South Korea white LED lighting industry to catch up

South Korea white LED lighting industry to catch up

White LED lighting applications market began to take off in the past, Taiwan electronic industry and the fierce competition in South Korea, the positive development of the government and industry, also began to enter the LED industry is monopolized by Taiwan for a long time, although South Korea started slowly, but with reference to its past planned development of TFT-LCD industry experience, the future development of South Korea is still worth domestic manufacturers pay attention to.

Due to the rise of white LED lighting applications market, the South Korean government and industry to actively research into the ranks of the Ministry of industry of the "GaN" optical semiconductor development plan is expected to last for 5 years, and 1999/12 ~ 2002/11 and 2002/12 ~ 2004/11 two stages, two ways of studying the white LED Technology, the technology of roadmap (Figure 1) although the One Chip is only 2 ~ 23m/W, but after 10 years will be increased to more than 100lm/W, it has the potential for development.

South Korea optoelectronic semiconductor industry early only a few like LG, Samsung, photoelectron (AUK) etc. the company put into production of LED products, but in recent years, with the development of white LED lighting applications market, many manufacturers began to put GaN LED epitaxial chip industry from 2000, the following will present several representative manufacturers as a reference.

South Korea - "GaN" optical semiconductor development plan Roadmap (Figure 1)

South Korea manufacturers overview

The Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) for the Samsung group, the highest in the research institutions, like the airport security clearance must be checked, such as camera, PDA, notebook computers, etc. are not allowed to bring in, because there are a lot of highly confidential business belongs to the Samsung technology in this research. So even a piece of paper out of the guard also don't pass examination.

The Nitride Semiconductor Dr. Yong-Jo Park, a senior researcher at the laboratory, who is also the Ministry of industry "GaN" development plan of the host semiconductor light said that the development of SAIT technology including GaN LED and VCSEL based version, etc.. Dr. Park noted that the GaN based version they use HVPE technology growth, up to 20 * 20 ^ 2 mm square, priced at about $10 thousand, is currently in South Korea, Japan and the United States to send samples, the Korean patent has passed, the United States patent application which is more general, manufacturers such as 1.5 inch diameter circular GaN base plate Japan Sumitomo Electric Co. production (roughly $20 thousand) cheaper.

The Sumitomo Electro-Mechanics Co. (SEM) the company's general manager Dr. Yong-Chun Kim said, Samsung group with the relevant company Samsung Electro-Mechanics photoelectric Co. (components and modules), Samsung (SDI Co. Samsung Electronics Co. display (IC), semi conductor, Samsung Techwin Co. (home appliance) and optical component). At present, Samsung Electro-Mechanics has the ability to manufacture chips and grain LED Lei, but mainly for LED packaging products, and most LED Lei chip to Taiwan (red, yellow, blue, green), Japan and South Korea local (infrared). The LG Electronics Institute of Technology (LG Elite) like SAIT, still need to enter the security check. Study on the photoelectric Dr. senior researcher John-Geon Shin said the current research projects include: 1 blue LED (460 ~ 470nn) 2 blue violet LED (390 ~ 420nn) with LD (650 3.DVD-ROM, 3 ~ 5mW) 4.HEMT (GaN), belongs to the Ministry of industry "GaN" sub optical semiconductor development 5.OLED 6.PDP for TFT-LCD, the product is made by the new company LG. Philips LCD Co. The LG Innotek Co. the company secretary Dr.Jong-Je Jung said the light bamboo enterprise, the company has LED, the middle and lower reaches of manufacturing capacity, which for Taiwan manufacturers to mass production and labor costs cheaper than Korean, so LED Lei chip (red, yellow, blue, green) mostly from Taiwan, packaging part with local partners LED, Blu ray Lei chip also began selling in July 1999, the GaN LED chip (including blue, Lv Guang) production was 3 ~ 4 KK / month and development of Flip Cip technology, Dr. Jung and LG took out his mobile phone to say, this is the blue LED backlight LG Innotek Co. cooperation with the Japanese company Panasonic development.

Dr. Jung and said that in recent years, by GaN and optical communication of the boom, many small and medium sized enterprises in Korea and Taiwan LED vendors have invested, and currently has 10 GaN into the LED industry, the overall industrial structure also appears on LED, downstream manufacturers more and less like the middle funnel.

As for LD products, because it is a 650 nm DVD read head, its quality requirements are more stringent than the LED, so even cheaper to buy from the chip to the package to do their own, in order to control the quality of the entire.

- Hanvac Technology Co. Hanvac company was founded in 1995, is a production of photoelectric equipment manufacturers, the main products are GaN MOCVD machine, with no bubble (no bubbles) patented solar battery packaging machine (laminator) and LG Philips Co. in cooperation with the development of low-temperature polysilicon TFT-LCD process machine. The company president Mr.James Park said in 1998 it launched called "monolithic machine MOCVD SOLOMON, priced at $800 thousand, can produce GaN blue and green LED Lei chip, and launched 8 piece type production machine in 2001, priced at $1 million 500 thousand.

Mr.James stressed that the company's products feature is cheaper than MOCVD Aixtron in Germany and the United States Emcore world manufacturers cheaper (Table 1), and the consumption of materials and equipment maintenance costs are low, so that their products are very competitive. At the same time, if there is a chance, but also willing to work with Taiwan manufacturers to jointly develop blue, white LED related technologies.

The Dasan C&I Co. of the company business department director Mr. Kevin Cha said, Dasan C&I Co. is a semiconductor equipment company, which set up in the United States of California Oriol company's main products for LED epitaxial chip