DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/cd7c4d/led_mantech_2010) has announced the addition of the "LED ManTech 2010" report to their offering.
Significant improvement in LED fundamental and manufacturing technologies needed for massive adoption in general lighting applications.
Overview
This report provides a complete vision of the established and emerging front-end and back-end technologies for LED manufacturing. It also provides updated volume and $ forecast for packaged LED, split by application with capacity analysis and price trends.
Market
The packaged LED market is experiencing tremendous growth with an expected CAGR of 28.2% between 2009 and 2015. Growth will be driven by large LCD backlight applications through 2013-2014. However in order to successfully transition to general lighting applications, significant technology and manufacturing efficiency improvements are still needed in order to reduce the cost per lumen of packaged LED. Such improvements will be achieved through:
- Economies of scale
- LED efficiency improvement, including at high power (droop effect)
- Improved phosphors
- Improved packaging technologies
- Significant improvements in LED epitaxy cost of ownership (yield and throughput)
Fundamental challenges:
Significant technological challenges remain to be solved in order to achieve the cost and performance target set by the industry to enable adoption of LEDs for a large number of applications. Solving the high current efficiency droop remain a priority. While multiple mechanisms have been proposed, more work is needed to understand the root cause(s) and allow the development of enhanced LED architectures or improved epitaxial material quality that would lead to LED devices performing at high efficiency when driven at high currents. Further improvements in light extraction and internal quantum efficiency are expected through improved LED die structure and material quality enabled by the availability of better deposition tools, deeper understanding of III-V semiconductors material as well as mirror and contact layers.
Front End Manufacturing:
MOCVD manufacturers are targeting a x2 reduction in epitaxy cost of ownership every 5 years. This will ripple through the entire LED value chain by significantly improving binning yield and reducing testing and binning burden on downstream manufacturing steps. Improved epitaxial material quality could also enhance LED performance and contribute to further reduction in cost of ownership. Despite a high technological entrance barrier, the possible entrance of new players like Jusung Engineering or Applied Material could on the long term bring further competition and stimulate technology development and cost reduction
LED Packaging
Thermal management remains the main challenge, impacting device lifetime, stability and limiting driving currents. As LED efficiency improves, the amount of electrical energy converted into light will increase and heat will proportionally decrease. However, the thermal load will remain high on high power LEDs as increasing the driving current per package remains the best avenue to reduce the overall cost per lumen. No standard have emerged for packaging. Power packages can be created by integrating large single dies or multiple smaller dies and a variety of submount materials are used by the more than 100 LED packagers, including ceramic, metal, silicon or engineered material. The emergence of silicon based Wafer Level Packaging technologies will enable further cost reduction and performance improvements for high power LEDs and bring some level of standardization starting in 2013 and beyond. However, no standardization of footprint and performance is in sight, posing a significant challenge for OEM and integrators. The development of new phosphors is also critical in achieving high efficiency and bringing color consistency, stability and rendering at the levels requested for general lighting applications. New nitride or silicate composition are being developed to enhance the spectral output of white LEDs. Cadmium Free Quantum Dots are a promising technology for high efficiency phosphors with easily tunable emission and absorption characteristics. Work however remains to be done to bring their cost down and develop process compatible with mass manufacturing.
Manufacturing Technologies
As volume increase and the LED industry adopts traditional semiconductor manufacturing best practices, automation levels will increase and spread across all manufacturing stages. The industry is reaching a critical mass that will enable the development of dedicated tools (dicing, bonding, lithography, testing and sorting) taking into account the specificities of LED manufacturing: large pattern dimensions, smaller diameter wafers, wafer bowing, transparency etc. The lack of standardization in manufacturing technologies might however hinders those efforts. The development of common roadmaps and standards developed by industry organization would strongly benefit the industry but remain a challenging proposition due to the strong competition between manufacturers, multiple intellectual property conflicts and the technological specificities of each manufacturer. The adoption of larger diameter wafer would help bring the LED industry closer to traditional semiconductor technologies standards. Volume manufacturing on 6 wafers will start at the end of 2010 and massive transition from 2 to 4 is expected in 2011. However the adoption of 8 wafers remains uncertain and will require that Sapphire wafer manufacture achieve significant cost reductions. Silicon remains the most serious contender as an alternative to sapphire substrates. Significant progress have been made into the development of processes allowing to design around the intrinsic limitations of Silicon for LED manufacturing. Many start up and established LED manufacturers are working on improving those technologies. While the cost to performance ratio still remains too high for the industry to massively adopt a silicon platform, any breakthrough in the field could change the face of the industry.
Key Topics Covered:
Glossary
Executive Summary
Scope of the Report
Methodology
Definitions Used in this Report
1. CHIP Forecast
2. LED Manufacturers Capacity Analysis
3. LED Front End Manufacturing Technologies
4. LED Back End Manufacturing Technologies (Packaging)
5. LED Substrates
6. Raw Materials Availability GALLIUM & INDIUM
Conclusions
Companies Mentioned: To view the full list of 141 companies that feature in this extensive report, click the link below
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