A comprehensive survey of LED Front-End manufacturing, covering main process steps and technological trends
SUBSTRATES ARE SHAPING THE LED FRONT-END INDUSTRY
LED substrate is one of the key topics impacting the LED Front-End industry in the following ways: Increased demand for larger size sapphire wafers with big players (such as LG, Sharp or Osram) moving to 6” wafers and Taiwanese players moving to 4” wafers. Increased demand for PSS that has now become mainstream in the industry (87% share as of Q1-2014), even if some questions remain concerning key patent holders’ strategies. Development of GaN-on-Si and GaN-on-GaN LEDs with both technologies having begun mass production in some companies (such as Soraa for GaN, or Toshiba for Si). However, market penetration of these alternative substrates will be secondary to future improvements in terms of performance and cost. Otherwise, GaN-on-Si and GaN-on-GaN LEDs will not be able to fully compete with sapphire-based LEDs.
The impact of the sapphire industry on the LED industry is likely to become bigger in the future because of the recent partnership between GTAT and Apple (Q4-2013) to set up a large sapphire manufacturing plant ($1 billion). The plant, having a rough capacity of 2 times the current qualified sapphire capacity, could totally modify the structure and evolution of the sapphire and LED industries in the next few years. The report presents all recent technological trends of LED Front-End manufacturing, detailing evolutions at substrate, epitaxy, lithography, plasma etching and deposition, PVD and testing levels.
INCREASED COMPETITION WILL ACCELERATE NEW LED MOCVD REACTOR DEVELOPMENT
LED epitaxy has also been of central interest to the LED Front-End industry that has seen the entry of several new players in the MOCVD reactor market since 2011 / 2012. Even if increased competition has not really affected the market’s top leaders (Aixtron, Veeco and Taiyo Nippon Sanso), it has forced them to accelerate development of the next generation of MOCVD tools to lever market entry barriers. This generation of MOCVD reactors should focus on Cost of Ownership, see the emergence of enhanced designs, with new heating systems, new gas-flow designs, and increased automation (…). Regarding lithography, plasma etching and deposition, PVD and testing, mostly incremental evolutions have occurred (such as improvement of throughput, and ASP decrease…) reflecting a saturation in technological development. The report presents a detailed analysis of LED epitaxy, highlighting main trends at process, technology and equipment levels...
More information on that report at http://www.i-micronews.com/reports/LED-Front-End-Manufacturing-Trends-report/14/433/
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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%).
GaN LED Chip DesignTrend - Increase of Flip Chip Technology
• As flip chip technology gradually matures, LED manufacturers are actively developing this technology as itgives several advantages.
– Larger light-emitting area and highest luminosity.
– Better heat dissipation.
– Adjustable dimensions.
– No wire-bonding.
• Whereas such design was mostly in hand of big LED manufacturers (Cree, Lumileds…), in 2013, Taiwanesemanufacturers have also started to develop this technology.
• Additionally, and following the increased use of middle power LEDs for General lighting applications, flipchip technology should also make its way into the middle power LED market in 2014.
– Recently (Q4-2013), Lumileds has announced its plans to introduce flip-chip technology into the middle power LEDmarket as such type of device has drawn most attention from the market in 2013.
– Indeed, middle power LEDs (following the 2011 / 2012 overcapacity) have become mainstream in interior lightingapplications.
Flip Chip (FC) technology as the new battleground with Taiwanese companies racing to start production and some companies planning to develop FC LED for middle power market.
• Studies have been realized by the Semiconductor Lighting and Display Laboratory of The University ofHong Kong, which examined the light extraction efficiency of LEDs with different geometries:
• These studies have concluded that square LEDs have distinctively lower extraction efficiencies than anyother shape.
– Considering the fact that LED chips in the market are invariably diced into squares or rectangles, device designersshould give thought to redesigning the chip.
Novel chip geometries, such as triangular and hexagonal devices, can deliver massive increases in light extraction by cutting optical confinement in both the vertical and horizontal directions.
• 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.
GaN-on-Si LEDsSi vs. Sapphire - LED Die Cost Simulations
• In this simulation, GaN-on-Si LED chip structures were compared to the closest available Sapphire-basedstructure → Vertical LED with substrate removal by laser lift off.
• However other sapphire structure exist that are cheaper to manufacture. For example PSS-based LED nowoffer very competitive manufacturing cost and performance close to state of the art vertical LEDs.
The simulations show a potential cost reduction of -XX to XX% at the die level vs. a 4” sapphire vertical LED:
– The benefit of GaN based LED is only realized at high current density (for very high luminous flux).
– Because droop is still present, GaN LED will often trade flux for efficiency.
• Initial penetration will start with applications requiring very high flux over small surfaces and were precisebeam shaping is critical.
• GaN based LED will not be favored in applications requiring a more diffuse light pattern or when energyefficiency is the main driver for LED adoption.
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