The LED is called a fourth-generation illumination source or a green light source and is a semiconductor solid-state light-emitting device. In 1955, American radio company RubinBraunstein discovered the infrared radiation of gallium arsenide (GaAs) and other semiconductor alloys. In 1962, Nick Hollonak Jr of General Electric Company of the United States developed visible light LEDs. However, the real take-off of LEDs began to be gradually gained attention after the appearance of white LEDs in the 1990s, and the application surface became more and more extensive.

       In recent years, LEDs have experienced explosive growth, mainly due to the support of national policies and the rapid growth of downstream TV backlight demand and the large-scale general lighting replacement brought by the decline of future costs. It can be said that the next five years will be the golden growth period of the LED industry.

       The world's top five LED manufacturers

      In the face of global climate change and rising energy prices, governments have begun to list some energy-intensive products as the primary ban, such as incandescent bulbs are the most obvious case. The ban on incandescent bulbs began with the EU and Japan, and governments followed suit. Observing the timetable for the ban on incandescent bulbs in various countries, after 2012, most countries began to gradually ban incandescent bulbs, which also brought huge business opportunities for LED lighting.

       There are relatively few companies that are truly capable of engaging in the entire business of the LED industry chain, mainly leading companies in the United States, Japan and South Korea. At present, the top five LED manufacturers in foreign countries are Cree of the United States, Osram of Germany, Philips of the Netherlands, Nichia of Japan, and Seoul Semiconductor of Korea (SeoulSemiconductor) ).

       LED upstream is monopolized by foreign manufacturers

       The LED industry has formed a complete industrial chain in the world. There are many companies in the United States, Japan, Europe, Taiwan, and South Korea, mainly in the fields of substrates, epitaxial wafers, chips, and packaging.

       The core technology of LED is the epitaxial growth of high-brightness LED and chip manufacturing technology. It has high technical content and added value, a typical technology-intensive and capital-intensive industry. This field has always been the industry high ground for companies in the industry to compete. At present, the United States and Japan have technological advantages in the design of raw materials and devices for core devices, and are at the world's leading level. Among them, Japan's Nichia and Toyota Synthetic, Cree of the United States, and Osram of Germany are temporarily in the world's semiconductor lighting patent market. Technical monopoly position. These big companies are also in absolute lead in terms of sales and market share.

        For the production of LED chips, the selection of the front-end substrate material of the industry chain is the first consideration, and needs to be selected according to the requirements of equipment and LED devices. At present, the international chip manufacturers using SiC as the substrate mainly include: Cree in the United States, SiCrystal and Norstel in Europe, Tianke Heda Blu-ray Semiconductor Co., Ltd in Asia and NionSteel, among which SiO chips of Cree, USA Technology, production and sales are both international leaders, accounting for about 80% of the market share, however, high prices will still hinder the widespread use of SiC chips.

       In addition to the substrate, the epitaxial wafer is also the upstream end of the LED industry. At present, LED epitaxial wafer production technology mainly uses MOCVD, and there are only three to five companies that can produce this equipment worldwide. The world's two largest MOCVD producers are Germany's AIXTRON and the US's VEECO, which are in a monopoly position, occupying more than 90% of the global MOCVD supply market.

       From the market research report of VLSI Research Institute in April 2008 and GartnerDataquest research institute in May 2009, AIXTRON's global market share was about 72% in 2008, and VEECO's global market share was about 19%.

       In the past year, the sudden surge in MOCVD equipment demand has also given VEECO the opportunity to grab AIXTRON orders. According to information released by Gartner Research in March 2010, AIXTRON's MOCVD product market share is 68%.

       Japan's LED packaging factory has the highest market share.

       According to research firm LEDinside, the total revenue of global LED packaging plants in 2009 reached 8.05 billion US dollars, an increase of 5% over 2008. According to the region, Japanese manufacturers have the highest market share, but show a downward trend year by year; Taiwanese manufacturers have a market share of 17%, ranking second, showing an upward trend year by year; Korean manufacturers' market share from 9% in 2008 soared to 15% in 2009, ranking third in the world. In recent years, with the rapid expansion of packaging companies and their production capacity in mainland China, the global market share of China's packaging industry has steadily increased. In 2009, the market share was 11%.

        In terms of operating revenue of individual manufacturers, LED suppliers entering the large-size backlight market earlier grew their business in the financial crisis such as South Korea's Samsung LED, Seoul Semiconductor, and Japan's Toyota Synthetic. In terms of operating income, Japan’s Nichia was ranked first in the world in 2009, followed by traditional LED companies such as Osram in Germany and Cree in the United States. China’s Taiwan’s Lite-On and Everlight also entered the top ten. The top ten packaging companies had revenues of $5.2 billion in 2009, and the remaining other companies had revenues of $2.85 billion in 2009.

      In addition, the current patented technology is an important means for the world's major LED manufacturers to gain competitive advantage and maintain their market share. Since 2000, Nichia, Philips, Cree, and Osram have been litigating and reconciling patent rights. In a sense, several LED manufacturers have dominated the development trend of the LED industry. LED manufacturers through R&D and cross-licensing for R&D and production form alliances between companies, thereby increasing barriers to entry.