Jingyuan Optoelectronics: Entering the mainland market

——Interview with Mr. Lin Yida, General Manager of Jingyuan Baochen

In order to strengthen its position in the mainland market, Taiwan Jingyuan Optoelectronics (hereinafter referred to as Jingdian) integrates Shenzhen Baohelin Optoelectronics and Haochen Technology (the latter two are agents of Jingdian's early entry into mainland China, and have worked in the mainland for more than ten years). , has a good reputation and rich customer resources.) In 2009 officially established Jingyuan Baochen Optoelectronics (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jingyuan Baochen). Jingyuan Baochen is the only official sales channel of Jingdian in China. "High-tech LED" reporter visited Jingyuan Baochen Company in Shenzhen, and communicated with Mr. Lin Yida, the general manager of the company, about the layout of the Chinese market and the related topics of the LED industry.

Entering the mainland market

The establishment of Jingyuan Baochen is only part of the movement of Jingdian into the mainland market. As early as December 2006, Jingyuan Optoelectronics established Jingyu Optoelectronics in Xiamen, which is mainly responsible for processing the epitaxial wafers produced in Taiwan into chips. At present, the company's production capacity is 1600~2000KK, so Jingdian has become one of the chip manufacturers that invested in the mainland earlier. . In the same period, CREE acquired Huagang in March 2007 and entered the packaging field in the mainland.

In December 2009, Jingdian announced that it has invested in the LED epitaxial chip factory (Shandong) Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd., which is led by Taiwan Unicom. In April 2010, Jingpin Optoelectronics (Changzhou) Co., Ltd., which was established by Jingdian Investment of 600 million US dollars, held a groundbreaking ceremony. The project is mainly for epitaxial wafer and chip manufacturing. The total investment of the first phase is 360 million US dollars, and 30 MOCVD projects are put into use. It is expected to be officially produced in April 2011.

In May 2010, Jingke Electronics invested 1 billion yuan in Guangzhou to establish a high-power high-brightness LED industry base. The initial investment of the project is 400 million yuan, including LED chip factory, semiconductor and LED module factory, LED light source and application branch, LED technology research and development center and the overall office building five functional areas. It was officially put into operation in 2011, and it is estimated that 500,000 epitaxial wafers will be produced each year after the completion of the project. Jingdian is one of the shareholders of Jingke Electronics and supplies some epitaxial wafers of Jingke.

Lin Yida said that the investment action of Jingdian in recent years mainly depends on the huge market of the mainland, and the local government has also given many preferential policies and special subsidies to Jingdian. "The amount of investment is so large, the government's special subsidy is very much needed for the chip factory." In addition, the matching with the TV factory is also one of the reasons. It is understood that the Changzhou project of Jingdian is mainly for upstream support of Guangbao Group. “Our project in South China is in preparation,” he revealed.

When exploring the mainland market, Jingdian pays great attention to customer after-sales technical support. "Now the packaging industry technology is quite mature, the equipment accuracy is also very high, more problems may be many know-how and details on the process, and the process quality is not related to the chip itself. So the same crystal chip, different package There may be a slight difference between the products in the factory, and our engineers will help the packaging factory to provide the necessary technical support,” Lin Yida said.

“Crystal produces chips for more than ten years and has accumulated rich experience in the process of practice. Even if it is a newly established packaging factory, as long as they have good equipment, good engineering personnel and good quality control system, in the crystal With the help of counseling, you can also produce high quality things.” Lin Yida added. Jingyuan Baochen set up a technical customer service unit and dispatched a doctoral team from the original factory to answer various questions in the process of using the crystal chip. Therefore, Jingdian and the mainland packaging factory have maintained a pleasant cooperation for many years.

Chip price increase is forced by upstream raw material price increase

Since entering 2010, chip prices have begun to rise. The price increases of different types of chips vary, and there are multiple reasons for the increase in chip prices and the increase in prices of upstream raw materials. Lin Yida believes that the price increase of raw materials is the main reason. "Sapphire, organometallics, special gases and other raw materials have been raised a lot. The sapphire substrate has risen more than 50% since the beginning of the year, and it is likely to rise again in the third quarter. The price increase of the chip factory is only a moderate response, some The profit of the specification chip is low, and if the dissatisfaction reaction costs, there may be a negative profit." Lin Yida explained.

He revealed that the price of wafers in East China has risen very much, from six to seven hundred to eight or nine hundred. According to GLII, the increase in backlight chips and low-power chips is relatively high, and the increase in high-power chips is relatively low. Cree's device prices did not increase, although market demand led to tight supply.

In the context of tight supply of chips, some application vendors have had problems with chip procurement. The GLII survey shows that these problems only occur in some small businesses, they have less demand and lack of continuity; for medium and large manufacturers, the supply is no problem.

Lin Yida said that Jingdian has many long-term cooperation partners in the mainland, and will try to meet their requirements for the newly established packaging factory. “We are more optimistic about the future development direction and corporate culture that can be matched with us. We will give priority to supply.”

For the market situation next year, Lin Yida believes that the tension of lighting chips will be eased next year, but the tension of backlight chips will continue. "Backlight chips have high requirements on process quality. Not all factories can enter. The quality requirements of LED TV manufacturers are relatively high. The sales of LED TVs are not limited to domestic ones. Patent, production capacity and quality are not available in general packaging factories. "" Most of the current production capacity of crystal power is used for LED backlighting.

AC LED scale still takes time

AC LED is one of the development directions of LED technology, especially in South Korea and Taiwan. Taiwan Industrial Technology Institute is an active promoter of this technology, and developed related technologies as early as 2005. In 2009, 19 Taiwanese manufacturers and organizations such as ITRI, Jingdian, Lite-On and Dingyuan formed the “AC LED Application R&D Alliance” to actively promote the development and mass production of AC LED application products.

In February 2010, Seoul Semiconductor developed the AC LED product Acriche, which achieved 100lm/W light efficiency and was mass-produced in April. At the same time, it announced the successful development of AC LED products exceeding 150lm/W in April. Jingdian obtained the technology transfer of AC LED from the Industrial Technology Research Institute and carried out research and development on this basis. Currently, there are a small number of shipments.

“AC LEDs still have a long way to go. The current AC LEDs are conceptually made into a bridge rectifier, so half of the chords are not lit, which is not economical.” Lin Yida Tell the reporter. Current AC LEDs are still relatively inefficient compared to conventional DC LEDs. In applications, AC LEDs are more suitable for applications with lower power, such as candle lights below 3W.

Lin Yida said that many devices now use bridge rectifier chips as the outside, bridge chips are cheaper, and the external functions are similar to AC LEDs after packaging.

The addition of a number of well-known companies will strengthen the market position of AC LED. Lin Yida believes that AC LED will still occupy a part of the market in the future.

Why is the Taiwan chip industry developing rapidly?

From the development track of the LED industry in Taiwan and the mainland, the mainland is only a few years later than Taiwan, but Taiwan is developing rapidly. Many experts believe that this is related to Taiwan's industrial base, because Taiwan's integrated circuit manufacturing industry is developed, the industry has many similarities in process and LED epitaxy, chip processing, packaging and so on. Some experts also believe that it is related to research and development mechanisms, government support, and personnel training mechanisms.

Lin Yida believes that there is another reason. The market on Taiwan Island is relatively small, mainly relying on the export market, which has caused great pressure on enterprises to force them to carry out technological transformation and improve product quality. On the contrary, the mainland has a large market, and the labor market is cheap. Even if the company does not go to the high end of the industry, it can earn considerable profits. In addition, the government's support is also a major reason. "With the recent promotion of the 'Ten Cities and Ten Thousand' and '863' projects, the mainland's LED industry will accelerate."

In the early days of crystal power development, the main technical team came from the Industrial Technology Research Institute. At present, there are more than 1,200 patents that Crystal Power has obtained and is applying for. In the field of red LEDs, crystal power is about 100 lumens per watt, which is the highest in global light efficiency. The high-power Blu-ray chip that has been commercialized by Jingdian has reached an efficiency of about 130 lm/W, which is comparable to other international giants.

Lin Yida does not agree with the statement that mainland enterprises are at the low end. He gave an example. It is not easy to make a Christmas string under low-cost conditions. To make a backlight package, it is necessary to use good materials and good equipment, but it ultimately affects the profit. As long as you can achieve high quality and high profit is high-end. “SMD LEDs look more advanced than in-line, but it’s not always good to call a patch factory to do in-line LEDs,” he stressed.