LED driver growth can be efficient and reliable for the core of competition

With the rising tide of global environmental protection and energy conservation, LED is favored as a pioneer of green energy conservation. Especially as the LED light effect continues to increase, the lumen cost continues to drop, providing unlimited possibilities for the expansion of LED application range. How to make full use of LED color richness, high saturation, concentrated beam, fast response, intelligent control and other characteristics become the main point of LED and other light sources in each application field. Since the nature of the LED is a characteristic sensitive semiconductor device, it has a negative temperature characteristic. Therefore, in the application process, it is necessary to protect the stable working state, and the LED driver comes into being. LED is not like an ordinary incandescent bulb, it can be directly connected to 220V AC, LED is low voltage drive, the quality of the drive power is one of the key guarantees for LED longevity and efficiency.

As the LED application market expands, LED driver ICs can grow

In recent years, the maturity of LED driver circuit power technology is gradually increasing with the expansion of the LED market, and the industry scale continues to expand, with huge growth potential.

At present, the application of LED has been very extensive. With the continuous expansion of LED application fields, LED driver ICs will be extended to more application fields in the future. At present, the largest market for LED driver ICs is on mobile phones, but since 2010, due to the explosive growth of LED-backlit LCD TVs, LED driver ICs used in backlight LEDs will become one of the fastest growing application markets. . It is estimated that the average growth rate of global LCD TV shipments will exceed 25% by 2011, and reach 200 million units in 2011. According to research by Tuoba Industrial Research Institute, the penetration rate of LED NB reached 60% in 2009 and jumped to 95% in 2010, which has become the supporting force for the growth of LED industry. At the same time, LED indoor lighting, LED street lights, LED outdoor display, will have explosive growth in recent years. All of these fast-growing LED application markets have undoubtedly created a huge market for LED driver ICs.

According to IMS survey, the global LED driver market in 2008 is about $1 billion, and will grow to $1.9 billion by 2012.

In China, as one of the country's strategic emerging industries, LED has injected fresh vitality into the development of the industry. Driven by this, China's LED driver market has continued to improve. According to iSuppli, China's LED driver market grew by 1% in 2009, from $115.3 million in 2008 to $116.5 million. The growth rate in 2010 will accelerate to 9.6% and the scale will reach US$127.7 million. It is estimated that China's LED market will reach 139 million US dollars in 2013. It is estimated that China's LED driver market will continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 4.4% before 2013.

Domestic LED driver IC market competitors are three-legged

At present, among the competitors in the domestic LED driver IC market, in addition to the old foreign companies, the backbone Taiwanese enterprises, and the domestic up-and-coming talents, the three-legged trend is presented.

Foreign companies such as Texas Instruments, US Mid-Annex, Avago, Lingte, NXP and other LED driver suppliers for different markets, including mobile phones, portable consumer electronics, automobiles, logos / large displays, traffic lights and general lighting And so on have a relatively complete product line, to some extent control the LED driver IC market in China.

Taiwan's LED driver manufacturers such as accumulation, vertical, crystal, and crystal are also active. The locked market has medium and large LCD panel backlights and automotive lighting as the main high-end; there are also mobile phone backlights, indoor lighting, traffic signs, outdoor billboards, GPS and other portable white light products; also includes landscape lighting, portable display Low-end parts such as lighting and indicating light sources. Among them, notebook computers are one of the most important competitive markets for LED driver IC companies in Taiwan.

Before 2008, only a few domestic companies focused on the LED driver market. However, in the past two years, due to the rapid expansion of the domestic application market and the country's vigorous promotion of LED applications, the LED scale application represented by landscape lighting, street lamps and display screens has greatly driven the LED driver IC market, thus attracting More and more domestic companies are beginning to enter the LED driver market. Domestic companies currently entering the LED driver market include integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) such as Shanghai Belling, Hangzhou Silan Micro, China Resources Converse, and Longmao Micro. Among them, Shanghai Belling products cover LED backlight driver, LED outdoor driver, LED lighting driver and DC/DC products. The layout of China Resources Converse LED driver series is mainly LCD backlight of mobile phone and portable consumer electronics products. In 2009, it entered the LCD screen backlight of NB and netbook. In 2010, it will focus on the backlight drive of LCD TV. In addition, fabless IC design companies have sprung up in the market, and more than 40 non-factory IC design companies are developing LED driver ICs.

High efficiency, high reliability, and good dimming function are the trends of LED drivers.

According to the LED driver application field and the primary power supply, there are basically three types of LED driver ICs. One is a low-voltage, low-current LED driver based on battery energy. It is mainly used in consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, MP3MP4, digital cameras, etc. The application characteristics are that the voltage is generally 4.2-8.4V, the market demand is large and wide; the second is the LED drive IC which needs the higher voltage and step-down of the battery as the energy source, and is mainly used for the automotive lighting products, the voltage is generally 48V; The third is a large-size panel backlight for lighting and LED backlight TV. It needs to convert AC directly into a DC LED driver IC. The main function is to convert the AC voltage into a constant current power supply and simultaneously complete the voltage and current with the LED. Match.

The LED driver ICs are completely different for different applications. As a sensitive semiconductor, any slight current change will cause changes in the brightness of the product. If the driver is not properly driven, the life and light output of the LED may be negatively affected. The stable light source characteristics of the LED are greatly reduced. Moreover, current/voltage variations can have a large impact on the life of the product. As Hua Guichao, president of Infineon Electronics Co., Ltd. said, “The key issues in LED driver power supply are quality issues (including life and reliability), efficiency issues, and cost issues. Most LED lamp failures are caused by drive power. , greatly delaying the popularization and promotion of LED lighting. The use of low-efficiency LED power supply seriously affects the energy-saving effect of LED lamps. Low efficiency means high temperature rise, short life and low reliability, and the unique multi-channel constant current output requirements are greatly increased. The cost of the power supply."

The life of electronic devices is closely related to temperature. Products with high efficiency have less heat, low temperature rise, and low temperature rise products mean high reliability, high stability and long service life. Therefore, the measure of the reliability and stability of LED drive power is efficiency. With the rapid development of LED applications, the dependence on high-quality LED drive power is also increasing, so the efficiency and reliability of the drive power itself become critical. With the new generation of LED drive power, the system efficiency will be further greatly improved, the drive energy consumption will be greatly reduced, the life and reliability will be further greatly improved, the cost will be greatly reduced, and the intelligent stepless dimming function will be added.