LED giant set off the three battle industry pattern more war more clear

The global LED industry pattern for the United States, Asia, Europe the world's major manufacturers in a situation of tripartite confrontation, the United States, Japan and South Korea, the European Union and other places. They have core technology and patents, in the GaN based Blu ray LED, white LED and other technologies in a leading position. This led to a high degree of global LED market concentration of high-end products, CREE, Philips Lumileds, OSRAM, Nichia, Toyoda Gosei, Seoul Semiconductor and other manufacturers to monopolize the high-end product market LED. So that the rapid pace of development in the LED industry, the new entrants want to cut into the high-end field, squeezed into the first camp is not easy.

Although the market war, war, war between the patent technology manufacturers, or bright or dark, or competition today or tomorrow, numerous and disorderly cooperation, has never stopped, but the whole industry has no absolute hegemony dominate the situation, but the leading companies in competition with each other, the first echelon formation is getting more and more stable.

Market war - the court stand

LED applications in many areas, the world's leading LED manufacturers comprehensive strength should not be underestimated, are generally common development in a number of areas. The most attractive cake -- general lighting as an example, although due to technical and cost constraints, LED into the general lighting market there is no small resistance, but many enterprises have strong technical strength increase in LED general lighting into the field, hoping to become the pioneer of this new market. Due to the advantages of LED in terms of energy saving and environmental protection, many LED companies pay more attention to the application of LED in the field of infrastructure and off grid lighting, so that LED lighting into the lives of ordinary consumers. Cree, Osram and Philips have outstanding performance in this regard.

In the automotive LED market, Osram, Nichia, Philips Lumileds three together accounted for more than 50% of the global automotive market share of LED. But these three giants in the automotive LED market competition because of geographical and different segments of the show is not hot, at least the surface harmony scene play their proper role. Lumileds sells LED to external applications, while Nichia is just the opposite. And the company's supply chain is also a geographical difference, Nichia does not supply a large number of European car market LED, and Osram in the internal and external applications are the dominant European market.

The view is not difficult to understand in the field of high-end market competition changed, because of higher barriers to entry. Many companies eager to block, but the market clearly has more broad development space, in contrast to the price of domestic packaging applications as the main weapon of competition is too fierce. However, after all, LED is a very attractive market, with the rise of emerging enterprises, competition will intensify. When the price war has become a magic weapon for competition among large manufacturers, then, LED popularity of the day is not far away.

Patent war

The key technologies of LED are mainly focused on the substrate materials, the growth of epitaxial materials, the manufacture of high power chips, and the manufacture of white LED. The core patents of these technologies are controlled by a large number of international companies, Nichia is the largest number of patents, the most influential on the patent structure of the company. Before 2002, 74 basic patents with Nichia from 1991 to 2001 the LED covers manufacturing structure, epitaxy, chip, packaging process technology and fluorescent powder and other related materials, has the absolute monopoly in the field of LED. In this period, mainly rely on the construction of Nichia patent barriers and patent litigation to prevent other manufacturers to enter the market and competition, in order to obtain exclusive high market interest.

With Osram, Toyoda Gosei, Cree, Lumileds etc. the company has in the field of LED, the number of patents is increasing, the Nichia suffered a setback in patent litigation, the patent authorization had to change its attitude, respectively with the company reached a settlement and patent license agreement. Along with the core patents the company further increased, Nichia, Osram, Toyoda Gosei, Cree and other companies are more active in the patent monopoly through the patent license to expand its influence in the LED market, and through the Taiwan and South Korean companies authorized OEM to expand product market share.

At the same time, the rapid development of technology has also forced leading technology companies to give up the idea of turning alone, trend of multilateral technical cooperation, most notably Nichia, which in 2002 to only rely on their own technology to continue the development of white LED, but now for the further development of the white LED Market trend, to the effective use of Patent Cooperation parties. To improve the technology and product development speed. In February 2009, Nichia signed with Seoul semiconductor cross licensing agreement, which marks the two companies will officially stop took 4 years, in all cases, the United States Patent lawsuit in Germany, Japan, Britain, South Korea carried out, the cross licensing agreement covers LED and LD (two pole laser tube) technology, these technologies will allow both sides you can use each other without restriction of patent.

My views: sharing a gradual increase in the level of these patent licensing patent case seemingly, but just have benefited from the manufacturers of the core patents in the patent, they struggle with the authorization of a network as one falls, another rises, the close relationship between the first camp pattern instead of increasing, the emerging enterprises want to break the patent barriers more difficult. But it is not impossible, the rise of Seoul semiconductor is a good case, there is only one premise: with the core of the negotiations can be large and patent!

Technology war - hidden mystery

Japanese enterprises in the development process of LED Technology