Analysis on white power LED market and application development

The development of high- power LEDs has always been aimed at lighting applications. Although it is generally believed that there is still a certain threshold for LEDs to enter the general lighting field, with the rapid development of landscape lighting, LCD backlight applications, and functional lighting applications such as mining lamps and street lamps, high-power white light LEDs still maintain a very fast development speed in terms of improving technical indicators and expanding the scale of application. It is expected that in the next few years when the development speed of the entire LED industry remains at around 15%, the development speed of high-power LEDs is expected to remain above 50%.

With the expansion of application areas and market scale, the development of high-power LEDs is also gradually changing, showing some new industrial characteristics. This article summarizes the development of high-power LEDs in recent years and makes the following incomplete analysis.

Mainstream products in the domestic market still rely on imports

There are many high-power LED brands on the domestic market, and the quality varies. Generally speaking, the products of Cree and Lumileds are still the representatives of high-end products, and Cree's products have become the mainstream of high-end products because of their complete product line and stable supply period.

Taiwan products occupy a large proportion of the mainland high-power LED market. In addition to products from major manufacturers such as Baihong, Advanced, and Edison, products from second-tier manufacturers such as Sharp and ProLight are also sold. Due to the high cost-performance of Taiwan products, they occupy the majority of high-end and mid-range products.

Many domestic enterprises can compete with the world's first-tier manufacturers in packaging technology. Their high-power LEDs using imported chips have great comparative advantages, and their prices are gradually approaching those of Taiwanese products. However, high-power LEDs using domestic chips are still mainly concentrated in the low-end market, and domestic high-power chips are still the main obstacle to the promotion of domestic high-power LEDs.

The price reduction of mainstream LED products is gradually decreasing

At present, the market price of 1W white light LED products with a luminous flux of 70-90ml produced by Cree is basically maintained at around RMB 17, and the price of Lumileds products of the same type is around RMB 19-21. The price of Taiwan's 1W white light LED (luminous flux 70-80ml) ranges from RMB 10 to 15. The price of domestic high-power LEDs using imported chip packaging is on par with Taiwan products, and the price of high-power LEDs (50-60ml) produced completely domestically is basically around RMB 5.50.

Since 2003, the application of high-power LEDs has been gradually promoted, and the price has also dropped significantly. For example, the price of a 1W white light LED was 5-6 US dollars in 2003, and it dropped to 2-3 US dollars in 2007, while the luminous efficiency increased from 30lm/W to 70-80lm/W in 2007. However, compared with the price of a 1W white light LED from 2007 to now, it still remains at 2-3 US dollars, but the luminous efficiency has increased to 80-90lm/W.

Currently, the manufacturers capable of supplying white light LED power chips and LED devices in large quantities are still limited to a few manufacturers such as Lumileds, Cree, Osram, Nicola and Taiwan's Epistar. With the rapid growth of power white light LED applications and the continuous improvement of their luminous efficacy, it is expected that the price of a single LED will not drop too much.

Cost is still the biggest obstacle for LED to replace traditional lighting

Lighting is the most attractive application field for LEDs, and the cost issue is critical for LEDs to replace traditional lighting. Although the price of LEDs is not high compared to their service life, which is twice that of traditional lamps, and can save costs such as replacement and maintenance in later use, the initial cost is often directly restricted by the purchase budget. Philips believes that the main bottleneck affecting the current application of LEDs is that the lumen cost is 10 times higher than that of traditional lighting sources. Therefore, the light output efficiency must be increased to 150 lm/W, the driving current must be increased from 700 mA to 2A, and at the same time, the cost of the die and packaging must be reduced by half before it can be widely used in the lighting field.

Lighting puts forward new demands on high-power LEDs

With the deepening of LED applications, many new requirements have been put forward for high-power LEDs. Only by meeting these new requirements can LED lighting applications truly achieve a major breakthrough.

Modularity can achieve good lumen output superposition through the interconnection of multiple LED lights (or modules) to meet the requirements of high brightness lighting. Through modular technology, multiple point light sources or LED modules can be combined in any shape to meet the lighting requirements of different fields.

Maximizing system efficiency should not simply emphasize certain "hard indicators" of LED, such as brightness, life, etc., but should highlight its functions in practical applications. In order to improve the light output efficiency of LED lamps , in addition to the need for a suitable LED power supply , it is also necessary to adopt an efficient heat dissipation structure and process, as well as optimize the internal/external optical design to improve the efficiency of the entire system.

Easy to replace and maintain Since LED light sources have long life and low maintenance costs, higher requirements are placed on the packaging reliability of LED lamps. LED lamp designs are required to be easy to improve to adapt to future more efficient LED chip packaging requirements, and LED chips are required to have good interchangeability.

Pay more attention to the performance of light color, color rendering, life, stability, etc. To evaluate a light source, it is generally necessary to compare and analyze the following characteristics: power, light efficiency, light characteristics, price, etc. In the early stage of LED development, people paid more attention to the improvement of high-power LED light efficiency and the reduction of prices. The product research and development of various manufacturers also mainly focused on these two indicators for research and development and publicity. As commercial power LEDs far exceed incandescent lamps in luminous efficiency, and also exceed the light efficiency of ordinary fluorescent lamps and compact fluorescent lamps, and the price drops to a relatively acceptable level, the application of high-power LEDs is becoming more and more extensive. The improvement of light efficiency and the reduction of price alone are far from meeting the needs of applications. And its reliability, color rendering index , light color, light decay, etc. have become more important indicators for measuring LEDs.

Forecast of the development of power LED technical indicators In 2008, the Japan LED Lighting Promotion Association (JLEDS) released a technical development blueprint for high-power white light LEDs for lighting fixtures, and proposed luminous efficiency targets for ordinary white light products (high-efficiency type), high-color rendering products, and bulb color products (bulb color type) by 2020. This is the latest international forecast for the development of power white light LEDs.

According to the target, the luminous efficiency is expected to reach 150lm/W around 2015. Generally speaking, the luminous efficiency of high-efficiency fluorescent lamps is about 100lm/W, and the high-efficiency white LED products will reach about 100lm/W in 2008, the high-color rendering type will exceed 80lm/W, and the color type of bulbs will reach about 70lm/W. In 2010, it is expected to reach about 130lm/W, about 120lm/W and above 90lm/W respectively, and in 2015, it is expected to reach more than 160lm/W, more than 140lm/W and about 130lm/W respectively.

Based on the technological progress made by LEDs this year, the above prediction is very likely to be completed ahead of schedule. For example, CREE has announced that the laboratory level of its white light LED has reached 157lm/W, and its 102lm/W product will soon be mass-produced.