News

20 November 2009

 

LED lighting approaching tipping point

The LED industry appears poised for a new phase of growth, with three companies alone raising close to $800m in the past two months, according to the report ‘Has LED Lighting Reached a Tipping Point?’ from market research firm Strategy Analytics. The three public offerings indicate both the accelerated adoption of LED backlighting technology and some very early signs of the move toward solid-state lighting, the firm believes.

Within one week, Aixtron AG of Herzogenrath, Germany and Veeco Instruments Inc of Plainview, NY, USA, the two key manufacturers of metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) reactors for volume LED production, raised a combined total of $360m in public offerings and cited strong backlogs in orders for MOCVD equipment. The two offerings followed a similar move by LED chip maker Cree, which raised net proceeds of $434m and in November announced its decision to build its first chip-fabrication plant outside North America (in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, southern China).

The backlog of Aixtron and Veeco represents orders for about 200 production reactors that can be expected to come on-line during 2010, says Asif Anwar, director of the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductors Service. “Both Aixtron and Veeco will need to add production capacity, and will have to invest in technology development for subsequent demand cycles,” he adds.

“LED-based backlighting has reached a tipping point where we expect to see significant acceleration of the market for LED-backlit LCD TVs from 2010 on,” comments Steve Entwistle, VP of Strategy Analytics’ Strategic Technologies Practice. “The financial moves also indicate concrete plans for future growth phases of the LED market with solid-state lighting for general lighting applications.”

Search: LED market Aixtron Cree Veeco

Visit: www.strategyanalytics.com