News

7 September 2009

 

Industry giants add to LED TV momentum

High-brightness LEDs are making further inroads into the LCD television market, with top manufacturers LG, Philips and Sharp all launching new sets that feature the technology.

At the high-profile Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) consumer electronics show running in Berlin this week, Philips revealed the latest in its high-end ‘Aurea’ line of LCD TVs.

The Aurea 2009 features 250 LEDs in its backlight and, according to the Dutch company, this yields a 40% energy saving when compared with a conventional LCD set based on a fluorescent lamp.

Joining Philips at IFA with more LED-backlit TVs was Korean rival LG, which showed off its new range of ‘borderless’ sets. When switched off, these TVs resembles a single, uninterrupted sheet of black glass – hence the product name. The SL9000 model in the new range uses an LED backlight.

Not to be outdone, Japanese displays giant Sharp announced that LEDs will appear across the range of its latest Aquos TVs, including 32-inch models.

The new launches back up a recent forecast from Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG), which predicted that approximately 2 million LED-based TVs will be manufactured in 2009.

GLG analyst Jerald Kolansky believes that this figure will increase rapidly - to somewhere between 60 million and 75 million by 2013.

With up to 1000 LEDs required to backlight a 50-inch TV, the market opportunity for makers of high-brightness white emitters based on GaN is expected to be huge. Anticipation of that ramp-up in demand has already boosted orders for production MOCVD reactors supplied by Aixtron and Veeco Instruments (see related stories below).

LG’s Korean neighbor Samsung has spearheaded the industry’s adoption of LED backlights in LCD TVs, and it has reportedly sold more than one million such units already.

Media reports quoting Yoon Boo-keun, president of the firm’s visual display business, suggest that Samsung expects to sell 2 million LED-based TVs this year.

Meanwhile, the analyst company DisplaySearch said in July that it expected LED backlights to feature in 40% of LCD TVs by 2013, before overtaking cold-cathode fluorescent lamps as the dominant backlight technology the following year.

By that time, all notebook PCs are also expected to feature LED backlights.

See related items:

LED backlight penetration in LCD TVs to reach 40% in 2013 and surpass CCFLs in 2014

Aixtron lifts sales guidance on LED market recovery

Veeco orders double on booming MOCVD system demand

Search: LED TV backlighting

Visit: www.ifa-berlin.com

Visit: www.glgroup.com

Visit: www.displaysearch.com

The author Michael Hatcher is a freelance journalist based in Bristol, UK.