There is no shortage of emerging competition in LED lighting. Capacity is rising, prices are falling and some of the world’s biggest chipmakers appear ready to do battle.
This week LED kahuna Cree promised to spend $135 million expanding production at its North Carolina fab. It earmarked another $392 million for a new facility in the state and is said to be considering facilities in the low-cost labor markets of China and Malaysia.
Inside Bridgelux's new Silicon Valley fab
General Electric is ramping up its own production, as is Samsung, LG Electronics, Philips and Osram. In China, about 55 producers are pumping money (some of its state funds) into their own plants.
Even India wants to get in on the act. De Core Science and Technologies is said to be gearing up for LED production at as many as two locations
Don’t forget Bridgelux, a promising U.S. producer that on Monday showed off a Silicon Valley fab where it has big plans for expansion. The company has the capacity to make 5,000 wafers a month and hopes to expand that five fold. About 180 new workers are expected by next year.
The growth should enable Bridgelux to more than double revenue next year from this year’s $30 million, says CEO Bill Watkins.
The industry’s expansion has an obvious motivation. Some estimates suggest a $19 billion worldwide market for LED lighting by 2014. There is big money to be made.
But with the steady expansion around the world, the danger of over capacity and commoditization rises as well.
Clean-room workers in the Bridgelux plant
The excitement of a massive LED market has attracted growing enthusiasm from venture capitalists. Money has poured into companies across the market spectrum, from software makers to hardware designers, including Luminus Devices, Superbulbs, Terralux, Digital Lumens, Albeo, LEDEngin. Bridgelux itself has raised $113.5 million.
There will be more to come.
LED lighting is growing fast and it will be the future of lighting
Great idea for an expansion. Need it
Over capacity for LED?
Not for the next 20 years !
LED, unlike other electronic components, can be used outside of computer and other electronic devices.
LED itself is a lighting device, hence it can be used – and it is being used – to replace billions of incandescent lighting bulbs and also the mercury-vapor fluorescent lamp that are being used worldwide.
The talk of over-capacity is premature, as least for now. I do not foresee any actual over-capacity for the LED industry, not at least by year 2030.
Please be awared that there are still bottlenecks that constraint the LED industry.
For example: The Sapphire ingot industry that supplies the substrates needed for the manufacturing of LED chips is not expanding rapidly enough.
But thankfully the LED industry is experimenting with new technology that can skip over those artificial hindrances.
New researches on ways to enable the LED industry in growing LED chips without the sapphire substrates are being carried out in R&D laboratories all over the world, right now.
All in all, the future looks bright for the LED industry, no pun intended.
LED surely is the next big thing, one is starting to see it being used everywhere.
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