Technology matures and new markets for LEDs can be developed

LED technology is increasingly maturing, in addition to replacing basic functional lighting, it also derived a number of market segments. With the extension of the Internet of Everything market, the applicable field of LED lighting technology has become increasingly large. Looking at the future from now on, what other new markets can LED develop?

Wearable devices include glasses, headwear, shoes, wristwear, and any other wearable electronic functional device. Research institutions predict that wearable devices will grow to more than $70 billion in market size in 2025 and will be used in medical, fitness, fashion, industrial, commercial and military applications. With the continuous development of this market and its rapid expansion, the lighting requirements in the wearable area are also increasing. This lighting includes functional requirements such as backlight lighting, display lighting, and indicator lighting, as well as decorative requirements such as linear light or lighting logos.

For wearable devices, the future development trend is lighter, smaller, and thinner. Since the size and weight of batteries and electronic devices in the product are fixed, the future will only be achieved by the lighter weight and smaller size of the LED lighting component devices to achieve a reduction in product power or total package size. As a result, global lighting manufacturers are working to develop "thinner, more efficient" light guide technologies to cut into the huge wearable device market.

On wrist-mounted devices, U.S. lighting manufacturer Global Lighting Technologies (GLT) has developed an ultra-thin LED lighting panel using a light guide plate. Its thinness can reach 0.25mm, and the use of only one LED can meet the needs of liquid crystal display lighting on a fitness watch device. This not only allows the wrist wear device to have a thinner profile on the user's wrist, but also can effectively reduce the power consumption of the electronic device, thereby improving the battery life and enhancing the performance of the device. With proper design and LED coupling, the efficiency and uniformity of these LED backlights will clearly exceed those of other thicker light-guide devices.

In addition, in the current head-mounted device market such as the hottest augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). GLT created a custom optical waveguide lighting display with light concentration and directional light emission patterns. The LCD projection image can be smoothly and accurately imported into the user's eyes, ultimately achieving a good user experience.

In the Chinese market, the development of wearable devices is also extremely rapid, resulting in huge demand for microdisplay lighting. Relevant LED companies can do a good job of pre-technology research and research and development reserves, and cut into the market when appropriate.

The plant lighting market has always been one of the hot markets for LED lighting. Whether it is Philips, OSRAM, GE lighting and other international giants, or Mitsubishi Chemical, Showa Denko and other strong currents, are all arranged LED plant lighting.

Recently, Philips Lighting announced the launch of the LED green energy dynamic production module, making new breakthroughs in the field of plant lighting. The previous LED plant lighting intelligent system can only preset one spectrum and cannot be changed. Philips' LED green energy dynamic production module and software allow growers and researchers to adjust LED color (such as far red, red, white and blue) and light source intensity in the dynamic spectrum.

The new system brings greater flexibility and precision, which researchers and growers can use to adjust different spectral illumination of the plant in the same day. It is also possible to switch any spectrum for cultivating different crops. This will bring new advantages to the improvement of crop quality and increase of production.

The leader of the Philips LED plant lighting solution commented that “the dynamic lighting system for plants is Philips’ latest product series. Now growers and researchers only need one LED plant lighting system to grow various kinds of light by changing the spectrum and light intensity. All kinds of crops. The new system will be able to meet the different growth needs of specific crops and flowers."

Due to the long-term demand for the development of green agriculture, the LED plant lighting market will surely become popular, popular, and popular. The promotion of the international giants will accelerate the arrival of this situation, LED plant lighting derived plant factories, home planting and other areas are LED lighting companies can get involved.

Ultraviolet LED Application Acceleration to Market

The market structure of the large health industry has changed dramatically with the popularity of deep ultraviolet LEDs. At present, domestic and foreign manufacturers are accelerating the layout in the field of UV LED, and accelerate market promotion.

In China, the 280-nm high-power deep ultraviolet light-emitting chip developed by Qingdao Rongsheng Technology Holding Co., Ltd. Qingdao Jiesheng Electric Co., Ltd. has achieved a new world record for the maximum light output power of a single chip. Yuanrong Technology expects to achieve mass production of high-power chips in the first half of this year, and to achieve a substantial increase in sales revenue after the conversion of production, to provide new profit growth points for the company.

“Deep UV is the next blue ocean market in the LED field and is mainly used in fields such as sterilization, disinfection, purification, medicine, military, and confidential communications, and is widely viewed by the market. The application of the function of the sterilization and disinfection of deep ultraviolet LEDs will greatly change the health industry. The structure of the company.” Zhang Guohua, chairman of Jiesheng Electric, said that because of its unique features and advantages, deep-UV LED is popular in white goods, such as humidifiers, refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, air purifiers, drinking fountains, etc. Ultraviolet LEDs are used to sterilize and disinfect. The bactericidal function of these products will soon become the standard function of the product.

According to statistics, in the first half of 2015, the overall market size of home appliances in China reached 767.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4%. If the deep ultraviolet LED can penetrate 5% of white goods applications, it will be a scale of several hundred million yuan, which shows that its market potential is huge.

Abroad, UV LED manufacturer Crystal IS has also introduced commercial high-power UVC LED module Klaran, which can be used for water, air and surface disinfection. Klaran is the first generation of disinfection product line of Crystal IS, which can provide bactericidal ultraviolet light with an output power of 15mW~30mW. Research institutions predict that the UVC water purifier market will almost double in the next five years, from the current 9.16 million to 17.85 million in 2020. The fastest growth will come from China and India.