LED Cathedral

Ghent Light Festival held in Belgium, displayed for four days (from January 26 to January 29, 2012), as a cathedral and made from no less than 55.000 LED lights. According to the official website of the festival, “Belfortstraat (Belfort Street) was the domain of the Luminarie Cagna. A giant colonnade made of wood and hundreds LEDs, with arches that remind one of Romanesque and Renaissance architecture. This immense work of art with 55,000 LED lights consumes only 20Kwatt / h of electricity.
HK Snob

Typical 3 W LED bulb Construction

LED 3 Watts Light bulb

This is a typical more les standard LED light bulb configuration from YuanShuai ShenZhen,

6 pieces 7025 LEDs mounted on an Aluminum substrate screwed onto the aluminum heat sink for hest dissipation, a simple Switching board that converted 220V AC into 3.75 V DV to drive the 7 LEDs.

A Light reflector screw in on to the heat sink,

This is pretty standard set-up for making the LED, and we know that we can actually buy the parts to make our own assembly.

How is the price, well you may not believe it, we bought it in a Recent Shenzhen LED Show with just RMB3.00. that is about HKD$3.6 or USD$0.5!!

I am sure this is juts a promotional price for this Chinese LED supplier. But that is the trend of the LED ASL going down to USD$5 for a 3W LED light blub.

That is the price for norm for a good reliable material, and reliable driving circuitry for a 3W LED package.

HK Snob

OutLook For China LED market 2012-2014

Outlook for LED market and LED manufacturing

China MOCVD Market slow down

The China MOCVD tool market grew rapidly and reached a peak in 2011, MOCVD installation ranked as first in the world with a half of the total quantity shipped in the world.

Oversupply is one of major reason of slow down on the MOCVD, utilization rate as low as 20% were happened especially on some “new comers”. In 2012, China's new MOCVD installation is expected to be about 40% of 2011 level. MOCVD market is expected to be at a low level till 2014.

China LED Fab,

China LED industry experienced a rapid increase in 4 years and — had a total of about 80 LED epitaxial and chip fabs at the end of 2011. However price Erosion is the major bad news in maintaining the business. Starting in 2012, the number of China fabs could decline due to either loss or unable to provide deliverables to the private or state investors. Estimated 40% of China LED fabs will suspend operations or be acquired by 2015. Only companies has strong technology foothold, large scale productivity and patented technology will remain unaffected. 

I have talked to some of the key players in China and their lines they bought in 2010 is still running with 30-40% capacity, which is still under my earlier estimation of 50-60% for September 2012. This is a bad sign that LED is not growing fast as we expected in 2011.

Reasons are:

1. Price Erosion
2. Technology improvement with higher efficacy of LED, less LED is required for same light intensity before.
3. End application design improvement including light guide effiency thus reducing the number of LEDs
4. LED assembly is continuing fine tuning the manufacturing process and manufacturing equipment UPH maximizing.
5. Low cost low end assembly equipment is dumping into the China market
6. Domino effect of end users are feeling nervous of using LED quality LED made by low end Assembly equipment due to poor reliability.
7. Boosting too much on the LED Life time, but due to poor driver circuit design and poor wire bonding process or the fall out Chip in use, the LED dies much earlier than it was Claimed to be.

Nowadays, everyone knows the LED assembly process, and there are so many Fabs making LED, the only way to earn money is having higher powerful LED assembly technology and good supply of high power chips

Or LED will be like the case for TV… Panasonic, Sharp does not want to make TV anymore as they lose market to Korean and Chinese Makers…Sharp is going to selling their LCD panel factory to Foxconn.

Fro, what I see and guess LED will not be blooming until there are either, or and…

1. New international LED makers to have a commercial standard for LED luminaries mounting, shape, reliability and life time guarantee
2. New Driver for a national standard for LED quality.
3. UN or DOE approval LED category on Chip efficacy, assembly, luminaries, or finished LED products be rated with Energy Star.
4. Hi End Equipment Suppliers makes super-in-line assembly for Display, VLED and K2 types LED as Total solution provider. Thus to ensure good quality LED is made under automated process control.

 End

ASM Pacific Technology delivers 100x300mm leadframe packaging set up

ASM Pacific Technology delivers 100 x 300mm eadframe packaging set up
July 26, 2012 -- Semiconductor packaging and assembly equipment supplier ASM Pacific
Technology Limited noted in its H1 2012 results a record level of orders for leadframes in Q2. It also delivered what it calls the largest leadframe packaging set up to date.
â€oe Overall, the market demand continues to be driven by portable electronic products such as smart phones and tablet computers,― said Lee Wai Kwong, CEO, ASM.
Leadframes benefited from improved market demand, lower raw material prices, and operational improvements, ASM reported. The company also moved its leadframe packaging users to floating prices.
ASM delivered a leadframe packaging set up -- equipment and leadframes -- for 100 x 300mm leadframes to a packaging customer in Q2. This is currently the widest leadframe on the market and therefore cost-efficient, ASM said. The equipment had to overcome specific production and packaging challenges with this leadframe matrix size.
Also read: Contemporary semiconductor packaging experts open up on cost, covering Leroy A. Christie, ASM Pacific, presenting on large leadframe matrices at SEMICON West.
ASM Pacific Technology Limited provides semiconductor assembly and packaging equipment, as well as SMT equipment. Learn more at www.asmpacific.com.
Visit the Advanced Packaging Channel of Solid State Technology, and sign up for our Advanced Packaging News e-newsletter!
To access this Article, go to:http://www.electroiq.com/content/eiq-2/en/articles/ap/2012/07/asm-pacific-technology-delivers-
100-x-300mm-leadframe-packaging-set-up.html
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HK Snob

Epoxy Bond Line thickness control

Epoxy is widely been used as a material to hold the die securely onto the substrate, lead frame which act as means to dissipate the heat energy generate by the chip operations. After Die attach, we need to cure the epoxy under certain temperature and time.

There is a need to control the bond line as there is significant performance contributed by the BLT (Bond Line Thickness)

Die attach media

Epoxy, Silver epoxy, non-conductive adhesive, soft solder, DAF (die attach film),

CTE

Different material has different rate of expansion on different temperature.

Copper has a much faster expansion than silicon. And matching of the die and substrate is necessary but not possible to be perfect unless same material is being used. As LED is afraid of heat, 5 degrees lower the LED junction teamperature will able to prolong 5,000 hours of the LED life time, hence Semileds has made copper layer on bottom of the high power LEDs at wafer fab. Stage which can be used on copper substrates for perfect conduction of heat.

Whereas for IC DA process consideration, an optimum of the die material and substrate by means of different type of DA media and the thickness of it is needed.

Effect of the Bond line thickness

Too thick the epoxy will reduce the effect heat conduction from the chip to the substrate. Too thin of the epoxy layer will reduce the cushion effect, in other words, the die and substrates will expand in different rate that the epoxy layer could not absorb the deformation or warp page. Or, under high temperate there is a high chance for the chip to be fully detached and or partly detached from the substrates, thus create hot spots thus the heat dissipation rate is reduced, the operation temperature of the chip will increase and hence shorten life of the chip or even cause premature failure.

Optimum thickness of epoxy is needed for optimizing the bond strength, heat dissipation and to ensure long life time of the package.

More powerful chip is made than before, an integrated circuit of 1mmx1mm contained 1,000 transistors in the 70s' same size of chip nowadays contain 5 millions. However the design of the package material has not much different, nor improvement at all.

Automotive requirement

Automotive are the toughest test site for an integrated circuit. The temperature of Sahara is 80 degree C in day and -20 at night, the car and their IC package will experience thousand s of temperature cycles every year The requirement for a bond line control as one of the key requirement. Twenty years ago the bond line for general purpose IC package of small power is considered loose. Partly because the available die attach machine was not able to provide such kind of accuracy. Recently, tendency of controlling the BLT is tighter and tighter from CpK 1.33 then 1,67 and even 2.0.

Now there is almost a standard demand for a tight control on the epoxy thickness. Typically SOIC, PBGA or TSSOP, the equipment qualification list has a BLT control of min. 0.4 mil and not more than 0.8 mil with capability index of 2.0 or more. A standard deviation of more than 6 micron will fail to meet this requirement. 

Epoxy

Epoxy has an imminent effect on the stability of the BLT, as if Epoxy is expired, not properly thawed, or very short pot life, that will contribution to inconsistency of epoxy dispensed, which in turn will after the volume of the epoxy. Machine wise, a highly consistent epoxy dispensing amount with continuous compensation over the hours is needed.

Some epoxy is very viscous and the die can be used up after the die is left on the epoxy, on the other hand for low viscosity epoxy, it is hard to make a very high BLT as it tends to smear after die is placed on the substrate

Geometry of the Epoxy dispensing nozzle

The factors affecting the performance of a dispensing needle has been investigated.  It is found that the geometry of the needle (especially the length) has substantial impact on the characteristic of needles performance. In general, longer needles have a better capability to resist the dripping effect when handling a less viscous epoxy (say 3,500cps).  However, a longer needle needs higher driving-pressure in order to dispense the same amount of epoxy when compared to a short needle. Besides, a short needle usually can give a faster response when compared to a long needle. From the past analysis, it seems that the tailing effect is not related to the length of the needle, but actually it is related to the wetting-surface-area on the needle and contact angle of epoxy.

Challenge on Material Variation

Current die bonder does not able to tell the variation of substrates thickness and die thickness; to achieve the BLT of CpK 2.0 is more or less like we throw a dart on the red target with folded eyes.

Challenge on Set-up

The Pick level, ejector level, bond level has interactive effect on the BLT, die tilting and placement (Die Rotation), hence it is a sweating job to achieve certain BLT process window, plus measurement o the bonded units for confirmation, it is really tedious to pass any production requirement on BLT at CpK 2.0

What can we do?

To ensure the high repeatability of machine in maintaining high capability index on epoxy... there is a need to have some means to detect the substrate thickness and at same time die thickness.

Methodology

In order to have good control over the BLT, the substrates thickness and die thickness has to be known in advance before the attach.

Bond head accuracy

Linear Z travel is needed, soft landing bond Z is an added advantage.

However the bonding Z motion should be precise at micron level, or least there is a high repeatability z motion.  

UPH concern

Likely the machine UPH should have been affected in performing the accurate BLT.

All new Die attach equipment should have this precise Control on BLT.

HK Snob

World most prominent partner for your IC, Discrete and LED assembly

ASM has produced some of the semiconductor assembly equipment that has made an impact to the world semiconductor industry since 1975.

The Camera module in-line system, about 54% of world CMOS Sensor on your camera is in fact assembled by the ASM solution. Likely your hand phone cameras module was once assembled by ASM equipment. As the larger the number of Pixel on the CMOS sensor, the smaller the foreign particle down to size of 1.5 microns that the CMOS sensor can not tolerate this contamination. As ASM is the only company that has in-line -solution from Die bonding, curing wire bonder, inspection and lens holder attached line with full clean cell solution to prevent FM contamination. Top 3 World EMS company is in fact the users.

Numerous ASIC, SOIC, BGA and QFN was in fact made by ASM auto-line which has only 2 operators to take care one line each produces 8,000 to 10,000 assembled chip with dies at the input and fully functionable IC chips were made at the output… the whole process has undergone Die bonding, curing, wire bonding, inspection, molding, saw singulation, test auto inspection and taping…The turn around time from a new production wafer to finished assembly chip is possible to be made within 30 hours. Only Auto-line can do that.

Industry first auto molding system that can deliver 170Tons Clamping tonnage at the same time handle world largest 100MMx 300MM leadframe size… a few machine are being running in qualification mode in one of the World Largest Subcon houses , with this Hi Density Lead frame solution, the cost of the leadframe, encapsulation compounds could be saved, and that is becoming additive to your profit… the Only way to move into volume production devices like SOIC, TSSOP and in future QFN…

Dual head Flip Chip bonder, dual Dispenser 12 inch Die bonder, and precision die bonder for stack die on 12” wafers. Dual head copper wire bonders for the QFN application, that one US IDM is using the Copper wire bonder for assembling more than 6 million ICs a day.

Not less than 50% of world hi brightness LED is likely using ASM LED equipment for assembly production. Well, the low power LED below 0.2W is different area as there are more choice of equipment from Taiwan, China, and other makers at much lower cost besides ASM. Still ASM is the leader in the LED assembly as they have 25 years experience in designing, manufacturing the LED bonding, testing and assembling equipment.

If you are going Copper from Gold wire, if you are running SOIC, TSSOP with low profit margin, if you are building CIS Camera Module for no matter Apple and Samsung. If you are not using ASM equipment,, it may be good for you to contact ASM for more technical information. This may be a way for helping you to increase your profit margin. Today’s economy situation is dull, and yet this might be the best time for you to Invest…as you may get a better terms of delivery, price...support.

HK Snob

HK International Airport Luggage Claim area goes LED

From What I saw the HKIA luggage claim area,  the ceiling lighting now all LED.

There are 13 luggage lane 21 and each lane has about 21 x4 tubes.

Each tube may contain 200 LED with 0.15 watts so the power rating of one tubes is 30Wattes.

21 groups x30 Watt X4 sets X13 luggage lanes equal to 32,760Watts

For those 1,092 tubes

32,760 watts x18 hours x 356 days = 209 Mwatts

1 watts is 1.1 HKD.  That is an equivalent of HKD$230,918.00 for electric fee a year.

If that is CCFL of 60Watts, that will be $430.918.00

The cost of the LED Tubes is about HKD$350, x 1092= $382,200

So it does need only two years to recover the cost of the LED tubes installation.

Do not forget the life time of the LED lighting is 40,000 hours. That saves a lot of cost for the replacement. If using CCFL tubes, its will have to replace the tubes almost every one here and there… as the life time of the CCFL tube is 12,000 hours only.

So in short, this is a good investment for using LED in Airport, and this save a lot of electricity, replacement cost, and tons of CO2 emission a year.

The above figure is purely my estimation as I can not go into detail to see the construction of the LED tubes a it was hanging 20 metres high!

HKIA Snob

LED Market Trend 2010- 2014

Overheat 2010 Market

After the crazy pursuit of LED build in 2010 and oversupply in 2011 that suppressed 2012 fabrication, LED makers would have seen a more or less leveling out of supply and demand. Demand is seeing drifting from LCD-backlit LEDs to LED for lighting.

2011 2012 Oversupply

In 2011, due to a combination of slower sales growth in LED-backlit LCD TV and slower growth in chips-per-backlight, much improved LED lighting efficiency and light guide efficiency. The demand for LEDs in LCD backlights did grow merely slightly, as tablet PCs goes larger and stronger penetration growth in LCD monitors*1 made up for the slash in demand from LED TV. Growth was also modest in lighting segment, as the market penetration of LEDs only grew from 1.4% in 2010 to 1.9% in 2011.

New Players

Many new LED suppliers have entered this market with rapid ramping up production. Chip size of 500um² supply grew by 41% in 2011, compared to only 10% growth in demand. This resulted in another significant oversupply. At Same time the LED Chip MOCVD installations were either on halt or delayed.

Further ASP Drops in 2012

LEDs have been in surplus since the Oct of 2010, setting the stage for a decrease in LED prices and profit margin drastically. As a result, there has been almost no new investment in LED applications, nor any significant capacity increases in 2012. This is resulting in a 50% drop of the supply/demand glut from 2011 to 2012.

LED 2013

We speculate that Demand from LCD backlights will continue to dominate LED demand until end 2012, when it will reach its peak. Due to the growing popularity of advance, low-cost direct-LED backlight designs for LCD TVs, the demand for LEDs in backlights will continue to increase through 2013. While the number of LED packages per LCD backlight unit will be at peak in 2012, continuing to growth in penetration of LED backlights will lead to a small insignificant growth in 2013.

LED 2014

By 2014, lighting by LED will become the major demand for LEDs as price reductions will be really attractive to most of the end users and at the same time efficacy improvements drive for an increased adoption.

The penetration of LEDs in lighting will reach 17% in 2015, according to LED Market Forecast Report.

Lighting LED situation Highlight

Spotlights and LED street lights will gain higher penetration in lighting segment due to government incentive programs which acted as the major LED driver as in China 2009. The 12th Five-Year Plan in China and the LED subsidy policy in Taiwan, as well as continued growth in commercial applications. LED bulbs and fluorescent tubes are growing in Japan due to government incentive programs and energy-saving consciousness, especially following the March 2011 earthquake.

Pricing strategy

Philips recently made an aggressive offer of less 50% for the new 10W LED light bulb for a low price as $25, and that is a big impact for the market, and I believe other major key players will observe and adjust the price at the same time.

Sapphire Substrate Supply

Rubicon’s major income on 2H 11 was coming from 6” Sapphire substrates, due to the inventory of LED substrates is high. The 1H 12 Sales will not be promising for 6” Substrates. However we could see tat SoS (silicon on sapphire) market grows 2 times from 1Q12 as comparing with Q4 11. We will see that 2H 12 Would enjoy certain growth on this 6” SoS substrates.

Rubicon will try to maintain competitive price, and they might reduce cost 20% in 2013 to maintain the profit level.

China RMB26.5bn Home appliance Subsidies

China announces new home appliance subsidies; potential for LCD TV market to expand; China's State Council announced a RMB26.5bn subsidy program for household electrical appliances on 17 May.

The program will be in effect for one year, and target air conditioners, flat-panel television sets, refrigerators, washing machines and water heaters. The program also earmarks RMB2.2bn for LED and other energy-saving light bulbs and LEDs.’

LED Equipment demand

If we assume the government is planning on subsidizing ~50% of LED bulb cost, assuming an average pre-subsidy price per LED bulb of ~$7, and assuming China accounts for ~20% of the worldwide bulb market, this subsidy would translate to ~104M bulbs or ~5% of China's bulb demand.

Summary

Like what we had mentioned that in the previous report, the Q4 2012 will be the turning point for the LED to move up from valley into a more or less higher growth rate after 2 years of quietness. Main driver is LED lighting. Many of the LEDMaker equipment utilization is still running at 60-75% range, with the new lighting bulb demand and China Incentive to support LED. We will see some bigger demand of LED manufacturing equipment by Oct. 2012. LED market will keep on growing 2013-2014

HK Snob

Philips 10-Watt LED light bulb finally has a cost breakthrough to impact the World Lighting Market

Dutch electronics giant Philips scheduled the release of their new 10 Watt LED light bulb, were to replace each and every 60-watt incandescent bulb. Philips indicates will last for approximate 20-years (from Philips’ 30,000 Hours life time, and 4 hours a day operation) to coincide with Earth Day.

The 10-watt LED (light-emitting diode) bulb had won the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize”!

According to Philips’ North America executive Ed Crawford, the LED emits 940 Lumens, and it is 83% percent more energy efficient than the standard 60-watt incandescent.

Currently, the 20 year bulbs are priced at $50, however, Philips said that it was in the process of planning discounts which would potentially bring the cost down to as little as $25.

Philips LED light bulbs contains LumiLEDs Rebel LEDs which has a Flip Chip process build on a 3mm x 3mm ceramic substrate, An unique LED assembly built in Penang Lumileds Factory.

Price would be the key concern for public acceptance, Philips offer a price of US$25 would be a significant drive for the majority people to consider an early switch from Incandescent lamp or AFL to LED.

This has an significant effect

1. Philips should have an estimation on the world demand of this LED bulb and what if the demand is huge, can their Lumileds LED modules supply be enough to meet the need?
2. What is the response of other major LED bulb makers Osram, Sharp, Toshiba,  Cree? Will they reduce the price and go into direct competition with Philips?

Or they will stay calm and watch out for a while to see the public response first.

3.  Though Philips LED bulb is one of the best in terms of Thermal performance, Reliability and Chip efficacy, will the Top Taiwanese, Korean, and China LED bulb makers come up with a more severe price reduction to maintain the market share?
4. Will there be another heat of LED demand after LED market quiet for 2 years and a half since Oct 2009?

I think there will be some impact on LED if Philips lower down price of LED bulb significantly, actually I wonder if they have enough capacity to meet the demand.

Price is King and I Hope this will create the interests of most of the people to take an earlier move to change the low efficient incandescent lamp into LED.

Enjoy a green World of Lighting. And start saving energy to save the World by Today for Tomorrow..

HK Snob

LED for making your skin younger

Research conducted in the 70’s aboard NASA Space flihts revealed that human cell metabolism is revitalized by Visible light. Similar to the photosynthesis process in plant cells, human cells also require exposure to light to stimulate the production of collagen and elastin, the building block for human skin.

Talika Light Duo 590/525 is an innovative packaging especially designed by Talika, which combines the light590® and the light525® actions to offer a global anti aging treatment. One side emits the light 590 (590 nm light wave) for anti-wrinkle; another side emits the light 525 (525 nm light wave) for brightening skin.

Talika Light Duo, Anti-Aging & Skin Brightening 2in1
The package include one Light Duo, USB Cable, Universal Voltage Adaptor with round and flat plug, self cleaning protective pouch, manual.

Light 590® emits only thevery best of the light, guaranteeing truly remarkable anti-ageing results. Light 590® is effective from the very first month on 100% of volunteers in the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, France.

After the success of Light 590®, TALIKA laboratories is proud to present its new revolution in skincare treatment. They are selling on board Philippine Airlines at USD$353.00

But they are consisting of finely graded LED lamps with the same wave length.

Consequences of aging are visible through Ages spots and skin is less radiant. Talika Light 525® acts directly on these two aspects: Light 525® helps to eliminate the appearance of age spots. With less apparent age spots, skin is visibly more radiant and looks younger.

Light 525® Skin Lightener only emits the best of the light, guaranteeing truly remarkable brightening results.

Features

Innovative Light Technology in Cosmetics from France
Anti-Wrinkle through Light
Anti-Dark Spot through Light
Dermatology tested
One year warranty
Use Directions

HK Snob

2012 HBLED and LED Lighting Market

2012 Overall World Wide HBLED revenue is estimated to be US$10.B, with net growth of 13% comparing with 2011.
Due to softened demand, th installation for LED MOCVD will be reduced to 200 sets only in 2012. The 1H 12 LED business atmosphere is relative much weaker comparing with the 1H 10.
If there is MOCVD installation will be in Q2 or even end Q3.
Japan, Korea and Taiwan takes up 60% of the overall HBLED market, this indicates the major business base is in Asia. China will continue to grow with 30%. Installation of those Q1 11 ordered LED MOCVD will be postponed to 2H 12.
Those China LED are majority low to mid Power only, very small percentage of them are HBLED.
2012 HBLED distribution will be approximately 34% for Large TopLED for BLU, 18% for Lighting. We estimated that the percentage for large size TopLED for BLU and Lighting wilt be about 30% and 33% respectively in 2013.
Lighting LED
Light Intensity equivalent to 60W incandescent light bulb with 810lm are selling at USD$40 each, however the sweet spot price of such LED is different in terms of location, such as US$25 in Japan, US$14 for Europe and US$7 for other new developing countries. CFL light bulb is still the major choice in 2012, LED lighting penetration rate is about 5.4%, comparing with 3.3% in 2011 and 0.3 % in 2010. There will have about 1B LED light bulbs leaving the factory entering your household area in 2012.
Overall speaking, developed countries are pushing for higher LED lighting penetration, Japan is the leader in promoting LED lighting. In this islands, by 2015, they will have 50% LED lighting. US DOE is planning to push up LED efficacy to 200lm/W by Technology in 2014 with target price of US$2 per 1Klm.
We estimated that World Wide Lighting LED penetration rate will achieve 11% in 2012, and will rise up to 26% in 2014, with revenue of US$17B go up to $42B in 2014.
HK Snob

Market Situation of LED 2012-2013

Market Situation
The U.S. Japan and EU has taken the lead in proving the viability
Of LED technology for outdoor lighting. With major players Osram, Cree, Nichia, Lumileds, Seoul Semi, Everlight, Soraa… etc.
Despite more installations, China has become the first casualty of quality issues which has resulted in the decrease of the Chinese market for outdoor lighting in 2011.
In North America, quality consciousness along with the efforts of DOE and other key organizations has propelled the transitioning to LEDs.
The 20% -25% drop in price of LED packages has proved to be a boon for quality luminaire manufacturers.
Average price of outdoor luminaries has continued to decline in 2011 and this trend is likely to accelerate in 2012.
This decline in price will help post-pilot and post-stimulus programs.
While the CAGR for unit growth is forecast to grow 26% from 2010 to 2015, the CAGR for revenues will be only 11% as downward pressure on price Continues.
Considering that LEDs compete against other efficient technologies, the viability of LED
applications in outdoor applications will be a test for LED technology.
LED MOCVD Installation Korea and Taiwan dominated in number of MOCVD installation in 2009. China came up as leading installation region and became major site for installation since Q4’10. China is expected to continue to be the dominant MOCVD market until Q3’ 12 But China will shrink from three third down to 60% in Q4’12 when Taiwan and Korea rebounds. Largest MOCVD Installation Base Epistar is expected to be #1 MOCVD customer in 2012, followed by San’an, GCL Opto, SemiLEDs and Genesis Photonics onpur. Such Rapid expansion in 2010-2011lead to an overcapacity that we think it will be fully utilized only by mid 2012.
LED lighting Status Total LED lighting demand in Q2 & Q3 2011 keeps increasing. The Demand is 3.2 billion units for Q2’11. And the demand is predicted to be 3.4 billion units for Q3’11. The Growth is not seen as significant as we expected beginning of the year. Whereas Q1 2012 would be cary on increasing on demand on LED on lighting sector.
LED lighting Players Due to Government encouragement for going greener energy, limited resources of these islands, as well the March 11 Quake issue that rocked the Nuclear Power plant, alerted Japanese Citizen and Government on using more efficient Source of Light. Japan, as biggest market for LED bulbs in 2011, with market share of 63 %, Japan will remain the biggest lighting market until 2014. Price of LED replacement Bulb keeps on dropping. The downtrend of LED caused the LED light bulb price to drop from USD83 /Klm in 2010 to USD 52 / Klm at this stage. However, the initial cost of the LED light bulbs is still much higher than that of general light bulbs, so it is still too soon to say whether LED light can fully replace the latter. ASP of Japan LED light bulb was Yen 3000 for 5W in Q1 2010, and dropped to Yen 2,000 in Q1 2011, the speed of ASP drops slow down. That indicates that the adoption is slow down in Q2 2011. LED bulb growth in China, North America and Europe will be higher than other areas from 2011 to 2014 China - biggest market for LED street lights in 2011, but due to China government policies. With market share of 55 %, but China will slightly decline to 50 % in 2013.
Economic Situation
2012 brings yet another year to all of us, and once again the industry is bouncing back after a challenging 2011. We welcome a fresh optimistic outlook as perceived by semiconductor industry analysts at large, both domestically and abroad. The sovereign debt and economic worries of the European Union has brought a torrent of dreadful news, yet the industrial indicators within technology and specifically the semiconductor segment reflect increasing stability. LED side would also be affected as simply once rich country was down to a level that people will scary for the investment for future. Energy Saving program is a long term energy harvest program, this will be only be high lighted when the country is economical stable, where as in such World Wide economy instability period. National policy working on LED energy will not be the top of the Do-list on the presidency desk anymore even China.
Package LED market Forecast In 2010-2011, rapid expansion of MOCVD in China Initiated in Korea and Taiwan since 2009. Cause capacity utilization rate of <50% for certain tools by mid 2012. It will take 12-18 months to absorb this overcapacity, and that causes a short down cycle The down cycle will extend through mid 2013! Some consolidations will bring the industry back to more usual utilization rates of at least 80%, before any capex initiation for next new investment including Manufacturing Equipment such as MOCVD, Die Sorter, Die bonder, wire bonder, tester, package sorter and Taping Machines.
Equipment Forecast for LED lighting If adoption of LED for SSL happens faster than initially envisioned, it would lead to higher equipment investment levels. Excess capacity installed in 2010-2011 is absorbed much more quickly than expected. The Equipment market will bounce back significantly in Q1 2013 to respond to accelerated demand for general lighting.
Why LED is not moving into our house?
What are reason LED market will not fly out as we forecast
1, Cost of the LED bulb is still high, not until that price is 2X-3X or less of CFL, there will be not having huge demand on the light LED
2. Pychronogical effect
In lighting LED users are mainly people who really care about energy harvest , global warming and from Middle class people. The rich will never care about how much they can save the electrically, they will continue to use CFL or even incandescent lamp.
The Poor has to fill up their stomach instead of going for LED, forget it!
Only Middle class people, educated and people caring about the Motherhood of Earth will go for LED.
Imagine in your company, how many managers are using 100% LED as lighting in his house, less than 1 or 2 persons
Government promotion and support, HK is slow in these respects and HK in fact is the last country employing LED in Traffic light, after China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand… This is a disgrace as a HK Government in protecting the Earth.
China Investment
Wen jiaBao had announced that the scale of incentive financial support to the industry and infrastucture expansion will not be as strong as he did in Q1 2009. That is another way to control the fly up of inflation, so Energy saving sector will not enjoy much as they did in 2009. This is another cause of the LED market to grow as in 2010.
Difficult year for small LED Assembly company
Look at the Equipment idle rate of the big shot Player, if their utilization rate is less than 80%, there will be less drive for next equipment purchase trigger, and they will convert back the subcon business to fill up the idle equipment, Smaller LED company will face will difficulty due to less bargaining power higher material cost and the impact of higher China Labour cost. I believe there will be at least 15% of the Small – medium China LED company will down size in their scale in production and start to control the cost, or go for merging in order to struggle for Survival, especial those “me-too” product company.
When next LED Market growth
1.Not until average LED manufacturing equipment utilization reach an average of 80% or more.
World Economic stability is an factor for people to invest on energy saving device like LED
2. Inflation to be GOING down.
3. Government Promotion on the use of better environment friendly LED
4. Government banning sales on 40W of below Incandescent lamps.
Better Efficacy and higher technology breakthrough to deliver low cost LED as commercial availability.
5. LED is really attain a price of no more than 3X of CFL lamp with equal
Lighting intensity.
6. LED bulb is really can last for 40,000 hours?
Personally, I am not optimistic for LED lighting will have a huge demand in 2012 as we forecasted in 2010. Optimistically, we are looking at 2013 Q1. provided the world economic is keen and sound, with all the sovereign debt and economic worries of the European Union have been removed.
HK Snob