Taiwan

Ledtech receives LED light bar orders from Japan

sarafan — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:35:34 +0000

Taiwan-based LED packaging company Ledtech Electronics received an order for commercial-use LED light bars from Japan, with shipments to begin in September, according to market sources. The order was for NT$12 million and was for a commercial use applications.

Beijing Olympics Give a Boost to Taiwan LED Sales

sarafan — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:54:07 +0000

It’s reported that the sales of Taiwan's LED makers rose 16.1 percent in the first half of this year from the same period a year earlier. This is helped by the Beijing Olympics and higher energy prices that are encouraging the use of lower-cost lighting. According to information the companies provided to the Taiwan Stock Exchange, the companies' first-half 2008 sales rose to NT$24.2 billion from NT$20.8 billion in the same period a year earlier, The LED market is expanding, and demand attributable to the Beijing Olympics is boosting sales.

Ivan Lin, an analyst with market researcher LEDinside in Taipei, said "New applications are increasing, LEDs are increasingly used as backlights for notebook computers, in street lights and for factory lighting." According to LEDinside, Taiwan has the world's second largest LED industry with a 20 percent share of the global market, Japan has the world's largest LED industry with a 37 percent share of the world market. LEDinside forecasts that Taiwan will have a 30 percent share of the market by 2010 as many of Taiwan's flat-panel display makers prepare to enter the business.

People are switching to LEDs to save energy and cut electricity bills with these lights, originally familiar to most people as decorations on Christmas trees. LEDs reduce energy consumption by emitting light from a chip rather than an incandescent filament in a light bulb or charged gases in a fluorescent light tube. LEDs use about a tenth of the energy of an incandescent bulb and can last a decade or longer. They also produce almost no heat, thereby reducing fire potential.

Taiwan LED makers have been among the first to enter the high-brightness (HB) segment. HB LEDs are a new generation of lights bright enough for car lights, interior and architectural lighting, projection, flat-panel display backlighting and signage. The organizers of the Beijing Olympics used LEDs to illuminate the stage at the opening ceremony for the games with 44,000 of the lamps in a 147 meter x 36 meter screen at the venue. At least 36,000 LED lamps illuminated the translucent exterior of the gigantic Water Cube where the swimming competitions took place. The Olympics venue also had a gigantic LED screen measuring 30 meters x 200 meters. Opto Tech Corp. of Taiwan supplied LEDs for the screen, according to LEDinside. The Taiwan supplier also won a contract from the Suzhou city government to supply the lamps for a gigantic screen,

Taiwan's government aims to boost the domestic industry by replacing all the island's incandescent-type traffic lights with LED lamps in three years. Traffic signals that use LEDs consume 80-90 percent less energy and generally last 5-7 years, compared to just a year for a comparable incandescent light signal. In 2001, the city of Portland, Oregon replaced nearly all its red and green incandescent traffic signals with new lights using LEDs. The project resulted in annual energy and maintenance savings totaling $400,000 and net payback in less than three years. The Chinese government aims to exploit various green technologies including LED and solar energy to help it reach the goal of trimming 10% of electricity consumption nationwide by 2010.

LEDinside said "despite the downturn in the global economy, Taiwan LED packaging company Ledtech Electronics continues to explore markets for new products, citing industry sources. The company is planning to work with international partners to develop low-cost LED lamps and reading lights for underdeveloped countries, citing market sources."

Harvatek revenues to drop slightly in August

sarafan — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:55:31 +0000

Taiwan-based LED packaging company Harvatek estimates its August revenue total will fall a little short of its total in July, but revenues in the third quarter will be better than that it saw in the second quarter, according to market sources.

LED lighting industry development in the post-Olympics era

ivan — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:23:14 +0000

Applications of LED during the Beijing Olympics have raised audience's eyebrows. According to non-official statistics from China, the Beijing Olympics has consumed a total of 500mn RMB worth of LEDs at 36 stadiums, excluding other public lighting applications that are installed at the Olympics villages and parks. But as Olympics grand completed, concerns about whether there exists a fundamental demand for LED surfaces.

Landscape lighting is the key demand driver in the China LED industry. LEDinside believes that the recent Beijing Olympics should help encouraging second-tier cities to adopt low-power LED for landscape decoration thereafter. Amid the anticipated demand, corresponding CAGR for LED packaging is estimated to hit 25% during 200X-2010.

Beijing Olympics lights up LED industry

LEDinside estimates that a total of 4mn units of LEDs were adopted during the opening and closing ceremony at the Beijing Olympics. By including those being installed at stadiums, subway, outdoor billboards, total amount of LEDs that are being installed should have surpassed several million units.

Among all landscape LED lighting applications, the National Aquatics – Water Cube, must be the venue that draws most attention. Built on an investment budget of 51mn RMB, the Water Cube has installed a total 36,000 sets of specialized lighting tools, which include 470,000 of LEDs, to illuminate the translucent bubble-clad exterior.

LED also plays a vital role during the opening and closing ceremony. During the opening ceremony, a LED-powered scroll that composed by 44,000 LEDs, was displayed for performers to dance on. Another 45,000 of LEDs were also being used to illuminate the Olympics' five interlocking rings. After seeing a heavy adoption of LED during the Beijing Olympics and Doha Asian Games, LED should be widely used in decoration lighting and displays at large-scale performances and events.

China government plays prominent role on LED penetration

Underpinning a meaningful LED penetration is the China government. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has identified LED as a prioritized item for energy-saving applications development in the 「Mid-to-Long Term Development Program for Science and Technology for the years between 2006-2020」as announced in 2006.

Two phases of LED lighting infrastructure is planned for 2003-2005 and 2006-2010 periods. In the first phase of construction, the Central government has spent 140mn RMB to activate a joint program among six government departments (including Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Industry and Information) and 14 provincial governments to adopt LED lighting.

Another investment budget of 350mn RMB has been spent on the second phase of the Program already. Of which, 60% of the budget was spent to subsidized corporate that develop LED, and the remainder to institutes, universities and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

There are about 3,500 private enterprises there in China developing LED. Of which, half of these enterprises design LEDs for use in end applications such as landscape lighting, displays and road signs and automotives. More production bases are also being developed for LED industry players. In addition to the existing five bases, the China government has also approved establishment of two more production bases in Yangzhou and Shijiazhuang in 2007.

LED to flourish at World Expo Shanghai 2010

Shanghai World Expo 2010 is believed to mark another climax for LED adoption after the Beijing Olympics as bountiful of LEDs will be applied for flowing lighting sources at core centers and facilities. Three key landscape lighting applications will be seen at: 1, Huang Pu Jiang (river side of Huang Pu); 2, Expo axis and bridges between eastern and western Pudong and; 3, skywalks bridging key pavilions.

Domestic LED makers, especially for those which located nearby Zhangjiang Hi-tech Park, should be benefited from the substantial business potential accordingly. Players ranging from the upstream epitaxy wafer production to downstream packaging and system makers should be able to gain full support from nearby partners by maximizing the synergy of consolidation.

Olympics help encouraging second-tier cities to grow LED lighting

Ongoing development of solid-state LED lighting has drawn players' attention after the Beijing Olmypics. As the Olympics has made a good example to demonstrate LED application in displays and billboards, second- and third-tier cities in China are expected to follow by using more LED-powered billboards and displays.

According to a revealed report from the China LED Industry & National Solid-State Lighting Program, landscape lighting for city decoration will account for 37% of LED production value, being the largest application among all. Handset will be the demand driver after with its production value to account for 28% of all.

If each of the 100 mid- to big-scale cities in China to invest 100mn RMB in landscape lighting installation, total market size will hit 10bn RMB, with an approximate of 10-20bn of high-luminance LED required. As of 2007, LED shipments reached at 82bn units. Based on this shipments amount, it is expected that about 20-30% of the LED capacity will go to landscape lighting. As investment budgets among second-tier cities grow, demand for LED will on the rise also.

Production value of the LED packaging industry in China has already reached 16.8bn RMB in 2007. Driven by aggressive expansion among domestic players and consistent growing demand, the value is expected to grow almost double to 32bn RMB in 2010, representing a CAGR of 25%.

Despite a booming market growth is expected, the China LED industry is still caught in a low sufficiency rate of upstream LED chips at the current stage. As of the 82bn LEDs shipped in 2007, only 46% of them were fabricated locally. Many China-based LED makers have to source wafers from third parties (including Taiwan players) for re production. Therefore, how to raise sufficiency rate will be an imperative issue to solve.

AUO using a-Si to develop OLED panels

sarafan — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 07:31:45 +0000

AU Optronics (AUO) plans on basing its OLED development using a-Si technology, and the company estimates it will enter into mass production in 2011.

Delta Electronics launches the Industry’s First Full HD LED Projector

sarafan — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 05:53:27 +0000

Recently, Delta Electronics, Inc., a long-time industry leader in DLP® optics, light engine and projector development for a wide variety of applications, announced it has completed the development of a groundbreaking full HD LED projector for the consumer market.

Delta has developed LED projection technologies for years. LEDs provide end users with benefits that are not available from a lamp system. With Delta’s high throughput LED optics, 1080P resolution, plus wide color gamut, this projector provides a high image quality unmatched by any other lamp projector. It gives the viewer a completely new home theater experience with the bonus that the user is free from lamp replacement, as the life of the LED module is estimated at over 20,000 hours of normal operation.

With its experience and close partnership with Texas Instruments, Luminus Devices and other key suppliers, Delta has a unique early advantage in recognizing the feasibility of PhlatLight® LED and the value of LED projectors, and has commercialized this product for customers. Delta is supporting customer demonstrations of the projector at IFA 2008, Berlin, Germany, between August 29th and September 3rd, and CEDIA, Denver, Colorado, USA.

Jeff Fu, Director for Projection Display at Delta’s Display Solutions Business Unit, noted that the image quality of the projector’s full HD resolution plus saturated color and dynamic contrast is extremely impressive. With this product, they believe the era of the LED projector has arrived. Home theater projectors are just the beginning. What is crucial is the need for a precise and complex control algorithm that allows the LED to work with the DMD to get high image quality.

About Delta Group

Delta Group is the world’s largest provider of switching power supplies and brushless fans, as well as a major source for power management solutions, components, visual displays, industrial automation, networking products, and renewable energy solutions. Established in 1971, Delta Group has sales offices worldwide and manufacturing plants in Taiwan, China, Thailand, Japan, Mexico, India and Europe. As a global leader in power electronics, Delta’s mission is, “To provide innovative, clean and efficient energy solutions for a better tomorrow.”

Lite-On Ventures Into LED Chip Market by investing US$10 million to SemiLEDs

sarafan — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 03:44:50 +0000

It’s reported that Lite-On Technology Corp., a world leading supplier of mobile keypads, is venturing into the LEDchip market by investing US$10 million in SemiLEDs Corp., a U.S. producer of high-power LED chips.

In fact, Lite-On has been producing LEDs for notebook PC backlights as Taiwan`s first supplier of this kind, having already shipped between 7 million and 8 million units this July. At the end of this year, the company is expected to post annual shipment of between 10 million and 15 million units. The product line is even expected to lend major growth momentum to its business operation next year.

Now, Lite-On is the foremost supplier building fully integrated supply chain of LEDs among Taiwan high-tech companies, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Delta Electronics Inc., AU Optronics Corp., Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp. and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., who all have moved to produce LEDs.

Teng Kuang-chung, CEO of Lite-On, noted that SemiLEDs`s current non-MOCVD production process can effectively help their company to achieve cost efficiency in producing high-power LED chips, adding that this cutting-edge production capability enticed Lite-On to invest US$10 million in the company. At the same time, Lite-On is very optimistic about the market outlook of LEDs for notebook PC backlights, because presently LED-backlit notebook PCs commands a 15% share of overall global sales of notebook PCs, with only 3% of such models adopting Lite-On`s LEDs.

Lite-On posted sales revenue of NT$37.5 billion, pretax profits of NT$1.696 billion and net profits of NT$1.354 billion, or NT$0.63 per share, for the second quarter of this year. With efforts on production of LEDs gradually paying off, the company`s second-quarter gross profit rate grew to 10% from 8.7% posted in the first quarter. With a seasonal boom to hit the LED sector in the third quarter, the company projects its sales of the product to further rise 10% from the second quarter.

Philips to Outsource LED Lighting Manufacturing to Taiwan

sarafan — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:58:04 +0000

According to Edward Po, general manager of Philips Taiwan Ltd.-Lighting Division, Philips Lighting will likely subcontract LED lighting manufacturing to Taiwan when it begins volume production of the products.

Philips had planned to make global debut of 4W and 7W LED lamps in synch early next month, aiming at replacing sub-40W incandescent lamps and compact fluorescent lamps with the lamps over the next two or three years. Once Philips begins volume production of the lamps it will likely subcontract Asian LED manufacturers, particularly Taiwanese manufacturers, to make the lamps for it in order to cut production costs. Philips had kept in touch with three to four of Taiwan’s top-tier LED suppliers in case Philips decides to deliver outsourcing orders.

Currently, Taiwan has over 22 million incandescent lamps still in use, consuming around 1.08 billion kilowatts of electricity per hour a year. An estimated 800 million kilowatt per hour could be saved a year if these energy-guzzling lamps are completed eradicated from the island. The government here plans to wipe out incandescent lamps in four years and replace them with energy-saving lamps including LED lamps, to promote reduction of greenhouse-gas emission and electricity consumption.

Po estimated LED lamps to snatch up 5% of global lighting market over next two to three years, given the global trend of governments to push energy-saving lamps, up from current 1%. Taiwan’s lighting market is estimated at NT$15 billion a year, with NT$5 billion generated from light-source sales and NT$10 billion from sales of lighting fixtures. LED currently represents only 5% of the Taiwan market now.

Dongbu HiTek Announces Joint Development of LED Driver IC

sarafan — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 06:02:55 +0000

Recently, Dongbu HiTek announced the joint development of an LED driver chip for Back Light Unit (BLU) applications in laptop computers. Developed in collaboration with ADDtek, a Taiwanese fabless company specializing in analog and mixed-signal chip solutions, the new LED driver designed by Taiwan-Based ADDtek uses Dongbu HiTek’s specialized BCDMOS (Bipolar CMOS DMOS) process at the 0.35-Micron Node.

Now, the announcement further highlights Dongbu HiTek’s commitment to BCDMOS leadership as it closely follows the Korean company’s launch of the world’s first 0.18 micron-level BCDMOS process in June. In addition to supporting a wide range of high-voltages from 12V to 60V, Dongbu HiTek’s BCDMOS technology enables a diversity of highly compact mixed-signal chip solutions.

Jae Song, EVP of marketing for Dongbu HiTek, asserted they are committed to becoming the preferred source for BCDMOS chip solutions. He disclosed that future support could extend the operating range of 0.35 micron-level chips up to 85V. Dr. Song expects Dongbu HiTek to steadily increase LED chip driver production volume for ADDtek next year to meet customer demand. He noted that his company will begin manufacturing LED light sources that are used not only in BLU applications for laptops, desktops, mobile handsets and flat panel TVs, but in other growth markets as well. According to related analysis, an independent market research firm, the worldwide market for LED driver ICs will grow from approximately $650 million this year to more than $800 million in 2011.

About Dongbu HiTek

Headquartered in Seoul, Korea, Dongbu HiTek Co., Ltd. offers advanced products and services across two major business areas: Agriculture and Semiconductor. The Semiconductor Business provides specialized chip foundry services that add high value to display, mobile and various analog applications. The company’s two world-class fabs currently process 200mm wafers at nodes ranging from 0.35 microns to 110 nanometers. This wafer processing is supported by comprehensive design support (IP and design libraries), prototype development/verification, and packaging/module development.

Chuang Hsiang to Enhance Auto Mirrors With LEDs

sarafan — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:25:06 +0000

It’s reported that Chuang Hsiang Technology Co., Ltd. makes traditional automotive side mirrors more functional and attractive by adding LED signal lights on them.

Chuang Hsiang Technology Co., Ltd. is a very innovative company, after it gained a solid foothold in the LED mirror business, the firm has also innovated the LED door handles to revolutionize the market.

In Taiwan, the company is the most experienced and specialized developer and manufacturer of LED side mirrors, including whole LED mirror sets or mirror covers with LED for customers’ various requirements. Currently, Chuang Hsiang focuses on the development of such products for mainly popular Japanese and Korean car models, but also takes customers orders for making eye-catching mirrors for some European and American cars. In addition to LED mirrors sold in global tuning market, Chuang Hsiang, in fact, is the largest supplier of LED mirrors to many automakers’ pre-delivery inspection (PDI) centers in Taiwan, including Honda, Toyota, Nissan etc.

Lin Jian-fu, the company’s chairman, claims that his firm currently operates three R&D departments each specializing in LED mirror covers, LED door handles, and other auto accessories. The rapid responses and innovative ideas of talented R&D staff at the workshops have strengthening Chuang Hsiang’s competitiveness in the market.

The LED mirror and handle maker’s core competitiveness comes from its strong manufacturing capability. Currently, Chuang Hsiang runs two plants in Taiwan with total employee number of over 100, including one in Taipei and another in Taichung. All of the production works, from development, tooling, plastic injection, coating and finishing, assembly, and packaging are conducted in-house to assure the highest quality level. With its vigorous efforts, the company has developed over 80 sets of LED mirror covers and handles, and the number has been rapidly increasing thanks to the firm’s ambitious R&D projects. Lin forecasts that the LED handles are expected to gradually become a trendy product in the automotive market because such items simultaneously offer high decoration and safety functions, especially in bad weathers and in the night.

Quality is the top priority at Chuang Hsiang, Lin claims, that’s why all of the firm’s mirror covers and handles adopt only the first-class LEDs supplied by famous makers in Taiwan.