The current status and countermeasures of LED lighting industry standardization

introduction

The huge economic and social benefits of the LED lighting industry have given rise to national LED lighting development plans such as Japan's "21st Century Lighting" plan, the United States' "Next Generation Lighting Plan", the European Union's "Rainbow Plan", South Korea's "Solid State Lighting Plan", Taiwan's "New Century Lighting Source Development Plan" and China's "National Semiconductor Lighting Project" plan. At the same time, the formulation of LED lighting-related standards and the establishment of a standard system have also entered a rapid development stage. This article mainly analyzes the current status of the LED industry and standard development at home and abroad, and puts forward suggestions for my country's LED lighting standardization work.

1. Characteristics of LED industry at home and abroad

The LED industry is a high-tech industry that integrates technology and capital. The level of technology determines the link in the industrial chain and the competitiveness of the enterprise. At present, the LED industry has formed a three-way competition situation among Asia, the United States and Europe. Europe, the United States, Japan and other countries have monopolized core technologies in high-end and mid-range fields such as semiconductor substrate materials, epitaxial wafers, chips, and packaging, and occupy a major market share in the world. The high-end market is basically monopolized by several major companies such as Nichia and Toyoda Gosei in Japan, Gelcore, Lumileds, Cree Lighting in the United States, and Osram in Germany. The silicon substrate blue light LED epitaxial wafer and chip technology independently developed by Nanchang University in my country once broke the situation of Nichia's monopoly on sapphire substrates and Cree's monopoly on silicon carbide substrate semiconductor lighting technology, indicating that the local industry is working hard to improve its international competitiveness under the pressure of increasing foreign investment penetration.

Although my country's LED industry started basically at the same time as foreign countries, my country is still in the middle and lower reaches of the international industrial chain of semiconductor lighting. Most manufacturers are engaged in packaging and processing with low technical content, and most core component technologies need to rely on imports. Whether it is materials, equipment, chips, or packaging and application technology, China has not yet achieved a real breakthrough.

Overall, the foreign LED industry is in the middle stage of industrial development, while my country's LED industry is in the early stage of industrial development. This judgment from the perspective of the life cycle is the result of a comprehensive analysis from the perspectives of market size and structure, industrial standards and technological innovation.

2. Market size of LED lighting industry at home and abroad

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the application of LED has been mainly concentrated in the fields of display screens, backlights and lighting. The lighting field includes landscape lighting, low-temperature lighting, automotive lighting, general lighting, etc.; the backlight application field includes mobile phones, laptops, LCD TVs, digital photo frames, outdoor billboards, etc. Overall, the application scope is constantly expanding, and the trend of diversified development is obvious.

In terms of LED market growth points, according to statistics, from 2009 to 2011, notebook computer backlight driver IC and indoor lighting had the highest compound growth, 39% and 35% respectively; the shipment volume was the largest for smartphone backlight driver IC. In the next few years, the growth point of LED backlight market will be concentrated on the application of medium and large size LCD screens such as notebook computers and LCD TVs; and LED street lamps will be the biggest hot spot in LED lighting applications.

In terms of LED market size, according to professional research and predictions, by 2015, the global LED lighting optoelectronic market size will reach US$82.7 billion (see Figure 1). The LED lighting market will continue to occupy a dominant position and grow rapidly, and the market demand for high-brightness LED components and high-brightness LED modules will also increase year by year.

According to statistics, in 2009, there were more than 5,000 LED product manufacturers in my country, with an industry scale of 82.7 billion yuan, of which the output value of LED chips reached 2.3 billion yuan, an increase of 25% over 2008; the output value of LED packaging was 20.4 billion yuan; the scale of semiconductor lighting applications increased by more than 30% over 2008, with an output value of 60 billion yuan. At present, my country has become the world's largest producer and exporter of LED full-color display screens, solar LED lighting, landscape lighting and other application products, and the emerging semiconductor lighting industry is growing rapidly.

3. Current status of standardization development in the LED lighting industry

With the continuous breakthroughs in LED technology and the in-depth development of the industry, the requirements for LED standardization are getting higher and higher. In order to seize the commanding heights of the industry, developed countries in the world have invested a lot of manpower and material resources in LED testing research and standard formulation, and have established their own LED standard systems. The United States is conducting research on technical standards and test methods for lighting LEDs based on the characteristics of lighting LEDs, while Japan focuses on the test methods and technical standards for white light LEDs for lighting. Many international companies engaged in LED development, such as Lumileds, Philips, Osram, etc., have actively participated in national and international standardization work while formulating their own corporate standards to standardize the optoelectronic parameters of lighting LEDs, such as voltage, current, luminous flux, color coordinates, color temperature, color rendering, life and other indicators.

3.1 Overview of LED standard formulation by major foreign organizations

3.1.1 IEC and CIE LED standards

Both IEC and CIE pay close attention to the development of LED and the standardization of related LED devices. IEC has developed a series of lighting LED standards to regulate their electrical and safety. At the same time, due to the rapid development of LED product technology, CIE has revised the LED test method standards. As of June 2011, there are 20 IEC and CIE international standards on lighting LEDs, covering special requirements for connectors for LED modules, terms and definitions of general lighting LEDs and LED modules, etc. However, these standards are mainly aimed at the electrical performance, safety performance and luminous flux characteristics and test methods of lighting LEDs, and do not yet include lumen maintenance rate and feasible LED life evaluation methods; in addition, professional LED lighting product performance standards for specific applications have not yet been developed.

3.1.2 LED standards in the United States

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) have used CIE technical documents as a reference and, under the organization of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), have released performance and measurement standards for solid-state lighting LEDs, mainly including IESNA RP-16, IESNA TM-16-05, IESNA LM-79, IESNA LM-80 and ANSI C78.377A.

Among them, ANSI C78. 377A is the chromaticity specification of white light LEDs at different correlated color temperatures, IESNA LM-79 is the electrical and photometric measurement method for solid-state lighting products, and IESNA LM-80 is the light decay characteristic (lifetime) test method for LED light sources. In addition, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have also issued Energy Star performance specification requirements for LED lighting products.

3.1.3 Japan’s LED Standards

The Japan Lighting Manufacturers Association (JEL), Japan Lighting Appliances Association (JLA), Japan Illuminating Engineering Society (JIES), Japan Illuminating Engineering Council (JCIE) and Japan Industrial Standards Commission (JISC) are the main standard setting and research institutions in Japan. JISC formulated the industrial standard JISC8152 "General Rules for Measurement Methods of White Light LEDs for Lighting" with reference to CIE 127.

Japan is currently developing standards for lighting LED modules, their control devices and self-ballasted LED lamps, mainly referring to relevant IEC standards.

3.2 Current status of LED lighting standardization in my country

As an important measure for energy conservation and emission reduction, my country has attached great importance to LED standardization from the national to the local level in recent years. On the one hand, the formulation and revision of standards at all levels has progressed rapidly, and the previous lack of standards has been greatly improved; on the other hand, with the continuous introduction of standards, issues such as comprehensive standardization and the applicability of standards are becoming important contents of future LED standardization research.

3.2.1 Standardization of the National Standards Committee

As of the end of 2010, the National Standards Administration has issued a total of 23 national standards related to LED lighting, including 1 general standard, 10 safety standards, and 12 performance standards, as shown in Table 1.

From Table 1, we can see that there are 11 LED-related standards for LED modules, LED control devices, LED connectors, LED lamp performance or test methods issued from October 2009 to 2010. Among them, GB 19510.14-2009 and GB 24819-2009 are equivalent to IEC standards, GB/T 24825-2009 is modified to adopt IEC standards, and the remaining 8 items are all standards independently formulated by my country.

The safety standard GB 7000 series applies to lamps that use electric light sources, and therefore includes LED lamps. According to statistics, all GB 7000 series standards except GB 7000. 217 - 2008 and GB 7000. 18 - 2003 are applicable to LED lamps.

3.2.2 Development of relevant industry and local standards

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has issued nine semiconductor lighting electronic industry standards, including SJ /T 11395-2009 "Terms of Semiconductor Lighting". The National Semiconductor Lighting Engineering Research and Industry Alliance has also issued seven technical specifications for LED lighting products, including LB /T001-2009 "Test Methods for Integral LED Street Lamps". The Ministry of Construction has issued standards for urban road lighting and traffic lights, as well as standards and technical specifications for LED street lights and signal lights for railways and highways.

In addition, some provinces and cities in China have also carried out a lot of standard formulation and research work according to the local development needs of the LED industry. For example, Fujian Province is currently carrying out a number of local standard formulation work, including general requirements for LED indoor lighting products, tubular LED lamps for lighting, LED downlights for lighting, LED road lighting power light-emitting diodes, energy efficiency limits and energy efficiency grades for LED road lighting lamps, etc.

4. Suggestions on the development of LED lighting industry standardization

In general, my country's LED-related standardization organizations have formulated national standards, various industry standards, and local standards, reflecting the situation of paying full attention to standardization. However, some of these standards and specifications are repeated and contradictory, especially some applications are affected by traditional industries, the constraints of standard technology and technical blind spots, resulting in unscientific standards. To this end, the following suggestions are put forward:

(1) Accelerate the formulation and revision of LED series standards

Although the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the Standardization Administration of China have successively issued 11 national standards for LEDs since 2008, there are only 45 standards involving LED lighting in my country at present, and most of them are standards for safety and photoelectric parameter testing. Standards for energy efficiency requirements have not yet been promulgated, and the overall development of standards lags behind.

(2) Strengthen the management of LED standardization work

Since there are many LED-related standardization organizations in my country, and the standards involved by each organization are different, the management of LED standardization should be strengthened at the national level, the LED standard system and standard-setting plan should be carefully planned, the work scope of each relevant standardization organization should be clarified, unified coordination should be carried out, and LED standards should be formulated and revised in a timely manner to effectively avoid contradictions and duplications in standard setting.

(3) Strengthen LED standardization research work

As mentioned above, my country is in the early stage of LED industry development. The development of LED standardization should draw on international experience, strengthen scientific research, and improve the scientific nature of LED standardization. It is necessary to set up special research institutions to enhance the research strength of LED standardization. Relevant departments should also strengthen the preliminary research of LED standards and the research on effective mechanisms of standardization work.

(4) Increase investment in LED standardization

Standardization funds are a necessary guarantee for the effective implementation of LED standardization work. For example, the preliminary project establishment, research, drafting, verification, and approval of standards, as well as the publicity, implementation, promotion, and demonstration work after the formulation, all require a certain amount of capital investment as a guarantee. In order to ensure the effective and in-depth development of standardization work, efforts should be made to strive for funding for LED standardization work and broaden the funding sources. Relevant government departments should especially increase investment in standardization funds.