China's LED high-tech industry has entered the world LED market stage

Business opportunities, infinite waves, sand

China's LED industry started in the 1970s, but its long-term development has been slow due to factors such as technology and price. From June 17, 2003, China's Ministry of Science and Technology took the lead in setting up the “National Semiconductor Lighting Project Coordination Leading Group” across departments, regions and industries. This means that China's LED industry has entered a period of rapid development, covering epitaxy, chips, and packaging. And upstream and downstream industrial chains such as application products.

At that time, many companies seemed to smell the potential business opportunities of LED lighting. With the good future of LED lighting, they began to invest. Because LED lighting technology is not mature enough, products are still expensive. At the same time, because the standard lags behind the industrial development, many manufacturers have introduced different products with poor performance and poor interchangeability, which seriously lacks versatility and compatibility. These have significantly increased the difficulty of the popularity of LED lighting. Most of the companies that broke into the LED industry from 2003 to 2007 suffered from the long night before dawn.

After 2007, with the introduction of a series of national incentive policies, the industry outlook is beginning to dawn. In October 2011, the National Development and Reform Commission officially issued the government announcement and roadmap for the elimination of incandescent lamps in China, and set the transition period from October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012. According to the road map, by 2016, the market sales of incandescent lamps of various wattages will be completely banned.

The special plan for the development of semiconductor lighting technology in the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” clearly stated that as the urbanization process accelerates, the consumption of lighting products will further increase, and the pressure of energy consumption needs to be alleviated by the application of energy-saving products on a scale, and represented by LED. Semiconductor lighting is an effective solution.

The decorative landscape lighting market has always been the largest application market for LED lighting. In 2010, China's LED decorative landscape lighting market reached 7.35 billion yuan, an increase of 27.6%. In the future, with the support of the national priority development of energy conservation and environmental protection industry policies, LED decorative landscape lighting will continue to be the main driving force for the rapid development of LED in China. An industry statistics report issued by CCID Consulting in early 2011 predicts that by 2015, China's LED decorative landscape lighting market will reach 25 billion yuan. In addition, although China's LED indoor lighting is still in the early stage of development, the indoor lighting market is growing at a very fast rate. In 2010, China's LED indoor lighting market sales reached 110 million yuan, an increase of 57.1%.

This puts another spoonful of oil on the already hot LED industry. In 2011, the LED industry invested heavily, and the prices of related products and equipment also operated at a high level. At that time, a 150W street lamp, if using the first-line brand of optomechanical thermoelectric components, the ex-factory price of more than 5,000 yuan is normal, according to different warranty years, if you consider maintenance and after-sales and marketing costs, the final installation The contract is likely to be signed at 10,000 yuan or even higher.

MOCVD is the key equipment for the production of epitaxial wafers in the core of LED. It is also the largest single investment in the manufacturing process, and its quantity determines the scale of production capacity. To develop epitaxial chips, MOCVD must be purchased first.

For a time, MOCVD was sought after by major manufacturers as a printing machine, and it was not uncommon for equipment manufacturers to order after two years. If the equipment ordered by a company is the most advanced model at that time, the price is of course high, and the prices of other chip production and processing equipment are also suddenly increased by the sudden increase in demand, resulting in a very high factory cost. expensive.

At the same time, the LED application market is still in the incubation period, and the heavy industry promotion policy has not yet been introduced.

In 2010-2011, many companies were unable to support the high investment and low return of R&D and market development, and they withdrew from the market.

Leading the industry in advance

Although the economies of scale of the LED chip industry are very obvious, LED chip companies need to invest a large amount of inseparable investment in fixed assets, and only through mass production to lower the average cost. LED chips are highly dependent on technological competitiveness and require a large amount of ongoing research funding, which requires sufficient capital strength and revenue scale to support. In the context of energy conservation and emission reduction, and the NDRC's encouragement of the development of the semiconductor lighting industry, local governments have given modest support to LED companies, and some companies have received subsidies ranging in amount.

LED belongs to the high-tech industry. The production technology and product performance are continuously improved. It is very important for the company to continue to keep up with the technological progress of the LED industry. Once the technology is backward, it will lose the performance price advantage, lose market share or even lose money, and be even more incapable of upgrading the technical level, which will eventually form a vicious circle. In addition, the cost advantage brought by the scale of production capacity is also critical for the expansion of market size.

According to the statistics of National Semiconductor Lighting Engineering R&D and Industry Alliance, in 2012, the overall scale of China's semiconductor lighting industry reached 190.2 billion yuan. However, China's semiconductor industry is still large but not strong, core equipment relies on imports, patent technology reserves are insufficient, and high-end products are missing. In order to change this passive situation, a group of leading enterprises in the industry have worked hard. Since 2012, Sanan Optoelectronics has started to introduce world-class equipment and attract international outstanding R&D talents, which has greatly improved R&D technology and production capacity.

In the field of display screens, the balance of several manufacturers has been broken because Sanan Optoelectronics can simultaneously produce blue-green and red-yellow chips. LED color display needs to be assembled in red, green and blue colors. Therefore, it is very important to have a reasonable combination of technology. Reasonable light distribution is the main foundation of Sanan photoelectric display chip. For the customer, the one-stop procurement solution gives the product a clear competitive advantage in terms of price and service. In addition, Sanan Optoelectronics' advantages in the field of low-power white light chips are also reflected in 2012. Its cost performance not only meets the needs of the market, but also expands its market share and influence through cost advantages.

At present, global LED companies are in the midst of various technological paths and fierce competition in the market. The Chinese LED industry has cultivated a group of companies represented by Sanan Optoelectronics. They have gradually advanced their technology patents by arranging R&D and production capacity in advance. The advantage of competing with international manufacturers on the industrial scale has played an important role in the world LED market stage.