A comprehensive survey of LED Front-End equipment business, covering main trends and industry per process step, and market metrics.
THE NEXT INVESTMENT CYCLE HAS ALREADY STARTED
Driven by the fanfare over (and overestimation of) the LCD display market, the LED Front-End equipment market experienced an unprecedented investment cycle in 2010-2011. The market surge was driven mostly by MOCVD reactor shipments to new Chinese entrants, who benefited from the generous subsidies of the Chinese central and local governments in a bid to stimulate domestic chip production.
Following a 18-24 month digestion period, the market is now slowly recovering and will experience another investment cycle in 2014-2016 driven by demand for general lighting applications. However, this 2nd cycle will be limited in value due to: • Improvement in equipment throughput and yields • Increased competition • Potential consolidation of the industry Indeed, LED manufacturers initially relied on old semiconductor systems designed for other applications. Now that the industry has reached a critical size, several LED-dedicated equipment (that take into account the specificities of LED manufacturing) has been commercialized.
As a result, the equipment market will peak at nearly $580M in 2015 with MOCVD reactors representing more than 80% of the business: the bulk of these reactors are still being shipped to Chinese manufacturers or Taiwanese players transitioning to 4” diameters. Lithography, plasma etching, PECVD and PVD equipment will follow a similar trend.
This report presents major equipment used in LED Front-End Manufacturing. It describes market size and volume (2009-2020), trends per process steps (performance, ASP, emerging technologies…), key suppliers, and much more!
More information on that report at http://www.i-micronews.com/reports/LED-Front-End-Equipment-Market/14/429/
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LED FRONT-END EQUIPMENT MARKETA Comprehensive Survey of LED Front-End Equipment Business, Covering Main Trends, Industry / Market Structures and Market
• Growth of the LED industry came initially from the small LCD displays and keypad backlighting for cellphones.
2nd Cycle
• And was driven forward by the LCD display application.
– LED TV was expected to be the LED industry driver for 2011, but the reality was quite different due to: lower sales ofLCD TVs, lower than expected adoption rate of LED, and lower number of LEDs per TV set.
– This situation, mixed with the entry of several new players (mostly from Asia), created a climate of overcapacity,price pressure, and strong competition. As a consequence, packaged LED volumes were about 30% lower thanexpected and revenue shrank due to strong ASP pressure.
3rd Cycle
• In 2012, most companies have started to move to the new “El Dorado” of the LED business: GeneralLighting, which represents the next killer application. In 2013, LED technology has really spread beyondgeneral lighting with the LED penetration rate > 4% in some applications - such as residential lighting,commercial lighting, and road and street lighting. However, to enable massive adoption of thetechnology, LED-products still require a cost decrease.
• LED packages represents 25% to 45% off the total cost of LED-based lighting products (lamp, luminaire,tube…) depending on the application, the performance required, the type of product (…).
– In our 2011 analysis, LED packages represented 30% to 60% of the total cost of LED-based lighting products.
– This decrease is due to reduction of LED ASP, increase of LED performance (lm/W), and wider use of middle powerLEDs in General Lighting applications (mostly for residential and commercial applications).
Packaged LED still represents a large opportunity for cost reduction!
Front End Cost Aspects1W Packaged LED Cost Analysis
• Front-end manufacturing represents 48% of the cost of the 1W packaged LED analyzed in this example.
• At 33% of the total Front-End cost, epitaxial layers (grown by MOCVD) represents the single largest costreduction opportunity.
• However, substrates (in this case sapphire + a carrier wafer on which the epiwafer is subsequentlybonded to) also represent a significant fraction (25%).
Front-End Manufacturing Process FlowExample - MESA Structure (1/2)
• Multiple variations are possible for the structure, the contact and pad materials, thicknesses (…). Actualprocess flow can also vary based on manufacturer’s engineering preferences, available equipment (….).
• The next slide illustrates the process flow for the generic MESA structure presented below:
1. Not to scale
Transversal view1 3D view (passivation layer not shown)1
Technology HighlightsLED Substrates - GaN and Si (1/2)
• GaN-on-Si LEDs aims at improving solid-state lighting Cost of Ownership (COO) by reducing thecomponent manufacturing cost.
– The success of GaN-on-Si LEDs will depend on development of associated LEDs performance (which should at leastbe equal to GaN-on-Sapphire LEDs) and development of manufacturing techniques (allowing to capitalize ondepreciated CMOS fab).
• GaN-on-GaN LEDs purports to reduce COO by improving the quantity of light per die area, and thereforeallow cost reduction at the system level through reduction of the number of packages.
– The success of GaN-on-GaN LEDs will depend on the availability of 2” and 4” GaN substrates in large volumes and ata lower cost than currently available.
Many companies are investigating GaN-on-GaN LEDs (Osram, Samsung, TSMC, Lumileds…). Only 3 have entered into real production: Panasonic, Soraa and Seoul Semiconductor.
LED MOCVD Reactor IndustryStrategy of New Entrants (2/3)
Focus on heating system:
• Different heating system are developed by new entrants. Companies such as ADP Eng. Or Top Eng. Areworking on resistance heater whereas Jusung Eng. or Wonik focus on induction heater. Kanthal ‘FeCrAl)heater are also developed -e.g.: Kokusai Electric Korea).
• The objective is to have better temperature ramping (through low temperature mass for example) and sodecrease MQW growth cycle time.
In 2012 and 2013, MOCVD price war was initiated by leaders to increase barrier entry. As a result, new entrants are working on new reactor design to attract customers.
Physical Vapor Deposition for TCLs and MetalsSynthesis (2/3)
• Intra-batch homogeneity and batch-to-batch repeatability are critical, and often require to be within+/- 3%.
• Due to the low thickness of most of the layers, deposition time is fairly quick. Cycle times are thereforedriven by pumping, heating, cooling and handling (loading / unloading). This creates a strong incentive forlow temperature processes as well as for higher automation in loading and transferring wafers.
• Pumping time can vary from 15 to 30 minutes depending on chamber size and pumping equipment. Temperature ramp-up depends on process.
• Loading time can be reduced by using multiple sets of wafer carriers that are preloaded outside the machine andswapped.
• Misc. includes rough reactor cleaning, changing deposition monitor quartz, replenishing the source material crucible (…).
T0
Deposition
10 min 40 min 46 min 60 min 70 min 80 min
Example for a 250 nm metal layer deposition.
Reactor
LoadingPumping + Temperature ramp up Cooling / Venting Unloading Misc.
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