news digest ♦ LEDs
China makes LED investments coming and going
Gallium nitride epitaxial wafer production capacity in China will grow over 300% in just 2 years (2010- 2012).
SEMI has released its China LED Fab Industry Report, summarising China’s rapidly growing LED industry. It discusses .capital and equipment spending, fab capacity and sales rankings of Chinese LED manufacturers.
Subsidies for China fab projects are included, along with new LED fab projects, names of China’s sapphire wafer suppliers, and company profiles of China’s top LED manufacturers.
China has developed a government support infrastructure for LED manufacturing and consumption. China is the world’s leading consumer of solid state lighting and the leading producer of LCD TVs (the main driver for HB-LED consumption).
LED production investments have rapidly escalated in China. Last year, SEMI recorded explosive growth on equipment spending from LED fabs globally, jumping from $606 million in 2009 to $1.78 billion in 2010. GaN epitaxial wafer production capacity in China will grow over 300% in just 2 years (2010-2012), hitting 1,282,000 wafers per month (2” equivalents).
Regional equipment spending shows an aggressive investment trend from China. Propped up by subsidy programs from local governments in China, new LED fab projects have blossomed in the past two years in China. China now accounts for almost 50% of overall equipment spending.
MOCVD tool installations are growing from a cumulative total 323 tools in 2010 to over 1000 tools by the end 2012. 10 new sapphire substrate projects are beginning in China to catch up with the production rise and non-Chinese supplier bases.
SEMI says LEDs could go from a $10 billion (2010) industry to over $100 billion worldwide by 2020.
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www.compoundsemiconductor.net August/September 2011
The China LED Fab Industry Report covers LED wafer and sapphire substrate manufacturing projects, government incentive programs, MOCVD tool forecasts, and emerging China-based manufacturing. The report is prepared by SEMI China-based market analysts and is based on the SEMI Opto/LED Fab Watch and Forecast service that monitors LED capital spending at over 160 fabs worldwide, and other sources.
Bridgelux takes its silicon- based LEDs to new highs
The performance gap between conventional LEDs and those built on silicon is closing fast thanks to the efforts of Bridgelux
Bridgelux, the trailblazer of white LEDs grown on 200 mm silicon, has recently made tremendous progress in improving device efficacy.
1.5 mm by 1.5 mm cool-white LEDs produced in the labs of the Californian outfit can now deliver 160 lm/W at 350 mA, a gain of 25 lm/W compared to the company’s best devices reported this March. What’s more, warm-white LEDs of the same size show an even bigger improvement at the same drive current – efficacy is now 125 lm/W, compared to 85 lm/W five months ago.
“The performance levels that we have announced are the highest lumen-per-Watt values yet published for GaN-on-silicon, and rival the best commercial LEDs grown on sapphire or silicon carbide,” claims Steve Lester, chief technology officer for Bridgelux.
Although the company is not giving much away regarding the secrets of its recent success, vice-president of marketing, Jason Posselt, told
Compoundsemiconductor.net that improvements in the epitaxial process have helped to deliver gains in efficacy.
“We are no longer taking a sapphire recipe and trying to figure out how to grow it on silicon,” says Posselt. “We’re optimising for the silicon wafer process.” Some slight changes to packaging also led to efficacy improvements.
Thanks in part to these efforts, that latest blue LEDs - which are the foundation of making white emitters
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