This report provides a complete vision of the established and emerging front-end and back-end technologies for LED manufacturing. It also provides updated volume and $ forecast for packaged LED, split by application with capacity analysis and price trends.

Market

The packaged LED market is experiencing tremendous growth with an expected CAGR of 28.2% between 2009 and 2015. Growth will be driven by large LCD backlight applications through 2013-2014. However in order to successfully transition to general lighting applications, significant technology and manufacturing efficiency improvements are still needed in order to reduce the cost per lumen of packaged LED. Such improvements will be achieved through:

• Economies of scale
• LED efficiency improvement, including at high power (droop effect)
• Improved phosphors
•Improved packaging technologies
•  Significant improvements in LED epitaxy cost of ownership (yield and throughput)
Fundamental challenges:

Significant technological challenges remain to be solved in order to achieve the cost and performance target set by the industry to enable  adoption of LEDs for a large number of applications. Solving the high current efficiency droop remain a priority. While multiple mechanisms have been proposed, more work is needed to understand the root cause(s) and allow the development of enhanced LED architectures or improved epitaxial material quality that would lead to LED devices performing at high efficiency when driven at high currents. Further improvements in light extraction and internal quantum efficiency are expected through improved LED die structure and material quality enabled by the availability of better deposition tools, deeper understanding of III-V semiconductors material as well as mirror and contact layers.

Front End Manufacturing:

MOCVD manufacturers are targeting a x2 reduction in epitaxy cost of ownership every 5 years. This will ripple through the entire LED value chain by significantly improving binning yield and reducing testing and binning burden on downstream manufacturing steps. Improved epitaxial material quality could also enhance LED performance and contribute to further reduction in cost of ownership. Despite a high technological entrance barrier, the possible entrance of new players like Jusung Engineering or Applied Material could on the long term bring further competition and stimulate technology development and cost reduction

LED Packaging

Thermal management remains the main challenge, impacting device lifetime, stability and limiting driving currents. As LED efficiency improves, the amount of electrical energy converted into light will increase and heat will proportionally decrease. However, the thermal load will remain high on high power LEDs as increasing the driving current per package remains the best avenue to reduce the overall cost per lumen.  No standard have emerged for packaging. Power packages can be created by integrating large single dies or multiple smaller dies and a variety of submount materials are used by the more than 100 LED packagers, including ceramic, metal, silicon or engineered material. The emergence of silicon based Wafer Level Packaging technologies will enable further cost reduction and performance improvements for high power LEDs and bring some level of standardization starting in 2013 and beyond. However, no standardization of footprint and performance is in sight, posing a significant challenge for OEM and integrators.The development of new phosphors is also critical in achieving high efficiency and bringing color consistency, stability and rendering at the levels requested for general lighting applications. New nitride or silicate composition are being developed to enhance the spectral output of white LEDs. Cadmium Free Quantum Dots are a promising technology for high efficiency phosphors with easily tunable emission and absorption characteristics. Work however remains to be done to bring their cost down and develop process compatible with mass manufacturing.

Manufacturing Technologies

As volume increase and the LED industry adopts traditional semiconductor manufacturing best practices, automation levels will increase and spread across all manufacturing stages. The industry is reaching a critical mass that will enable the development of dedicated tools (dicing, bonding, lithography, testing and sorting…) taking into account the specificities of LED manufacturing: large pattern dimensions, smaller diameter wafers, wafer bowing, transparency etc…The lack of standardization in manufacturing technologies might however hinders those efforts. The development of common roadmaps and standards developed by industry organization would strongly benefit the industry but remain a challenging proposition due to the strong competition between manufacturers, multiple intellectual property conflicts and the technological specificities of each manufacturer.The adoption of larger diameter wafer would help bring the LED industry closer to traditional semiconductor technologies standards. Volume manufacturing on 6” wafers will start at the end of 2010 and massive transition from 2” to 4” is expected in 2011. However the adoption of 8” wafers remains uncertain and will require that Sapphire wafer manufacture achieve significant cost reductions. Silicon remains the most serious contender as an alternative to sapphire substrates. Significant progress have been made into the development of processes allowing to design around the intrinsic limitations of Silicon for LED manufacturing. Many start up and established LED manufacturers are working on improving those technologies. While the cost to performance ratio still remains too high for the industry to massively adopt a silicon platform, any breakthrough in the field could change the face of the industry.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

•Glossary
•Executive Summary
•Scope of the Report
•Methodology
•Definitions Used in this Report

1. CHIP Forecast
•HB – LED Package Segmentation
•Qualified vs. Non-qualified LED
•Revenue Per Package Type
•Volume Per Package Type
•Revenue Per Application
•Die Surface Per Application
•Die Surface per Material Type
•General Lighting Breakdown
•General Lighting Accelerated Scenario

2. LED Manufacturers’ Capacity Analysis
•2009 HB LED Companies Revenue Ranking
•LED manufacturers Position on the value chain. EU and US
•LED manufacturers Position on the value chain. Japan
•LED manufacturers Position on the value chain. Korea
•LED manufacturers Position on the value chain. Taiwan
•LED manufacturers Position on the value chain. China
•LED manufacturers Position on the value chain. Other Asia
•GaN Epitaxy Capacity Trends:
•GaN Capacity Trends: Geographic

3. LED Front End Manufacturing Technologies
•The Path to Cost Reduction
•Front end Manufacturing Overview
•GaN LED Chip Design Overview
•Improving LED Brightness and Efficiency:
•LED Current Droop
•LED Thermal Droop
•The Green Gap
•Epitaxy
•Alternative Epitaxy  Methods: RPCV
•Alternative Epitaxy  Methods: HVPE and MBE
•Alternative Epitaxy  Methods: Hybrid Tools
•Epitaxy: Market Trends
•Epitaxy: Nanocolumns
•Lithography
•Surface Texturing
•Mirrors
•Mirrors: Resonant-Cavity LEDs
•Electrodes: Overview
•Electrodes: ITO Alternatives
•Electrodes: Trends
•Testing And Binning: Overview
•Testing And Binning: Yields
•LED Die Separation
•LED Die Separation: Definitions
•Recent Trend in Dicing: Stealth Dicing
•Recent Trend in dicing: Thermal Laser Separation
•Substrate Removal:
•Substrate Removal: Laser Lift Off (LLO)
•Substrate Removal: Mechanical
•Case of InGaAlP LEDs:
•Wafer Bonding: Permanent Bonding
•Wafer Bonding: Temporary Bonding
•Temporary Bonding: Comparison

4. LED Back End Manufacturing Technologies (Packaging)
•Overview
•Low & Mid-Power LED packaging Overview
•Low & Mid-Power Packaging
•Low & Mid-Power Packaging: Examples
•Low & Mid-Power Packaging: Compression Process for Plastic Packages
•High-Power LED packaging: Overview
•High-Power LEDs: Examples
•Interconnects: Wire Bonding
•Interconnects: Ribbon Bonding
•Interconnect: Flip Chip
•Interconnects: Eutectic Bonding
•Interconnects: Overview Of Die Attach Techniques:
•Interconnects: Vias
•Interconnects: Emerging Technologies (Courtesy: SIIT/IMP, Fraunhofer IZM)
•ESD Protection:
•ESD Protection: Zener Diode on Substrate
•ESD Protection: ESD on Ceramic
•ESD Protection: Using Si Submount
•Thermal Management: Rationale
•Thermal Management: Low/Mid-Power LEDs
•Thermal Management: High-Power LEDs
•Thermal Management: Overview
•Thermal Management: Material Properties
•Thermal Management: Overview of Substrates and Circuit Board Material Options
•Thermal Management: main design options     
•Heat Slugs
•Ceramic Substrates
•Direct Bonded Copper Substrates
•Other Materials
•Circuit Boards:
•Circuit Boards: MCPCB Example
•Silicon Substrates and WLP
•Silicon Substrates and WLP: Overview
•Silicon Substrates and WLP: TSV
•Silicon Substrates and WLP: Hymite
•Silicon Substrates and WLP: Touch Microsystem Technology
•Silicon Substrates and WLP: Visera Technology
•Silicon Substrates and WLP: SibDi
•Silicon Substrates and WLP: LG Innotek
•Wafer Level Packaging: Next step
•Silicon Substrates and WLP: Conclusions
•Other Design Options
•Encapsulation and Primary Optics: Overview
•Encapsulation and Primary Optics: Low-Power LEDs
•LED Lens Materials
•Encapsulation and primary optics: Silicone
•Encapsulation and primary optics: Process
•Encapsulation and primary optics: Gradient Index Lenses
•Encapsulation and primary optics: Printing
•Encapsulation and primary optics: Molding
•Encapsulation and primary optics: Micro-Replication
•Phosphors: How to make white light?
•Phosphors: Key Requirements
•Phosphors: Most Common Compositions
•Phosphors: Less Common or Emerging Compositions
•Phosphors: Quantum Dots
•Phosphors: Deposition methods
•Phosphors: Remote Phosphors.
•Phosphors: Conclusion
•AC LED: Technology

5. LED Substrates
•Introduction
•Total Substrate Volume for HB LEDs
•Sapphire: Recent Price Trends
•Sapphire: Weighted ASP
•2008-2015Sapphire Substrate Revenue for LEDs
•Growth methods for sapphire Substrates
•Other Growth Methods
•Map of sapphire suppliers’ locations
•Substrate Reclaiming.
•Alternatives to Sapphire (1/3): GaN-on-Silicon
•Alternatives to Sapphire (2/3): Bulk GaN - ZnO
•Alternatives to Sapphire (3/3): Engineered Substrates
•Different substrates for GaN epitaxy: “Direct growth or buffer approach”
•Different substrates for GaN epitaxy: “Composite substrates: wafer bonding approach”
•Conclusion on alternate substrates for GaN epitaxy
•6” wafers for LED: Benefits
•6” wafers for LED: what, when and at what price?
•Wafer extraction from ingots
•Sapphire for LED: Diameter Trends
•Growth methods of GaAs substrates

6. Raw Materials Availability GALLIUM & INDIUM
•Gallium – General Information
•Gallium Production
•Gallium – Pricing and Trends
•Gallium compound - GaCl3
•Indium – General Information
•Indium – Pricing and Trends
•Geopolitical context

Conclusions