybe pricing will be stable in 2013, or our technology can improve, so we can make a profit in 2013.
© 2012 Angel Business Communications. Permission required.
An Epistar technician examines an LED epiwafer
Epistar’s headquarters are located on the Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan
March 2012
www.compoundsemiconductor.net 43
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