Localization of LED equipment: there is an opportunity for packaging to complete

As the backlight market is not as expected, market research institute ledinside recently revised its 2011 global high-brightness LED output value from $10.6 billion in early 2011 to $9 billion (annual growth rate is only 8%). However, this did not affect the Chinese industry's enthusiasm for LED. The latest statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology show that from January to July 2011, China’s LED output reached 49.16 billion, an increase of 31% over the same period of last year.

Although the backlight market is blocked, the lighting market is still optimistic about the industry. According to the latest report of DisplaySearch, lighting will gradually become the main application of LED. It is estimated that the usage in 2011 will grow by 20% compared with 2010. In 2014, LED backlight and total lighting revenue will reach 12.7 billion US dollars.

There is no doubt that the LED market is still hot. Chinese LED companies are also listed one after another, trying to expand the scale bigger and stronger. However, in the entire value chain of LED, the lack of domestic high-end equipment is still the pain in the heart of the Chinese industry! In the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan”, China must focus on industrialization of LED high-brightness high-power epitaxial wafers and chips, accelerate the application of domestic equipment, and achieve breakthroughs in domestic MOCVD equipment.

Long-term localization of MOCVD

Due to its high technological content, MOCVD equipment stands at the top of the LED industry value chain. Among the many devices in the LED industry chain, only the unit price of MOCVD equipment exceeds US$1 million, and MOCVD equipment investment accounts for more than 30% of the total equipment investment. If MOCVD equipment can be broken through, production costs can be significantly reduced, and LED expansion can be accelerated indoors. Lighting applications are competitive.

According to the statistics of IMS Reseach, a total of 798 units of MOCVD equipment were shipped in 2010. Among them, Vecoo and Aixtron are still the main suppliers. The former market share has soared from 31% in 2009 to 42%, while Aixtron From the original 62% shrunk to 55%, the two companies together have a market share of 97%. Other equipment suppliers such as Applied Materials, Jusung, and Daiyang Hitachi Co., Ltd. accounted for only a small percentage of shipments. This shows that for China, the localization of MOCVD equipment has a long way to go.

“At present, there are no enterprises that have produced MOCVD equipment in China, and several units are under development. Some claim that MOCVD equipment has been developed, but have not seen the trial effect and have not yet received any of the epitaxial wafer manufacturers. Therefore, there is a big gap between China and the rest of the world. In a relatively long period of time, the localization rate and online use rate of MOCVD equipment will still be zero, which is not optimistic.” Professor of the 13th Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Zhang Wansheng said in an interview with a reporter from China Electronics News.

Then, how can China break through the predicament, in addition to being passively imported? Jiang Fengyi, chairman of Jingneng Optoelectronics, believes that the current MOCVD equipment has not been finalized and there is still much room for improvement. For the domestic development of MOCVD equipment, it is necessary to plan for a five-to-ten-year high starting point leapfrog development. Jiang Fengyi also emphasized that the development of the process and equipment must be combined, and neither the equipment nor the process should be neglected. It is also important that the users of the MOCVD equipment, ie, the direct participation of the extension manufacturing enterprises, are also important.

It is understood that the current technological development trend of MOCVD equipment is scale and intelligence. The substrate will transition from 2 inches to 6 inches; a single machine realizes multiple reaction chambers, multiple pieces of synchronous operation, intelligent operation and reduce human influence. These industry technology trends will undoubtedly raise the threshold for China to develop this equipment, and certainly create new opportunities.

It is worth mentioning that another link closely related to the production of LED epitaxial wafers is the manufacture of LED chips. The equipment used includes vacuum coating machines, PCVD dielectric film deposition, ICP etching, lithography machines, and flaking machines. Polishing machine, dicing machine, spotting machine, sorting machine. Zhang Wansheng told reporters that many of these devices are common with silicon integrated circuits. Although they have already been domesticated, their localization rates and online usage rates are as low as that of integrated circuits. The reason is that the cost performance, the repeatability of batch production, and the stability of operation are not as good as those of similar foreign products.

Packaging equipment needs to keep up with new processes

The equipment used in the packaging and application includes crystal-fixing machines, threading machines, placement machines, potting machines, mixing and defoaming machines, dispensers, sorting machines, taping machines, printing machines, etc. Most of them have been realized so far. Localization, its cost performance can already compete with similar foreign equipment. The localization rate and on-line usage rate of in-line LED packaging equipment have reached 100%. These devices are gradually infiltrating SMD packaging, COB packaging, and high-power packaging production lines. The localization rate and online usage rate of the entire line are gradually increasing. In the ever-increasing price war in the future, domestic equipment will play an important role in reducing costs.

“At present, the equipment required for LED general packaging can be made domestically. This is an important support for our LED industry. The solid crystal equipment is a set of electromechanical and light integrated equipment with a high technical threshold, but through many years of improvement, The domestic solid crystal equipment has been able to meet the actual production needs and has been used in large quantities; the wire bonder is the key equipment for key processes in LED packaging, which has a major impact on product reliability and objectively requires a very high stability of the wire bonding equipment. At the same time, due to the stability of the equipment and the confirmation of the reliability of the product, it takes a long time, therefore, the packaging companies use less domestic wire bonders.” Ye Likang, deputy general manager of Xiamen Hualian Electronics Co., Ltd., told the “China Electronics News” reporter. It seems that domestic production companies still have a lot of homework to do, despite the high localization rate of packaging equipment.

At the recently held Nepcon South China Show, the reporter focused on the LED industry equipment. Among them, the solid crystal machine is the main equipment of many manufacturers. It emphasizes the automation, convenience, intelligence, and high speed and precision of the equipment. . The software system plays a big role in it. For example, the software system realizes the double vision zone, which is intuitive and convenient; the visual area is positioned quickly and accurately; the crystal is taken without the need of setting to ensure the convenience of crystal picking; the quick and simple programming interface automatically optimizes the crystal path and increases the productivity. Of course, these are some of the technical features currently present in the packaging equipment. Ye Likang emphasized that the rapid development of the LED industry can be described with each passing day. The technological development trend of packaging equipment must be consistent with the requirements of new LED products, new processes and high quality. Substrate silicone mold and COB (chip on board) products are one of the important directions for the development of LED packaging. The eutectic process and the new phosphor coating process are new processes for high-power LED packaging and high-quality white light packaging. The self-inspection function and replacement of artificial image detection equipment are all effective means to improve product quality. These aspects are equipment manufacturers need to pay attention.

From the bottom up to develop domestic equipment

The low localization rate of some intellectually intensive industrial equipment has always been a problem that needs to be solved in the domestic industry. LED equipment is one of them. China's industry needs to re-elaborate the criteria or acceptance criteria for the localization of LED industry equipment, and join the localization rate of the entire line and the single online usage rate.

The localization of equipment in the LED industry should be promoted from the bottom up. That is, starting from the downstream, through the middle reaches, the upstream production line will eventually reach a higher localization rate of the entire line; starting from easy equipment, and finally the most difficult MOCVD has a higher single online usage rate. In addition, the equipment and process complement each other. The process is based on the equipment and the carrier, and the equipment is based on the process. The equipment is the product of the process of physics, and only the equipment with low cost and high stability around the production process can adapt to the needs of the production line, can it be improved and improved in practice, and eventually combine its own process technology to develop more advanced equipment. Therefore, for the development of MOCVD equipment, it should be closely integrated with the process.

The government not only has to fund the research and development of MOCVD equipment, but also has to support outsourcing companies to try out MOCVD during the R&D phase. Because in the trial process, companies need to spend huge sums of money to explore the epitaxial production process according to the characteristics of the equipment. It is necessary to find out the manpower, material resources and financial resources for the successful epitaxial production process and even exceed the R&D expenses of the equipment itself. A successful epitaxial production process often contains several thousand parameters, and it is easier said than done to optimize according to a new device. At the same time, according to the experimental results of the epitaxial process, the R&D personnel of the equipment are constantly given feedback in the past to improve the design and manufacture of the equipment. This kind of reciprocal motion is sure to be multiple rounds.