Analysis of the situation in the upstream, midstream and downstream of my country's LED industry chain

After years of development, China's LED industry chain has become increasingly complete, with companies covering all aspects of the substrate, epitaxy, chip, packaging and application industries. Looking at the overall industrial chain, due to the high technical and financial requirements of upstream industries, domestic companies are rarely involved. Therefore, the industry has the characteristics of a small number of companies and a small scale. In contrast, since downstream packaging and application have relatively low financial and technical requirements for enterprises, which exactly matches the characteristics of domestic enterprises with low funds and weak technology, there are a large number of domestic enterprises engaged in these two links. This uneven distribution of corporate structures has resulted in China's LED industry being dominated by low-end products, and companies have been facing severe price pressure for a long time.

With the significant decline in the cost of LED upstream epitaxial chips in the past two years, the market size ratio of upstream epitaxial chips, midstream packaging, and downstream applications has been formed at 1:4:9. Looking at the entire upstream investment situation, the growth rate of epitaxial wafer investment dropped from 46% in 2011 to 10% in 2012, while the investment growth rate in downstream applications was 21% in 2011 and rose to 53% in 2012. Therefore, the investment focus of the LED industry has shifted from upstream to downstream.

The upstream link has high technology content, large capital investment, large quality impact, and high profit margins. The color and luminous efficiency of LED are related to the materials and processes used to make LEDs. The upstream link accounts for about 70% of the LED manufacturing cost, which is extremely important to the LED industry; the midstream link is technology and capital intensive, and chips are the target. The front-end patent competition is the most intense, characterized by high investment intensity but slow results; the downstream link includes the development, production and application of LED packaging and lamps, which is the link most closely connected with the market. It has relatively low technical content and low investment threshold, so it is the largest and fastest-growing field in the LED industry.

In terms of LED upstream epitaxial wafer and chip production, the United States, Japan, and the European Union still have huge technological advantages, while Taiwan, China, has become an important LED production base in the world. At present, the world has formed a tripartite industrial structure led by the United States, Asia, and Europe, and shows an echelon distribution with Japan, the United States, and Germany as the industry leaders, followed by Taiwan, South Korea, and mainland China, Malaysia, and other countries and regions. Although China's production technology of LED epitaxial wafers and chips is still far behind the international advanced level, the huge domestic application demand has brought huge development opportunities to LED downstream manufacturers. Domestic LED application products such as display screens and landscape lighting fixtures have been exported to the United States, the European Union and other countries and regions.

At present, the main domestic epitaxial and chip research institutions include Peking University, Tsinghua University, Nanchang University, Institute of Semiconductors, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 13th Institute of China Electric Power, South China Normal University, Beijing University of Technology, Shenzhen University, Shandong University, Nanjing University, etc. Technically, they are mainly Solve the problem of growing GaN epitaxial layer on silicon substrate, GaN-based blue light wavelength drift, improving internal quantum efficiency and light extraction efficiency, improving light resistance and heat dissipation level of power chips, etc.

Domestic LED exports The main companies in the field of extension and chips include: Xiamen Sanan, Dalian Lumei, Hangzhou Shilan Mingxin, Shanghai Blu-ray, Shenzhen Fangda, Shanghai Sapphire, Shandong Huaguang, Jiangxi Lianchuang, Shenzhen Century Jingyuan, Guangzhou Puguang, Yangzhou Huaxia Integration, etc.

The main domestic packaging companies include Foshan Nationstar Optoelectronics, Xiamen Hualian Electronics, Ningbo Aimida, Jiangxi Lianchuang Optoelectronics, etc.; the downstream display industry mainly includes Shanghai Sansi, Xi'an Qingsong, and Beijing Leyard.