Survey: White LED Shipments in 2011 to Grow 115.9% vs 2006

Dec 17, 2007 18:33 Yukiko Kanoh, Nikkei Electronics

Fuji Chimera Research Institute Inc has announced results of its survey on the global market for LED products. The company said white LED shipments are greatly increasing.

White LED shipments rose 42.8% year-on-year (YoY) to 13.2 billion units or increased 5.2% YoY to ¥184.9 billion in 2006. Pricing, on the other hand, declined about 20 to 30% YoY in 2006. Shipments were predicted to reach 18.2 billion units and ¥200.2 billion in 2007.

Fuji Chimera said the white LED market is being driven by mobile phone applications. In addition, through higher light-emitting efficiency and lower pricing, an increasing number of white LEDs are being used as backlight for notebook PCs and medium and large LCD TVs, the company said.

The markets for automobile and lighting system applications are still small, however, with the full-scale establishment of the markets expected for 2015 or later, it said.

According to the company's analysis, challenges that the current white LED must overcome are cost and lifecycle. The life of an existing white LED can reach 40,000 hours, but this must be extended to 100,000 hours to increase demand, the company said.

Aluminum and other materials that efficiently radiate heat are currently used for substrates because heat that remains in an LED package lowers its LED capabilities. In an effort to further raise the efficiency of heat liberation, new materials replacing the epoxy and silicone plastics used for insulation are being developed, Fuji Chimera said.

The company forecast white LED shipments in 2011 to rise 115.9% to 28.5 billion units but decline 15.2% to ¥156.8 billion compared with 2006.

Overall light-emitting device shipments increased 2.0% YoY to ¥565.5 billion in 2006. These light-emitting devices include visible LEDs including white LEDs, infrared LEDs, ultraviolet LEDs, OLEDs for lighting systems and VCSEL (vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser) diodes excluding those for communication applications.

Excluding white LEDs, overall shipments of visible LEDs have greatly expanded as well. Shipments grew 27.4% YoY in 2006. According to the company, shipments of four-element, high-luminance LEDs increased in particular. Shipment value, however, edged up only slightly, due to lower unit prices.

As for infrared LEDs, shipments of long-wavelength, short-wavelength and overall products remained flat, grew and slightly rose, respectively. The full-scale market for ultraviolet LEDs was established in 2006 with products primarily shipped for application to banknote identification equipment.

Fuji Chimera predicted overall shipments of light-emitting devices will reach ¥595.5 billion in 2007 and increase 14.0% compared with 2006 to ¥644.4 billion in 2011.

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