Compared to the noisy daytime, the Expo Garden at night shows a more beautiful view of the distance. And this comes from a small LED. Not only the “One Axis and Four Pavilions” and the urban best practice area have completely adopted LED lighting, but also LED displays with a value of more than 1 billion yuan to display rich video content.

In fact, LED-led green lighting and new display technology applications are considered to be the pillar industries of China in the future, and the Expo will only open its thin veil. Since the beginning of this year, not only the original Tianzhu technology has turned into Sanan Optoelectronics, Dazu Laser has acquired Yuanheng Optoelectronics, but also Taiwan-funded LED lighting companies have turned to the mainland. European, American, Japanese and Korean lighting giants have invested in Chinese lighting companies. An LED investment boom is surging in mainland China.

Expo Touchstone

It is understood that LED landscape lighting technology has been a small test at the Hannover World Expo and the Aichi Expo. For the first time in large-scale use, it is still the first time in China. Professor Fang Zhilie from Fudan University participated in the research work of LED lighting at the Shanghai World Expo. In his view, the concentrated application of LED lighting in the Shanghai World Expo Park indicates that the Shanghai World Expo is likely to open a "first year of semiconductor lighting."

According to statistics, at present, 1.03 billion LED chips are used in the Expo Park. LED chips appear on indoor and outdoor lighting, landscape decoration, signs and information displays in the Expo Park. The entire park has become the world's most concentrated semiconductor lighting technology. Demonstration application area. Among them, about 80% of the indoor lighting sources in the Expo venues use LED green light sources, which is about 90% less than ordinary incandescent lamps.

At the Shanghai World Expo, LED lighting brought visitors an unprecedented visual experience through the interpretation of creative design and technical concepts. For example, the “Happy Street” of the Netherlands Pavilion will decorate the surface of the building with LEDs, and express the joyful atmosphere of the Dutch Pavilion at night through bright and flashing visual effects.

In addition to LED screens, LED lighting technology is also widely used. Yin Yurong, deputy general manager of Shanghai Liangshuo Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd., who participated in the construction of the China Shipbuilding Museum, the Turkmenistan Pavilion, and the Shanghai Eco-House, told reporters that 80% of the nightscape lighting sources in the Expo Park use LED lighting technology.

"In the 2008 Olympic Games, LED lamps were widely used in venues such as the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest." Fang Zhilie believes that "the significance of widespread use at the World Expo is more unusual because of the high-tech demonstration significance that will motivate the public. The increase in consumption has driven the production of manufacturers to rise and promote the research and development process of the research team."

National craze

In fact, at the Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition, the exhibition area of ​​135,000 square meters, the LED exhibition area exceeded 70,000 square meters; most of the more than 1,800 companies participating in the conference were doing LED, and the previous participation The main incandescent lamp manufacturers have almost disappeared.

At the show, GE focused on the GLSLED lamp that is planned to be available in the second half of the year. GE called it a "LED product that can really replace the indoor 40W incandescent lamp." GE Lighting Asia Pacific President and CEO Gao Si stressed that GE is very optimistic about the market prospects of indoor retail and outdoor road applications, "the Chinese market is our top priority."

And domestic companies have also smelled the business opportunities of LEDs - at the end of last year, Midea established Lighting Electric Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Meng Ling, director of the lighting brand planning department of the United States, said that the lighting of the United States should be the solution to the full range of lighting solutions for home, office, engineering, electrician and light source.

In the capital market, LED is also highly sought after by investors. From the beginning of 2009 to the beginning of June 2010, in just over a year, the share price of Dehao Runda rose from 2.81 yuan to nearly 20 yuan, and Silan Micro rose from 3.35 yuan to more than 15 yuan. And many lighting companies are not far behind, and gradually began to show their ambitions in the capital market. Zhejiang Sunshine, Snow Wright, Zhen Mingli, NVC Lighting, Sanxiong Aurora and other enterprises are competing to go public, and in the capital market, a scene about LED lighting "drama.

According to relevant analysts, at present, under the background of vigorous promotion of energy conservation and environmental protection in all countries of the world, the LED industry is gaining momentum and the investment value has fully appeared. At present, the LED industry has entered the gold industry for 10 years. LED is a valuable hope in the current decline of the electronic components industry. Various funds have poured into this green field of “low carbon, energy saving and environmental protection”.

Lack of core technology

"Everyone is optimistic about this market, hoping to quickly enter the market and introduce the brand." Zhang Yajun, the operation manager of Jihua Optoelectronics, admitted that the LED market is huge, but domestic enterprises are still mainly concentrated in downstream areas such as packaging and applications. "LED has several core technologies. Currently still in the hands of foreign companies: one is a high-power chip, the United States Cree is one of the most important LED chip manufacturers; the other is the phosphor, we basically have to use Japan's Nichia's products."

In fact, in the upstream segment, the core patents for LED lighting are basically controlled by Japanese companies such as Nichia, Toyota Synthetic, Toshiba, Cree, and Osram, Germany, and these companies use their own core patents to adopt "The expansion of the way, the world's rigorous patent network.

Data from the China Lighting Association show that in the LED industry chain, epitaxial wafers and chips account for 70% of profits, while LED packaging and applications account for only about 30% of profits. At present, the production of epitaxial wafers is basically controlled by foreign companies; in terms of chips, domestic enterprises are mainly concentrated in the low-end, low-end fields, and there are still problems in technology, mass production and quality in the high-power high-end field.

Fortunately, it can no longer be reduced to the downstream assembly workshop has become the consensus of domestic LED companies. In January of this year, Sanan Optoelectronics invested 12 billion yuan to establish an LED base. Sanan Optoelectronics currently has an annual production capacity of 450,000 pieces of epitaxial wafers and 15 billion chips. It has completed the construction of five LED production lines, and plans to issue additional funds of no more than 600 million yuan for high-brightness LEDs. Expansion of chip production line projects and replenishment of working capital.

Yang Xueming, senior consultant of microelectronics products, said that the current technical route of China's LED lighting industry is not very mature, and has not developed enough to replace the traditional lighting level, and thus achieve the third lighting revolution, and the cost of LED products is still relatively high. High, how to achieve mass production and application, and thus achieve the purpose of reducing costs, is also a matter that practitioners must consider.