LED Backlight Sweeps the Driver IC Market, Driving Volume Growth

　　As the application areas of LEDs continue to expand, the LED driver IC market is also shining brightly. According to data from Taiwan's ITRI IEK, the LED driver IC market value will increase from USD 900 million in 2008 to USD 2.9 billion in 2013, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.4%.

The LED backlight market becomes the main driving force

　　Previously, the largest market for LED driver ICs was mobile phone applications, but in 2010, due to the explosive growth of LED backlit LCD TVs, driver ICs used in backlight LEDs became one of the fastest-growing application markets. At the same time, LEDNB, LED indoor lighting, LED street lamps, and LED outdoor displays will all experience explosive growth, and these rapidly growing LED application markets have also created a huge market for LED driver ICs. Research by the Topology Industry Research Institute shows that the LEDNB penetration rate reached 60% in 2009 and jumped to 95% in 2010, becoming an important force driving the growth of the LED industry. It is worth noting that as the LEDNB penetration rate is expected to reach 100% in 2011, the focus of market attention will shift to the LED backlit TV module market.

The LED backlight market has become the "fulcrum" of the strong growth of LED driver ICs, while LED lighting will become the "third wave". According to TRI statistics, in the LED industry development trends, medium and large-sized LED backlights will reach their growth peak during 2010-2012, while LED lighting is in its embryonic stage; medium and large-sized LED backlights will reach maturity during 2013-2015, while LED lighting will be in a high-speed growth period; the LED industry will enter its heyday during 2012-2015.

LED has injected fresh vitality into industry development, and China's LED driver IC market continues to improve. According to iSuppli estimates, China's LED driver IC market reached USD 127.7 million in 2010 and will reach USD 139 million in 2013, growing continuously at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.4%.

Driver IC requirements vary

Corresponding to different applications, LED driver ICs basically fall into three categories. The first is low-voltage, low-current LED drivers powered by batteries, mainly used in consumer electronics products, with a general demand of 1 to 3 units. The second is LED driver ICs powered by storage batteries that require higher voltage step-down, mainly used in automotive lighting products, with a typical voltage of 48V. The third is LED driver ICs used for lighting and large-size panel backlight sources such as LED backlit TVs, which need to convert AC directly to DC. Large-size backlights generally require dozens to hundreds of driver ICs, while the number of LED driver ICs required for lighting depends on the power; household lighting typically requires 1 to 2 units.

With the rapid development of LED applications, the dependence on high-quality LED driver power supplies continues to increase; therefore, the efficiency and reliability of the driver power supplies themselves have become crucial. Huang Wei, Chairman of Wuxi Jingkai Technology Co., Ltd., stated that to meet the above requirements, the impact of LED materials and processes is relatively significant, and efforts must be made in this area to address these issues.

Huang Wei also introduced that the most important components of LED lighting are the LED light source and the driver power supply. The driver power supply includes the driver IC, transformer, resistors, etc. The LED light source has a long lifespan but relatively low reliability, while the transformer performance is not very stable and its lifespan is also shorter than that of the LED light source. LED lighting performance is related to design. Under the premise of ensuring performance, the fewer peripheral components, the better. Generally, the voltage required for each LED lamp is about 3V, and the output voltage of the driver IC is 60V. When the current is 350mA, 20 lamps can be connected in series; when the current is 700mA, two parallel circuits with 20 lamps each can be connected.

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LED backlight TVs have higher requirements for the quality of the light-emitting source, and also higher requirements for the quality and quantity of the driver IC. There are two main design solutions for LED backlight modules: one is Direct (direct-lit), and the other is Edge (edge-lit).

For edge-lit LED backlight TVs, the typical specification is 3 to 5 LED light strings as a group, with 4 to 6 groups required for each LED backlight TV depending on the size specification. In terms of overall cost control and quality specification requirements, the edge-lit backlight assembly method has a clear advantage.

　　Mainland Chinese manufacturers should fill the gaps in their OEM shortcomings

Currently, competitors in the domestic LED driver IC market include established foreign companies, core Taiwanese companies, and rising mainland Chinese enterprises. Foreign companies such as Texas Instruments, ADI, NS, Linear Technology, Fairchild, ON Semiconductor, Maxim, and NXP have relatively complete product lines and occupy the mainstream of the market. Taiwanese manufacturers such as MBI, Silikron, and Tyntek are also relatively active, with notebook computers being one of their most important competitive markets. Mainland Chinese companies include Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDM) such as Shanghai Belling, Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics, and China Resources Microelectronics. In addition, there are currently dozens of IC design companies under development, but mass production scale is not large and applications are not very wide. Mainland IC manufacturers need to accelerate the completion of foundry shortcomings to gain a share of this market.

"Because high-voltage LED driver ICs are highly dependent on processes, there are still relatively few foundry lines for high-voltage ICs in mainland China, and the processes are not very mature," said Huang Wei. "The processes for LED driver ICs are complex and highly specialized. For mainland manufacturers to make a mark in the LED driver IC market, the most important thing is to resolve the process bottlenecks, to have their own foundry process lines, and to control the processes themselves."

(Editor: zl)