Fiber Optics

It was not until 2002, China has imported all its chips LED. The country now meets half the demand with domestic production and made the transition from incandescent lighting to semiconductors. Stevenson picks Richard with the progress.

The Chinese government is determined to create a domestic industry for LED use all of their lighting needs. The countries currently uses 10-12% of domestic energy for light, which corresponds to 300 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year. But officials want to reduce these numbers significantly by replacing conventional, inefficient forms of LED lighting.

To support the development of a national industry LED, China is investing heavily in technology. During the current Five-Year Plan, which extends from 2006 to 2010, the country plow RMB350 m (€ 36.7 meters) in the LED by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

This investment is beginning to bear fruit. Wu Ling, Director of the China Solid State Lighting Program Office, LED revenue sixfold in five years, effective device is limited to 100 lm / W and chips are faster with a wide variety of applications.

In terms of domestic revenue, revenue from CNY 10 m in 2003, has risen to over RMB65 m last year. LED applications represent the largest share in 2008 (RMB45 billion euros), each with the packaging and manufacturing of chips, fillet RMB18.5 billion and RMB1.9 billion €.

The structure of a supply chain

Ling said that these revenues between 3000 Enterprise: 2000 companies participate jointly with a focus on applications, 1000 LED packaging specialists and more than 50 companies in the production of LED chips. Many are in one of seven national parks is leading the industry in Dalian, Shijiazhuang (Hebei Province), Yangzhou, Shanghai, Xiamen, Shenzhen, Nanchang, but Ling said that other cities also have the competitiveness in all sectors of the industrial chain.

LED products imported and used in a variety of applications today. Ling said the equity market indicators were employed in 2008: 28%, architectural lighting, signage, and displays 27%, 22% of mobile devices, the light of 7%, 6% signals, 2 % in the car and 8% in other categories.

One area in China has seen a massive improvement in recent years, LED chip manufacturing. Ling said all its chips have been imported in 2002, but domestic production met 5% of chip demand in 2003 and continues to increase year after year – in 2008 the figure was 49% . Until then, led the chip production to 46 billion LED units, which had increased mainly the GaN and AlGaInP-based devices (Table 1).

Although the industry has led China to move from strength to strength, product performance, high brightness premium is still lagging behind the leading manufacturers in the world. “Chinese companies are small and a difference in the quality of products from manufacturers overseas,” admitted Ling She noted that most domestic LED chips used in the mid to low-end applications and the country imports 85% of its Power chips.

However, the increase in power efficiency are quick smart. In 2005, made the best white LEDs packaged in China provided 30 to 35 lm / W @ 350 mA with chips imported electricity, and only 20-25 lm / W with an equivalent in national currency. Now, packets with internal LED chips reached 80-90 lm / W at 350 mA.

Network thinking

Progress was not exactly inspired by the current five-year plan has identified 33% of the funds advanced R & D (and the rest 29% were for the most important applications, the support of 29% for LED industry and 9% for the financing together to improve efforts to establish standards and test methods). The funding of the National Solid State Lighting is also helping to boost the efficiency LEDs. “His work is 130 lm / W for R & D-Chip to 2010 for the general and the achievement of 100 lm / W in mass production,” said Ling

In the case of high-power LEDs are available for domestic start, for lighting applications to semiconductors that have just begun to penetrate that arise. “There are already some projects in the windows of roads, parking lots, shopping centers, schools and metro systems,” Ling said, “With the development of energy conservation and expanding domestic demand, lighting LED is an important historical period for future development. ”

As LEDs improve domestic services, increases the threat of lawsuits by manufacturers based LEDs. However, it seems that the Chinese LED industry takes the issue of patents and intellectual property seriously. Chip makers say the Chinese and U. S. Store patents and Ling it seeks, in some cases, international patents may be obtained through mergers with foreign companies. The country conducts research in several universities and organizations LED Ling tries to ensure that all openings will be implemented by manufacturers in the intellectual property rights for LED chips.

There is no doubt that China is becoming a major force in global LED industry, with technology, hunting is the leading chipmakers. This should be good news, as competition from China to reduce prices and more convincingly to the semiconductor lighting.