Blu-ray LED trapped in the Red Sea competition, IR LED chip factory transformation "Taro"

Although the first half of this year, driven by the small-pitch terminal market, LED chips have rebounded from bottoming out. However, this still fails to fundamentally change the fact that blue LED chips are becoming increasingly popular. Companies, especially SMEs, need to expand to seek new high-margin market segments.

In the blue LED into the Red Sea competition, the domestic chip companies have transformed. Among them, the land-funded enterprises represented by Sanan Optoelectronics have mostly achieved multi-primary development through capital mergers and acquisitions, while the Taiwan-based companies represented by Jingdian are focusing on the diversified market layout. At this time, the IR LED, which has continued to heat up, has received increasing attention and has become one of the major target markets for transformation. It is estimated that by 2020, the IR LED output (without sensors) will reach US$710 million (approximately RMB 4.711 billion), and the compound annual growth rate will reach 24%, becoming a new blue ocean for LED manufacturers.

Infrared LED into Nuggets New Blue Ocean

IR LED emits infrared light, the pressure is generally about 1.4v, and the working current is less than 20mA. In order to adapt to different operating voltages, a current limiting resistor is often used in the loop. Infrared emission and reception are divided into direct type and reflective type. The direct type refers to the light emitting tube and the receiving tube are relatively placed at both ends of the launching and the controlled object, with a certain distance in the middle; the reflective finger means the light emitting tube is juxtaposed with the receiving tube, and the receiving tube is always without light, and only the infrared light emitted from the light emitting tube When the light meets the reflector, the receiving tube receives the reflected infrared light to work. Dual-tube infrared transmission circuit can increase the transmission power and increase the distance of infrared emission.

According to the characteristics of IR LED chips, infrared LED products with different wavelengths can be applied to different fields, such as: remote control, medical appliances, space optical communication, infrared lighting, pumping sources of solid-mass lasers, and automatic card-smoothing systems for highways. , camera, surveillance, building intercom, burglar alarm and so on. With the acceleration of development and application of high-power infrared rays, the focus of research and development of IR LED manufacturers has shifted from applications with low value-added applications such as remote controls, mice, and communications, to mobile phones, automobiles, security products, infrared monitoring, and infrared medical services. Added value market applications.

Security monitoring is currently the most mainstream application of infrared LED. With the increasing demand for anti-terrorism and security protection in various countries, surveillance cameras need to have infrared LEDs to provide night vision capabilities and further increase the output value of infrared LEDs.

According to relevant data, the market size of infrared LED applications for security monitoring in 2014 was US$94 million, and in 2015 it has grown to US$120 million. However, due to the fierce price competition among LED manufacturers and the fact that more and more manufacturers have begun to reduce costs by reducing the wafer size and changing the package form, the output value of infrared LEDs for security monitoring applications has grown slightly in 2016.

In the next few years, the security market will continue to be a very high growth area for IR LEDs, as long as the camera is equipped with a night vision function. By 2016, shipments of global security surveillance cameras will reach around 110 million units, of which infrared camera shipments are expected to exceed 100 million units. Taking the global giant Hikvision as an example, the consolidated revenue in 2013 was approximately US$1.6 billion, and in 2014 it was increased to US$2.7 billion. In 2015, the company’s revenue was US$4.0 billion, which grew by almost 50% every year.

From security to consumer electronics

IR LED market demand is bullish

Today, the application of IR LED has expanded from the security field to consumer electronics such as mobile phones and wearables. The landmark event is that on August 2, Samsung released the flagship smart phone Galaxy Note7 in New York. Iris recognition is a highlight of the product. Users can quickly unlock the phone by looking at the phone screen. Although this product was recalled for sale due to fire problems, it still represents IR LED applications extending from security control to consumer electronics.

Samsung introduced the iris recognition using a high-power IR LED with a wavelength of about 810nm and a quote price of several dollars. OSRAM is an early manufacturer of IR LED specifications for mobile phone iris recognition. Because it emphasizes lightness and thin-angle light emission on mobile phones, it has a technical threshold in the latter stage of packaging. OSRAM has made the last stage from the previous stage. Quotes are high.

In addition to quickly unlocking mobile phones, Samsung will open the API interface for iris recognition to provide services for developers. Samsung is also communicating with major commercial banks to apply iris recognition in online financial transactions. LED manufacturers believe that the purpose of introducing iris recognition is not to unlock, but in future mobile payment. Iris recognition raised the number of fingerprint identification points to about 240, and the recognition rate was greatly improved, making mobile payment more secure.

With the rise of mobile payment demand, Samsung's latest flagship smartphone, Note7, has standardized on iris recognition as a standard feature, which is expected to drive other brands to launch hardware arms races that incorporate relevant specifications. Subsequently, with the introduction of smartphones, laptops, tablets, and other products into the iris and facial recognition applications will promote the rapid growth of infrared LED.

According to the latest research report, facial and iris recognition functions will be gradually popularized in mobile devices. It is estimated that 400 million mobile devices equipped with infrared light identification sensors will be implemented by 2020, and infrared LEDs will be recognized by the face and iris at that time. The output value of the application will reach 250 million U.S. dollars, becoming one of the most promising application markets for infrared LEDs.

The infrared LED market is bullish on security surveillance and Samsung's Note 7 main driving iris recognition to drive infrared LED demand. Market adjustment agencies estimate that the infrared LED market will reach US$792 million in 2021, more than double the growth rate of US$300 million this year, and virtual reality devices will become the third largest security surveillance and iris recognition. Great growth momentum. However, at this stage, iris recognition technology and virtual reality devices are still in the initial stage of development, and there is a huge room for subsequent growth, which will affect the demand of the infrared LED market.

High profits

Manufacturers compete for layout

As a new niche market, infrared LED not only has a large room for growth, but also has high gross profit at the current stage. In response, Xie Mingxun, Deputy General Manager of Crystal Power R&D Center, said that although the current demand is small but the profit is better, the price of a single IR LED is about 8 to 16 times that of a blue LED of the same size.

The huge profit margin of infrared LED has attracted large giants such as Osram and Crystal to enter the market and achieved a good market response. At the same time, companies such as Hongli Zhihui and Yiguang have all deployed their IR LED.

In September 2015, OSRAM launched a high-density, compact, minimum-infrared LED with an ultra-light power of 1W. Its compact package and integrated lens enable a compact power density layout. In particular, the application of IR LED in night vision systems in automotive headlights has always been OSRAM's leading position in the industry.

According to industry insiders, OSRAM plans to convert funds originally intended for LED chip factories to iris scanning technologies such as IR LEDs. Although it has not been finalized yet, OSRAM officials have not commented yet.

Taiwan factory in China, currently has the ability to produce IR LED chip Taiwan factory for the crystal power, light, with the latter package capacity for the research crystal, billion light.

At present, Jingdian advocates the infringement of Guanghan, and filed an indictment in Taiwan’s intellectual property court in March this year, accusing Guangye Technology of infringing Jingjing infrared LED grain four invention patents.

As a chip maker in Taiwan, Crystal Electronics spokeswoman Zhang Shixian said that due to the competitive advantage of producing infrared LED chips in Asia, the future mobile phone manufacturers will tend to purchase in Asia, and Jingdian has obtained multiple customer certifications. Currently, the iris identification system that has been commercialized mainly uses near-infrared LEDs with a wavelength of 700 nm to 900 nm. In the current revenue structure of crystal power, blue light accounts for 70% to 75%, while red light accounts for 25%~30%. The world's largest red LED factory, the current red light orders have been discharged to the end of the year, is the main source of profit.

In mid-2015, Ye Guang, chairman of Yiguang, also revealed that Yiguang will join hands with Jingdian to jointly develop infrared special applications in order to get out of the LED Red Sea competition.

Another Chinese LED company in China, Huashang Optoelectronics, was the second-largest producer of quaternary and blue LED after Jingsheng. Nowadays, with the launch of a capacity war for land-based plants, Huashang decided not to love the blue-green light LED, and all the production capacity will be transferred to the four-factor area.

Huashang pointed out that quaternary LED production covers red light, yellow light, and orange light, and red light is the main demand of the market. As the scale of revenue and the number of machines decrease, the only resources in China are 810nm in IR LEDs. The 808nm, 850nm, and 940nm three-wavelength products are looking for operational reversal.

In addition, domestic LED packaging listed company Hong Li Zhihui, in recent years in the infrared LED (subdivision for image recognition, face recognition) has long been the layout, the future market demand once the heavy volume, the company will have the advantage of first-mover.

According to the semi-reported data of Xuhui, a subsidiary of Hongli Zhihui’s main infrared LED subsidiary, the company’s operating income was 25,885,300 yuan, an increase of 28.83% over the same period of last year. The company is mainly engaged in the research, development, production and sales of infrared LED devices and components. The company's products include infrared LED packaging devices, infrared LEDTIR optical lenses and infrared LED modules.

At present, although the market prospect of infrared LED looks optimistic, but to popularize, it needs the cooperation of major manufacturers in the industry chain to strengthen the packaging technology, optical design capabilities, and constantly improve the accuracy of infrared sensing modules to create more new applications. .

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