LED driver IC technology market analysis for backlight and lighting

LED is widely recognized as a clean and green light source. LED has long service life, energy saving, simple and convenient application, and low cost, so it is hand-held in mobile phones, MP3s, MP4s, PMPs, DSCs (digital cameras), PDAs, GPS, PNDs, game consoles, learning machines, and laptops. The product's LCD backlight; LED flashlights, miner's lamp portable lighting; in architectural lighting, decorative lighting, signage lighting; dashboard backlight in the car, front and rear fog lights, third brake lights, direction lights, taillights; and in home lighting will get Massive applications.

At present, mobile phone color screen backlighting accounts for 60% of the total shipment of LED driver ICs. In addition to button and color screen backlighting applications, due to the popularity of camera phones and the characteristics of LED power saving and miniaturization, the proportion of mobile phone camera flash applications is increasing day by day. It accounts for 35% to 40% of the overall mobile phone application. Global mobile phone production increased from 800 million in 2006 to 1.1 billion in 2007, an increase of 40%, and it is estimated that 1.5 billion will be produced in 2008. In 2007, China’s handset shipments increased by 21.9% to 558 million units, accounting for about half of the global market. According to 80% mobile phones adopting color screen calculations, in 2007, the number of LED driver ICs used in mobile phone products reached 600 million. It is estimated that LED driver ICs will continue to exponentially increase in the consumer electronics market.

The 7-inch to 19-inch LCD screen originally used CCFL as backlight, and is now gradually being eroded by the LED.

LED driver IC technology market analysis for backlight and lighting

In particular, after the implementation of the RoHS directive in the European Union, mercury-containing CCFLs have been banned, otherwise they will have to pay a $10 hazardous waste treatment fee, which will accelerate the adoption of LED backlighting. In LCD screens with a large number of products such as notebook computers, the use of LED backlighting has also become a trend, because it can not only reduce the screen thickness by half (from 9mm to 4.5mm), reduce weight by 26%, but also save The only drawback to 50% of the power consumption is that the current cost is 2.38 dollars higher than that of CCFL. It is expected that users can accept it because they can reduce the weight and save electricity. It is estimated that 8% of laptops use LED as backlight in 2007, and the estimated production of laptops in 2007 will be 85 million, and the number of laptops using LEDs as backlight will reach 6.8 million. This data is expected to break through. The trend that LCD TVs and notebook computers are expected to use LEDs to replace CFL backlights is already clear. In 2009, shipments of LED driver ICs will reach 910 million units, and the compound annual growth rate will reach 32%.

Market demand for LED driver ICs

Market demand for LED driver ICs is divided into three basic categories according to applications. First, they are used in consumer electronics products. Their application features batteries as their energy source, which is generally 4.2V to 8.4V. Therefore, low-voltage, low-current LEDs are used. The driver is a product with a wide range of products at present; the second is used for automotive lighting products, because its power comes from the car battery, usually 48V, so it needs a higher voltage step-down LED driver IC; Third, architectural decoration lighting and home lighting, It is necessary to convert the AC power directly to a DC LED driver IC. The main function is to convert the AC voltage into a constant current power supply and simultaneously complete the matching with the voltage and current of the LED. Therefore, LED driver ICs for different applications are completely different.

Consumer electronics LED drivers have more mature technologies, products and relatively mature markets. The number of LEDs used in automotive lighting products is large. Most of them are series and parallel drives and require higher voltage. It is very convenient for the power supply from 48V automotive batteries. Currently, new LED drivers capable of withstanding high voltages of 60V have been introduced. Therefore, the market for LED panel backlights, front and rear fog lamps, third brake lights, direction lights, and taillights in the automotive front-loading market is very promising and optimistic.

Architectural lighting and home lighting require LED driver ICs that can directly convert AC power into DC constant current sources. Currently, single SoC integrated circuit products cannot be provided, and most of them are module circuits. Architectural decorative lighting has been widely used in major cities in China, with significant energy savings. The demand for household LED lighting in society will be astronomical. However, there is still a certain distance between the current LED lighting technology and production cost for home lighting and large-scale production.