After several cycles of baptism, most of China's LED chip manufacturers have gradually withdrawn, and the number of their companies has dropped sharply from the initial more than 80. Counting and counting, there are only seven major chip manufacturers left in the market that still have the strength to compete. Let's take a look at LEDinside.
What are the major LED chip manufacturers up to?
According to LEDinside, the Optoelectronics Research Division of TrendForce, the total LED chip revenue (only external sales) of LED chip manufacturers in China in 2020 will be 11.5 billion yuan.
At the same time, due to the withdrawal of some companies from the market, the concentration of the LED chip industry has further increased. At present, there are about 14 LED chip manufacturers in production in China. Among them, the top three LED chip manufacturers accounted for 67% of their revenue.
In terms of rankings, San'an Optoelectronics, HC Semitek, and Drylight Potential are among the top three LED chip manufacturers in mainland China in terms of revenue in 2020, and Jucan Optoelectronics, Azure Lithium Core, and Zhaochi Co., Ltd. rank fourth to sixth.
In addition to these six companies, Zhaoyuan Optoelectronics has gradually gained a foothold in the field of LED chips with the release of the second-phase project capacity.
1. Sanan Optoelectronics
Sanan Optoelectronics will continue to adjust its product structure in 2020 and has made breakthrough progress.
Among them, in terms of Mini LED, Sanan Optoelectronics has cooperated with many well-known downstream customers around the world to introduce Mini LED into TV, display and other fields, and has become Samsung's primary supplier of Mini LED chips;
For Micro LED, Sanan Semiconductor and TCL Huaxing established a Micro LED joint laboratory;
Infrared, ultraviolet, automotive, plant lighting and other subdivisions are also gradually starting volume, and the proportion of sales will gradually increase.
In terms of project progress, Quanzhou San’an Semiconductor will gradually release its production capacity in 2020; Hubei San’an started trial production in April this year and started the second phase of construction; Hunan San’an Phase I project was put into production in June this year.
2. HC Semitek
HC Semitek's Mini LED chips will be the first to achieve mass production and sales in 2019, and its technical level is in a leading position in China. among them:
Mini LED COB chip: Take the lead in solving the problems of light splitting and high grayscale display.
Mini LED RGB chip: Completed the development iteration and production guidance of the new generation of products, and has been approved by mainstream terminal display customers and shipped in batches.
Mini LED backlight chips: Products cover a full range of full-size terminal products for Pads, laptops, monitors, TVs, and vehicles; continue to develop system solutions with mainstream customers, and some products have been shipped in batches.
Micro LED chips: small batch shipments are used in the Micro LED display prototypes of multiple end customers.
In addition, HC Semitek's high-end products such as high-efficiency lighting, backlights and displays have excellent performance and quality, and sales revenue will increase significantly in 2020.
3. Dry photoelectric
At present, the overall production capacity of Qianzhao Optoelectronics has been released.
In the field of red and yellow light, in the expansion project of red and yellow light LED chips and triple junction gallium arsenide solar cells implemented by Qianzhao Optoelectronics in Yangzhou, high-end flip-chips, infrared chips and other products have been mass-produced and supplied;
In the field of blue and green light, the production capacity of Qianzhao Optoelectronics Nanchang base project has been fully released. The company has a comprehensive layout of general lighting products, high-voltage products, filament products, high-efficiency products, backlight products, flip-chip products, Mini/Micro LED products, and Display chip products. Among them, Qianzhao Optoelectronics focuses on the layout of Mini/Micro LED chips, and has signed strategic cooperation agreements with many downstream customers and terminal application customers.
4. Jucan Optoelectronics
The application areas of Jucan Optoelectronics LED chips include general lighting, display backlighting, medical beauty, etc., among which a variety of chip products such as formal, flip-chip and high-voltage have been launched for lighting applications.
For Mini LED products, Jucan Optoelectronics has provided corresponding trial mass production verification and the design and development of a variety of products for downstream companies, and it is expected to achieve mass production of a variety of products this year.
Regarding Micro LED, Jucan Optoelectronics has launched R&D semi-finished products that meet the needs of customers. However, due to uncertain factors in equipment, technical routes, market application terminals, etc., Micro LED chips are far from commercial or even large-scale mass production. Long time.
In terms of semiconductors and chips in the automotive industry, Jucan Optoelectronics is actively deploying GaN-based flip-chip LED chips for high-end vehicles, and has undertaken a number of government science and technology projects, which are progressing smoothly.
In addition, in November last year, Jucan Optoelectronics and the Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly researched nitride optoelectronics and integration technologies for optical communications, and developed high-performance and high-power nitride luminescence and detector devices. At present, the work is progressing in an orderly manner.
The Jucan Suqian project has also made progress. On July 5, when Jucan Optoelectronics was investigated by an institution, it said that Jucan Suqian had completed the filing and obtained the qualification of environmental assessment. “In the future with sufficient funds, the company will carry out project management and operation as soon as possible.”
5. Azure lithium core
Azure Lithium gradually entered the LED epitaxial wafer and chip manufacturing field in 2011, and its LED business achieved a turnaround in the first quarter of 2021.
The LED chip business of Azure Lithium Core is led by Huaian Aoyang Shunchang Optoelectronics, and the industrial chain extends from substrate cutting, polishing, PSS, and epitaxial wafers to LED chips.
At present, blue lithium-core Mini LED products have been shipped in batches, and large-size flip-chip TV backlight products have been launched.
6. Zhaochi shares
Zhaochi's LED chip business started production at the end of 2019, and its production capacity will be gradually released in the first half of 2020. However, in the whole year of 2020, Zhaochi's LED chip business revenue has risen to the sixth place among LED chip manufacturers in mainland China, and its strength is not tolerated. Underestimate.
It is reported that Zhaochi's LED chip business is mainly dominated by Zhaochi Semiconductor. Among them, the blue and green chip project has been officially put into operation in the fourth quarter of 2019, and the red and yellow light project will be put into production within this year.
In terms of production capacity, Zhaochi's research report released on May 25 pointed out that the company's monthly production capacity for blue and green chips has reached 500,000 to 600,000 four-inch chips per month, which is approximately 28 million two-inch chips per year.
7. Zhaoyuan Optoelectronics
Zhaoyuan Optoelectronics' LED industry base construction project is a key project in Fujian Province and a key project in Fuzhou City, with a total investment of 3.177 billion yuan, which will be carried out in two phases.
The first phase of the project has a total investment of 1 billion yuan, and 100,000/month epitaxial wafers and 100,000 wafers/month chip production lines have been built; the second phase of the project has a total investment of 2.177 billion yuan, mass production in 2019, reaching the designed capacity of 1 million epitaxial wafers /Month, 680,000 chips/month.
On January 18 this year, Zhaoyuan Optoelectronics also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Zhongke Xinyuan. The two parties will launch strategic cooperation in the field of ceramic phosphors to jointly research ceramic phosphor technology and applicable LED epitaxial wafers and chips, and complete different color temperatures, Thick ceramic phosphor design, epitaxial growth, chip bonding and other technologies.
In terms of the layout of emerging fields, Zhaoyuan Optoelectronics has specially established the Fujian Province Micro-pitch LED Chip Engineering Research Center, which mainly researches Mini LED and Micro LED.
