Summary
The currently dominating backlight technology is based on Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp (CCFL). LED backlight is threatening the existence of CCFL. All along the price barrier is keeping the domination of CCFL, although technical advantages of LED backlight is compelling for the cosumer to buy LED backlit PC at a premium price. The price pressure on white LED manufacturers is increasing and the downward trend in price is already substantial leading to rapid penetration of LED backlight.
Analysis
The rapid penetration of LED backlight in Notebook may end the domination of CCFL sooner than later. The technical advantages of LED backlight over CCFL backlight is appreciable for the consumer in terms of slimness, light-weight and instant high brightness coupled with long life of LEDs. The life of white LEDs in Notebook has just reached an impressive figure of 70,000 hrs. The only barrier remaining for LED Backlight is its higher price compared to CCFL backlight. If the price is less than 1.5 times that of CCFL backlight, the penetration will be very rapid and an explosion of LED backlight in Notebook will be similar to the one noticed in cell phone backlight, although not as swiftly. The scenario in cell phone was that Electroluminescent backlight could not survive when the cell phone turned color. Many Notebook manufacturers like DELL, Apple, HP, SONY, Toshiba, Acer have many Notebook models in their products. The percentage of Notebook models with LED backlight is increasing every year. The efficacy of white LED is galloping every two years with efficacy of white LEDs (20mA), at chip level, reaching 150 lm/w and at R&D level demonstrating 249 lm/w. Medium power LEDs have efficacy running at manufacturing levels a value of around 115 lm/w. The improvement is still going on and this signals the quantity of white LEDs employed in backlight decreasing gradually. Further, simplification in backlight structure has shown impressive progress. This phenomena will reduce the cost further and may lead to the demise of CCFL backlight in Notebook. The market for white LEDs in this segment is likely to be significant compared to the general illumination market. There is likelihood of many more LED backlight companies joining the bandwagon along with Stanley Electric, Omron, Citizen, Nippon Leiz, Enplas (Engineering plastics), Toshiba Matsushita Displays, WooYong, Welly Power, Several Chinese companies, Forhouse, Taiwan Nano Electro-Optical Technology.Kenmos Technology, Radiant Opto-Electronics, Coretronic, Lumex, Forward Electronics. LED manufacturers like Lumiled/Philips, Osram, Toyoda Gosei, Cree, Epistar, Everlight, Seoul Semiconductors, Nichia and many others will be benefited by this likely explosive growth. Going back to the chain, suppliers of MOCVD equipment for the manufacture of LED chips, like Aixtron and VEECO will gain increased orders for MOCVD equipment. This in turn will go back to the saphhire substrate and SiC substrate suppliers to the LED industry. Many small LED packaging houses stand to benefit in this explosion.
