Category Archives: LEDs

Global growth in the number of “things” connected to the Internet continues to significantly outpace the addition of human users to the World Wide Web. New connections to the “Internet of Things” are now increasing by more than 6x the number of people being added to the “Internet of Humans” each year. Despite the increasing number of connections, IC Insights has trimmed back its semiconductor forecast for Internet of Things system functions over the next four years by about $1.9 billion, mostly because of lower sales projections for connected cities applications (such as smart electric meters and infrastructure). Total IoT semiconductor sales are still expected to rise 19% in 2016 to $18.4 billion, as shown in Figure 1, but the updated forecast first presented in the Update to the 2016 IC Market Drivers Report reduces the market’s compound annual growth rate between 2014 and 2019 to 19.9% compared to the original CAGR of 21.1%. Semiconductor sales for IoT system functions are now expected to reach $29.6 billion in 2019 versus the previous projection of $31.1 billion in the final year of the forecast.

Figure 1

Figure 1

The most significant changes in the new outlook are that semiconductor revenues for connected cities applications are projected to grow by a CAGR of 12.9% between 2014 and 2019 (down from 15.5% in the original forecast) while the connected vehicles segment is expected to rise by a CAGR of 36.7% (up from 31.2% in the previous projection). IoT semiconductor sales for connected cities are now forecast to reach $15.7 billion in 2019 while the chip market for connected vehicle functions is expected to be $1.7 billion in 2019, up from the previous forecast of $1.4 billion.

For 2016, revenues of IoT semiconductors used in connected cities applications are expected to rise 15% to about $11.4 billion while the connected vehicle category is projected to climb 66% to $787 million this year.

Sales of IoT semiconductors for wearable systems have also increased slightly in the forecast period compared to the original projection.  Sales of semiconductors for wearable IoT systems are now expected to grow 22% to about $2.2 billion in 2016 after surging 421% in 2015 to nearly $1.8 billion following Apple’s entry into the smartwatch market in 2Q15.  The semiconductor market for wearable IoT applications is expected to be nearly $3.9 billion in 2019.  Meanwhile, the forecast for IoT semiconductors in connected homes and the Industrial Internet categories remains unchanged.  The connected homes segment is still expected to grow 26% in 2016 to about $545 million, and the Industrial Internet chip market is forecast to increase 22% to nearly $3.5 billion.  The semiconductor forecast for IoT connections in the Industrial Internet is still expected to grow by a CAGR of 25.7% to nearly $7.3 billion in 2019 from $2.3 billion in 2014.

“The sapphire industry is still plagued by overcapacity and rapid price declines,” asserts Yole Développement (Yole) in its latest report Sapphire Applications & Market 2016: LED & Consumer Electronics. Demand for LED is increasing but will not provide enough volumes to sustain the close to one hundred sapphire makers competing in the market. Yole estimates that up to 30 companies have stopped sapphire-related activities over the last 18 months. The most prominent were OCI, DK-Aztek, HQC, Shangcheng etc. Many more have frozen most of their capacity and China counts dozens of “zombie” companies only alive by political will.

sapphire market

This autumn is showing a new interest for sapphire and its numerous applications. Under this context, the “More than Moore” market research and strategy consulting company presents its latest report entitled Sapphire Applications & Market 2016: LED & Consumer Electronics report.
Moreover, in collaboration with CIOE, Yole also announces the Sapphire Forum, 2nd edition: 2nd International Forum on Sapphire Market & Technologies, taking place in Shenzhen, China, on Sept. 6 & 7. More information & Registration.

Is there still a future for sapphire display covers? How much can LED demand sustain the industry? Is China going to completely dominate this industry? Save the date and learn more about the sapphire industry with Yole’s analysts.

“Capacity increased again over the last 12 months, although the pace is abating, thanks to a reduction in the number of new projects and significant attrition,” explains Dr Eric Virey, Senior Market and Technology Analyst, LED & Sapphire at Yole. And he adds: “But continuous excess supply combined with the significant drop in LED wafer demand in Q3 and Q4-2015 led to an acceleration of ASP decrease over the last 12 months. Prices for cores and wafers have dropped 50 to 70% over the last 2 years. Four inch wafers have been hard hit and 2” cores now sell for no profits, as a fall-off of 4” and 6” manufacturing and for the sole purpose of absorbing fixed cost.”

The 2” core market is disappearing as the LED industry transitions to larger diameters and optical wafers are now a captive market. Suppliers need to find new applications for the parts of the boules that are left over after extracting 4” or 6” cores. For now, those are often sold by the kg at low prices for the manufacturing of small optical and mechanical parts.

With strong price pressure and an increasing fraction of the market being captive, revenue of sapphire companies have dropped 20% in 2015 despite a volume increase of 20% across all applications.

Unless strong signals emerge soon to indicate that the display cover opportunity could finally materialize in 2017, many more companies will disappear within the next 12-18 months. While this situation is critical for many players, on the longer term, the market will finally be weeded out of its weakest players. The survivors could emerge stronger and the overall industry healthier. “Despite a slight reshuffle in the ranking, the top 5 companies by revenue in 2015 remained the same as in 2014. But 2 newcomers from China, TDG and JeShine appeared in the top 20,” asserts Eric Virey from Yole.

On the way to industry maturity, new applications such as µLED displays could emerge. While they won’t represent an opportunity of the same scale as display covers, they could offer nice upsides to the companies that can capture them.

In Yole’s sapphire report, a detailed analysis of company revenues per region and product type as well as the update on capacity for crystal growth, finished and PSS wafers with all major changes and information on dozens of existing and emerging players have been detailed. More information is available on i-micronews.com, LED reports section.

The global market for gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor devices is largely consolidated, with the top four companies commanding a share of over 65% of the overall market in 2015, states Transparency Market Research (TMR) in a new report. The dominant company among these four top vendors, Efficient Power Conversion Corporation, accounted for a 19.2% share of the global market in the said year. The other three topmost companies of the global market, which collectively enjoyed a considerably large share in the overall global market in the said year, are NXP Semiconductors N.V., GaN Systems Inc., and Cree Inc.

Looking at the on-going research and development activities undertaken in the market, attempts made to eliminate issues related to reliability of GaN semiconductors is expected to be an important area of focus of key vendors in the near future. Transparency Market Research states that the global GaN semiconductor devices market will expand at a high 17.0% CAGR over the period between 2016 and 2024. With such exponential growth, the market, which had a valuation of $870.9 mn in 2015, is projected to rise to $3,438.4 mn by 2024. Of the key end-use industries utilizing GaN semiconductors, the aerospace and defense sector dominates, accounting for a share of over 42% of the global market in 2015.

Rising set of applications and focus on R&D to boost demand in North America and Europe

North America and Europe are presently the dominant regional markets for GaN semiconductor devices and are expected to retain dominance over the next few years as well. The rising focus of the Europe Space Agency (ESA) on the increased usage of GaN semiconductors across space projects and the use of GaN-based transistors in the military and defense sectors in North America will help the GaN semiconductor devices market gain traction.

In the past few years, GaN technology has witnessed rapid advancements and vast improvement in the ability of GaN semiconductors to work under operating environments featuring high frequency, power density, and temperature with improved linearity and efficiency. These advancements has boosted the usage of GaN semiconductor devices across an increased set of applications and have played an important role in the market’s overall growth lately.

Along with this factor, the increased usage of GaN semiconductor devices in the defense sector has also emerged as a key driver of the global GaN semiconductor devices market. The continuous rise in defense budgets of developing and developed countries as well as the demand for inclusion of the technologically most advanced products in the arsenal of national and international armies will propel the global GaN semiconductor devices market in the near future.

Relatively higher costs of GaN semiconductor devices to hinder market growth

GaN semiconductors are relatively expensive as compared to silicon-based semiconductors owing to the high production costs of gallium nitride as compared to silicon carbide. Further addition in the cost of GaN semiconductors is ensued due to the high cost of fabrication, packaging, and support electronics. Silicon-based semiconductors have witnessed a significant decline in their costs over the past few years, making high cost of GaN semiconductors a foremost challenge that could hinder their large-scale adoption.

The issue can be tackled by producing GaN in bulk. However, there is currently no widespread method that can be used for the purpose owing to the requisition of high operating pressure and temperature and limited scalability of the material.

Texas Instruments (TI) recently entered into an agreement with Silicon Catalyst, a Silicon Valley-based incubator, that will expand TI’s access to new technology innovations and potentially lead to engagements with semiconductor startups focused on creating chips and system solutions in analog and embedded processing.

“This agreement expands TI’s access to innovations in the semiconductor industry startup segment and facilitates our ability to engage with companies that are creating new technologies complementary to areas where TI is also innovating,” said Ralf Muenster, Director, CTO office at TI.

“TI is eager to collaborate with startups, early stage companies and entrepreneurs working on silicon solutions.  Silicon Catalyst’s exclusive focus on semiconductor startups provides another great way for TI to gain unique and early access to the silicon innovation happening in the startup and entrepreneurial world,” Muenster added.

“The strategic relationship with TI is both a tribute to their forward-thinking vision and a validation of our unique value proposition to both the semiconductor and startup communities,” said Silicon Catalyst CEO Rick Lazansky.  “This strategic relationship with Texas Instruments will afford our startup companies access to a truly world class organization.  Startup companies in our industry reap tremendous benefits from deep, long-term engagement with industry leaders, like Texas Instruments, including guidance and relationships with experts.”

In 2015, Silicon Catalyst received the 2015 ACE Award for Startup Company of the Year. In the past 15 months, Silicon Catalyst has screened nearly 100 startups from the U.S., Europe and Asia. The 10 startups admitted to the incubator are developing innovations in LED, energy, silicon photonics, memory technology, wireless communications and biomedical devices.

“These 10 startups are proof that the semiconductor startup ecosystem is thriving, and there is no lack of great ideas and inspiration,” added Lazansky.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced “H-series Gen 3,” a new line-up of LED linear modules that features high efficacy and enables easy replacement of fluorescent lights with LED lamps.

New Samsung LED H-series linear module for indoor lighting (Graphic: Business Wire)

New Samsung LED H-series linear module for indoor lighting (Graphic: Business Wire)

“With our new H-series, Samsung continues to lead the high-end industry segment for LED components through constant technology innovation,” said Jacob Tarn, executive vice president, LED Business Team, Samsung Electronics. “We are directing our technology expertise to improving the quality of LED lighting by significantly enhancing our LED components’ performance and overall competitiveness.”

Samsung’s H-series Gen 3 provides light efficacy reaching up to 187 lumen per watt (lm/W) at 4000K, which allows LED luminaires using the modules to achieve light efficacy above 140lm/W, delivering an optic efficiency level of about 86 percent and LED driver efficiency of approximately 88 percent.

Currently, Samsung offers several linear LED module line-ups: the V-series for cost-effective applications; the M-, S- and F-series for standard LED lighting segments; and now the H-series for high-performance LED products.

Samsung’s H-series Gen 3 uses the LM561C, the mid-power LED package with the highest efficacy in its LM561-series line-up. As a result, the H-series Gen 3 has obtained 18 to 26 percent higher efficacy than the company’s M-series Gen 2 modules. This feature makes the H-series Gen 3 line-up well-suited to meet DLC Premium standards – technical requirements for LED lighting solutions suggested by DesignLights Consortium™. DLC standards are well recognized in the North American region as a preferred means of evaluating LED lighting products in terms of performance and quality.

The H-series comes in three sizes: 1120mm (4 ft.) 560mm (2 ft.) and 280mm/275mm (1 ft.). As the premium version of the company’s M-series and S-series line-ups, the H-series has the same form factors as those modules (see chart below), while providing a performance level that more than satisfies the high demands of the U.S. and EU luminaire markets.

Samsung’s M-series has been certified by UL, a product quality certification standards organization in the U.S., while the S-series has been certified by CE and ENEC, similar standards bodies in the EU. Sharing the form factors and quality certifications of Samsung’s M- and S-series, the H-series allows lighting manufacturers to select their LED modules according to the specific operating conditions of their applications.

In a short term, UV curing will drive the UV LED market, announces Yole Développement (Yole) in its new LED report entitled UV LEDs: Technology, Manufacturing and Applications Trends.

But UVC LED’s recent price reduction will see the UV disinfection/purification market take over the UV curing market by 2019/2020. In this context, Yole’s analysts expect the UVC LED market to strongly grow from US$7 million in 2015 to US$610 million by 2021.

uv led curing

With an increased penetration rate in all applications, the UVA LED market will grow from US$107 million in 2015 to US$357 million by 2021. In addition to a moderated growth due to price pressure, Yole announces a very strong increase in number of devices.

Under this new UV LED report, 2016 edition, Yole details the latest technology and market trends. This comprehensive survey provides a deep understanding of the UV lamp business and its technological transition to UV LEDs. It is a thorough analysis of each UV lamp application (UVA/UVB/UVC) with a specific focus on UV curing, UV disinfection/purification and analytical instruments using UV light. Yole’s report highlights the global UV LED industry trends, from substrate to system and details the main challenges and axis of research.

“The UVC LED industry is still small but strong growth is expected in the next 18 months due to dramatic price reductions”, explains Pierrick Boulay, Market & Technology Analyst, LED & OLED at Yole. And he adds: “In 2016 prices are 1/8-1/10 of what they were in 2015.”
This has been triggered by the industry’s development, its transition to mass production and improved device performance. With most of the industry believing that US$1-US$4/mW is the price that would trigger mass market adoption we are getting close to a UVC LED market boom. Another positive sign is that most UVC LED manufacturers are now focusing on developing cost-effective solutions rather than improving device power output. In parallel, the UVC LED industry continues to work on increasing lifetime and developing lower wavelength devices, below 280nm.

In parallel, UVA LEDs continue to progress in the UV curing space. “Continuous improvement of device performance coupled with price reduction has allowed the technology to be increasingly adopted in UV curing applications”, asserts Pars Mukish, Business Unit Manager, at Yole. “Penetration of UV LEDs is increasing but we observe differences in adoption rates depending on application.” Small size and low speed applications like spot adhesive and digital inkjets have the highest adoption rate, and most new developments use UV LEDs. This is due to the small module size and low irradiance level needed that limits the extra cost of integrating UV LEDs compared to the total price of systems like inkjet printers. On the other hand, applications that need high speed processes and/or high levels of irradiance such as screen printing or coating applications have lower adoption rates. This is because UV LED performance is not yet good enough to fully replace traditional mercury lamps.

“Today UVA still represents the largest UV LED market but this trend could change in the future as UV LED performances increase,” announces Yole’ analysts. UV LEDs also enable new applications inaccessible to UV lamp. If these new applications take off, they could represent and additional revenue of nearly US$143 million in 2021.

Yole’s UV LED report highlights the market structure, UV LED market drivers and associated technical challenges, recent trends and new applications created by UV LEDs. It also includes UV LED market size split by application, and much more.

A powerful new material developed by Northwestern University chemist William Dichtel and his research team could one day speed up the charging process of electric cars and help increase their driving range.

An electric car currently relies on a complex interplay of both batteries and supercapacitors to provide the energy it needs to go places, but that could change.

“Our material combines the best of both worlds — the ability to store large amounts of electrical energy or charge, like a battery, and the ability to charge and discharge rapidly, like a supercapacitor,” said Dichtel, a pioneer in the young research field of covalent organic frameworks (COFs).

Dichtel and his research team have combined a COF — a strong, stiff polymer with an abundance of tiny pores suitable for storing energy — with a very conductive material to create the first modified redox-active COF that closes the gap with other older porous carbon-based electrodes.

“COFs are beautiful structures with a lot of promise, but their conductivity is limited,” Dichtel said. “That’s the problem we are addressing here. By modifying them — by adding the attribute they lack — we can start to use COFs in a practical way.”

And modified COFs are commercially attractive: COFs are made of inexpensive, readily available materials, while carbon-based materials are expensive to process and mass-produce.

Dichtel, the Robert L. Letsinger Professor of Chemistry at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is presenting his team’s findings today (Aug. 24) at the American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting in Philadelphia. Also today, a paper by Dichtel and co-authors from Northwestern and Cornell University was published by the journal ACS Central Science.

To demonstrate the new material’s capabilities, the researchers built a coin-cell battery prototype device capable of powering a light-emitting diode for 30 seconds.

The material has outstanding stability, capable of 10,000 charge/discharge cycles, the researchers report. They also performed extensive additional experiments to understand how the COF and the conducting polymer, called poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) or PEDOT, work together to store electrical energy.

Dichtel and his team made the material on an electrode surface. Two organic molecules self-assembled and condensed into a honeycomb-like grid, one 2-D layer stacked on top of the other. Into the grid’s holes, or pores, the researchers deposited the conducting polymer.

Each pore is only 2.3 nanometers wide, but the COF is full of these useful pores, creating a lot of surface area in a very small space. A small amount of the fluffy COF powder, just enough to fill a shot glass and weighing the same as a dollar bill, has the surface area of an Olympic swimming pool.

The modified COF showed a dramatic improvement in its ability to both store energy and to rapidly charge and discharge the device. The material can store roughly 10 times more electrical energy than the unmodified COF, and it can get the electrical charge in and out of the device 10 to 15 times faster.

“It was pretty amazing to see this performance gain,” Dichtel said. “This research will guide us as we investigate other modified COFs and work to find the best materials for creating new electrical energy storage devices.”

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.79 billion in orders worldwide in July 2016 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.05, according to the July Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.  A book-to-bill of 1.05 means that $105 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

SEMI reports that the three-month average of worldwide bookings in July 2016 was $1.79 billion. The bookings figure is 4.7 percent higher than the final June 2016 level of $1.71 billion, and is 13.1 percent higher than the July 2015 order level of $1.59 billion.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in July 2016 was $1.71 billion. The billings figure is 0.6 percent lower than the final June 2016 level of $1.72 billion, and is 9.6 percent higher than the July 2015 billings level of $1.56 billion.

“Monthly bookings have exceeded $1.7 billion for the past three months with monthly billings trending in a similar manner,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI. “Recent earnings announcements have indicated that strong purchasing activity by China and 3D NAND producers will continue in the near-term.”

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.

Billings
(3-mo. avg)

Bookings
(3-mo. avg)

Book-to-Bill
February 2016

$1,204.4

$1,262.0

1.05
March 2016

$1,197.6

$1,379.2

1.15
April 2016

$1,460.2

$1,595.4

1.09
May 2016

$1,601.5

$1,750.5

1.09
June 2016 (final)

$1,715.2

$1,714.3

1.00
July 2016 (prelim)

$1,705.1

$1,794.7

1.05

Source: SEMI (www.semi.org), August 2016

IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO) today released its annual 2015 revenue-share ranking of the top LED suppliers in backlighting, automotive, lighting and other applications.

According to the 2016 edition of the IHS Markit Packaged LED Report, Nichia led in both lighting and mobile applications for 2015, with 12.9 percent share of the total packaged LED market. Nichia was followed by Osram and Lumileds with a combined share of 14.7 percent.

“It’s not a surprise that Nichia led in more than one application,” said Alice Tao, senior analyst, LEDs and lighting for IHS Markit. “In 2015, Nichia overtook Cree, which led the lighting category in 2014. Nichia was also very strong in mobile phone LEDs, since the company is a major supplier for Apple’s iPhone.”

Samsung was the leading supplier in backlighting, which includes LEDs used in TVs, monitors, notebook PCs and tablet PCs. Nichia followed in second position and LG Innotek ranked third.

Osram has been the leading supplier of automotive LEDs for many years. Its market share was 35 percent in 2015 for LEDs used in the total automotive market and 40 percent for those used in the automotive exterior market. It also led in the “other” application, which includes LEDs used for industrial, medical, security, projection, signage and off-specification applications.

Leading packaged LEDs suppliers
(Millions of Dollars)  
   
Category

Leading supplier
Lighting

Nichia
Backlighting

Samsung
Mobile phone

Nichia
Automotive

Osram
Other

Osram

 

The IHS Markit Packaged LED Report provides detailed quantitative market sizes and supplier shares by application, region and product type. For more information about purchasing IHS Markit information, contact the sales department at [email protected].

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) today announced a new lineup of ultra-efficient, high-speed, high-voltage MOSFETs for switching voltage regulator designs. Available with 800V and 900V ratings, the four N-channel devices (TK4A80E, TK5A80E, TK3A90E, TK5A90E) are targeted to applications including flyback converters in LED lighting, supplementary power supplies and other circuits that require current switching below 5.0A.

The new enhancement mode MOSFETs are based on Toshiba’s π-MOS VIII (Pi-MOS-8), the company’s eighth generation planar semiconductor process, which combines high levels of cell integration with optimized cell design. This technology supports reduced gate charge and capacitance compared to prior generations, without losing the benefits of low RDS(ON).

These MOSFETs represent low-current supplements to Toshiba’s existing DTMOS IV line-up of 800V superjunction DTMOS IV devices. The 2.5A TK3A90E and 4.5A TK5A90E feature VDSS ratings of 900V and have typical RDS(ON)ratings of 3.7Ω and 2.5Ω, respectively. Both the 4.0A TK4A80E and 5.0A TK5A80E devices offer VDSS ratings of 800V with typical RDS(ON) ratings of 2.8Ω and 1.9Ω, respectively.

Toshiba’s new high-voltage MOSFETs offer an ultra-low maximum leakage current of only 10μA (VDS = 640V for the 800V device; VDS = 720V for the 900V device) and a gate threshold voltage range of 2.5V to 4.0V. All of the devices are supplied in a standard TO-220SIS form factor.