Semiconductor Lighting Industry Status and Prospects

In order to seize the initiative of emerging industries and improve the international competitiveness of the new generation of semiconductor materials and technologies, the Ministry of Science and Technology has taken the lead in supporting the development of semiconductor lighting technology and industry from the “Tenth Five-year Plan”.

At present, breakthroughs have been made in key technologies that restrict industrial transformation and upgrading, and the R&D and innovation capabilities of industrial core technologies have rapidly improved. One is from the upstream epitaxial chip to the midstream device package, and then to the downstream integrated application technology innovation chain and an industry with strong international market competitiveness. The chain is forming. China has become an important production and export base for global LED packaging and application products.

From the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, to the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, to the extensive use of infrastructure lighting in recent years, LED (Light Emitting Diode) products are shining and shining.

It is hard to imagine that 10 years ago, the development of China's semiconductor lighting upstream industry was almost a blank. The downstream applications were just starting. The power chips were all dependent on imports. The enterprises were small in scale and lacked industrialization technology. The entire industry’s sales revenue was less than 10 billion yuan.

In order to seize the opportunities of emerging industries and improve the international competitiveness of the new generation of semiconductor materials and technologies, the Ministry of Science and Technology took the lead in supporting the development of semiconductor lighting technologies and industries from the “10th Five-Year Plan”, and led the establishment of National Semiconductor in June 2003. The Lighting Engineering Coordination and Leading Group urgently initiated the "National Semiconductor Lighting Project" and established the National Semiconductor Lighting Engineering R & D and Industry Alliance (CSA).

In the past ten years, China's semiconductor lighting industry has grown from scratch and has gradually grown. Looking at the development of this industry, we may look at a set of comparative figures: In 2003, the scale of China's semiconductor lighting industry was 9 billion yuan, and by 2012 it had reached nearly 200 billion yuan, with an average annual growth of more than 35%.

At present, key technologies that constrain industrial transformation and upgrading have successively made breakthroughs. The ability to research, develop, and innovate core industrial technologies has rapidly increased. A more complete technological innovation chain and strong international presence have been applied to the integration of upstream epitaxial chips to midstream device packages and downstream applications. The market competitiveness of the industrial chain is taking shape. China has become an important production and export base for global LED packaging and application products.

In terms of technical research, apart from significant achievements in deep-UV LED manufacturing, new substrates such as GaN, single-chip white light, and white-light OLED lighting, China's industrialization technology has continued to break through. For example, LED chip technology from scratch, in 2012 LED chip localization rate reached 72%; silicon substrate power LED devices in the international advanced level.

"Our development of science and technology has mostly taken the path from early free exploration to basic research to applied research and finally to engineering industrialization. This is not entirely applicable to the field of semiconductor lighting." Speaking of technology research and development, semiconductor lighting alliance Li Jinlu, director of the State Key Laboratory of Innovation, has a deeper understanding. “Not only does technology promote the development of the industry, but in fact, the urgent needs of market applications and industrial development drive the continuous advancement of semiconductor lighting technology.”

In 2009, the Ministry of Science and Technology launched the pilot demonstration work of the "Ten Cities, Ten Thousand Peoples" semiconductor lighting application. 37 pilot cities have implemented more than 2,700 demonstration projects, and have applied more than 7 million LED lamps, saving more than 2.1 billion kWh annually.

“Through demonstration applications, semiconductor lighting products are leading globally in terms of scale and level.” For example, Zhao Yuhai, director of the High-tech Division of the Ministry of Science and Technology, said that the Beijing Olympics Water Cube achieved the world’s largest full-color variable scene LED landscape lighting for the first time. Saving more than 70%; National Day 60th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square LED display, to achieve the localization of the chip to the system; The People's Hall semiconductor lighting transformation project, the original lighting power is close to 800kW, the total power after transformation is less than 200kW, the average power saving The rate of more than 75%.

"At present, China's semiconductor lighting technology is basically synchronized with the international development, demonstration applications are at the international advanced level." Such as evaluation of Li Jinhao.

Looking at China's semiconductor lighting industry, there is an interesting phenomenon, that is, the middle and lower reaches of the industry chain, the unity of the joint is very close, we all like the "cluster." When referring to this new mechanism of cooperation in production, research, and research, we have to say the promoter behind it - CSA. China's semiconductor lighting industry, the main backbone enterprises and scientific research institutions are CSA members, accounting for more than 60% of the domestic production value. Since the establishment of the alliance, it has established a long-term mechanism that uses resources sharing, intellectual property rights, standards, etc. as linkages, production, education, research, and upstream and downstream collaborative innovation.

"In 2012, we relied on the alliance to build the State Key Laboratory of Semiconductor Lighting Joint Innovation and established a joint innovation mechanism of 'joint investment, risk sharing, and benefit-sharing'. In the past year, 17 companies have invested 51 million yuan." The Deputy Secretary-General of the CSA, Jun Jun, revealed to the reporter of the Science and Technology Daily that the laboratory also established Delft Research Center, an overseas research and development entity, in the Netherlands in January this year.

What's more worth mentioning is that the alliance is "going out" and enlarges the "light of China." In October 2010, with the CSA as the main sponsor, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Holland, South Korea, India and Taiwan's semiconductor lighting industry, organized the establishment of the world's first non-profit, specifically to promote the development of the semiconductor lighting industry, The NGO "International Semiconductor Lighting Alliance (ISA)". It is the first international alliance of strategic emerging industries headquartered in China. It also shows that the international community recognizes the strategic status of China's semiconductor lighting industry and market.

700 “Golden Sun” shines beautiful China In recent days, the world’s largest demonstration project of new energy integrated wind power generation, photovoltaic power generation, energy storage devices and intelligent transmission—a national wind energy storage demonstration project, ushered in safe and stable operation On the first anniversary, China's first and independent research and development of intermittent energy combined operation and dispatch mode have been verified. In 2012, the project accumulated a total of 240 million kilowatt-hours of high-quality green electricity.

“It has achieved major technological breakthroughs in new energy integration, key equipment and engineering construction, and provided a good demonstration for China’s power grid to accept large-scale intermittent energy sources.” According to Zheng Fangneng, Director of the Energy Division of the High-tech Department of the Ministry of Science and Technology, The first phase of the project has achieved a number of phased results in joint control, wind power generation, energy storage technology, and intelligent dispatch.

The National Scenery Storage and Demonstration Project is only the first key project of the “Golden Sun Demonstration Project” in China.

The shortage of energy is a common challenge faced by all countries in the world today. China has listed new energy industries including solar photovoltaic industry as one of the strategic emerging industries that will focus on future development. On July 21, 2009, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the National Energy Administration jointly implemented the Golden Sun demonstration project. The project will comprehensively adopt financial subsidies, scientific and technological support, and market pulling methods to accelerate the industrialization and large-scale development of domestic photovoltaic power generation.

The “Golden Sun Demonstration Project” is a brand new formulation, which means that the country will give greater support to the solar energy industry, that is, the initial investment subsidies for photovoltaic power generation. This kind of financial subsidy policy means that the government gives a certain amount of one-time subsidies for initial investment and construction of photovoltaic projects (subject to disbursements according to actual conditions), has low transaction costs, effectively circumvents existing power system obstacles, and reduces initial investment pressures for developers. advantage.

Some experts believe that the implementation of this project is an important event in the development of China's distributed photovoltaic power generation industry. Since the implementation of the "Golden Sun" technology demonstration project, China has further increased the level of photovoltaic power generation applications and expanded the market size.

Zheng Fangeng said that in the past four years, thanks to the combination of technical innovation and demonstration projects, China has achieved a breakthrough in key technology breakthroughs in typical demonstration projects, and promoted the rapid and healthy development of the entire photovoltaic industry chain through product promotion and application.

It is reported that since the implementation of the Golden Sun demonstration project in 2009, it has approved and supported nearly 700 demonstration projects with a total installed capacity of more than 5,800 megawatts (MW). The central government promised to invest 39 billion yuan. By the end of 2012, it had allocated approximately 25 billion yuan in place, driving direct investment by local governments and enterprises by more than 39 billion yuan, and achieved a direct output value of 78 billion yuan. As of the end of 2011, the output of photovoltaic cells in China was about 30 GW (GW), and the production capacity was over 40 GW.

“Shanghai Light Source” Libata X-ray X-ray machine is located in Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Pudong, Shanghai. A beautiful giant Nautilus building. The electrons approaching the speed of light travel in a circular accelerator with a circumference of 432 meters and stays up all day and night. The nearby beam line experiment station radiates electromagnetic waves of different wavelengths, like a multi-user "super X-ray machine" and "super microscope", producing magical light that illuminates the microscopic world.

This building quietly glowed with magical light. A bundle of high-quality synchrotron radiation projects a picture of the future of science... This is China’s largest scientific device and big science platform—“Shanghai Light Source”. After 16 years of gestation and 52 months of intense construction, "Shanghai Light Source" passed the national acceptance in January 2010 and is officially open to scientific research users in various disciplines at home and abroad.

With the space telescope in the sky, we can discover the most distant mysteries in the macrocosm; with the “supermicroscope” such as “Shanghai Light Source” on the ground, we can discover the finest structures in microscopic matter. "Shanghai Light Source" has the ability to build more than 60 beam lines and hundreds of experimental stations. It can accommodate hundreds of thousands of scientists and engineers in different fields of research and development day and night.

After the “Shanghai Light Source” was opened, colleges, research institutes, hospitals, and corporate users across the country came to each other and involved more than ten subjects such as life sciences, physics, chemistry, geology, and the environment:

——The “New Type Iron-Based Superconductor Study” led by academician Zhao Zhongxian of the National Superconductivity Laboratory of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences passed the Shanghai X-ray microfocus line station and used the “shimmer” whose diameter was only the thickness of the hair to achieve high brightness and high Sensitive and high-resolution analysis methods have for the first time found that iron-based superconductors can reproduce superconductors under high pressure conditions, opening up a new idea for the study of “high-temperature superconductivity”;

-- Yan Ning and Shi Yigong research team of the Structural Biology Center of Tsinghua University collaborated to reveal the molecular basis for the specific recognition of the target genes by these proteins. This work was published in the journal Science in 2012 and was selected by the journal. The “Genomics Precision Transformation Project of the Top Ten Breakthroughs in 2012” quoted the Shanghai Light Source Biomolecular Crystallographic Beamline Station to provide support for analytical work and ensure the successful completion of the project;

......

In recent years, many scientific users in China have published high-quality papers in international top academic journals such as Science, Nature, and Cell. “Shanghai Light Source” has contributed to this.

At present, there are more than 60 synchrotron light sources installed and under construction worldwide, including 13 third-generation synchrotron radiation devices. Compared with China's first-generation synchrotron radiation source, the Beijing Electron Opposite Collider and the second-generation synchrotron light source, Hefei National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, Shanghai Light Source has high brightness, high strength, and high stability. With such advantages, the intensity is tens of thousands of times that of X-ray machines, and the brightness is hundreds of millions of times that of the strongest X-ray machines. It can provide high-brightness beams with different wavelengths from far-infrared rays, ultraviolet rays, hard X-rays, etc. There will be more than 5000 hours of machine time. Shanghai Light Source belongs to one of the world's best performance third-generation medium-energy synchrotron light sources, and its energy ranks fourth in the world.

Today, Nautilus has become a world-renowned voice. "Shanghai Light Source" together with the third-generation synchrotron radiation source in Taiwan and Japan, South Korea and India, forms a "source of light source" comparable to that of the United States and Europe, and becomes a synchrotron radiation experimental platform for the world.

■ The outside world commented that “China's semiconductor lighting has a bright future”

Shi Changxu (famous materials scientist, academician of the two institutes): The semiconductor lighting industry should have occupied a relatively embarrassing destination in the international arena. Because the International Semiconductor Lighting Alliance (ISA) is in China, the alliance is not entirely an honorary organization, but rather an organization with substantive content. The semiconductor lighting alliance can unite a large number of companies in a large range and depth, has established a model of healthy development, and has received international recognition.

Zhang Guoan (Professor of Delft University, Netherlands): First, China is the first country in the world to establish a semiconductor lighting alliance. China's semiconductor lighting industry has developed so far, the main experience is three points, one is that the coalition meets the development needs of society and industry. The second is support from the government. The third is to have a strong and professional organization and management team. Among them, the most important point is to meet the needs of enterprises and society, and we very much hope that key laboratories will continue to make achievements in these areas in the future.

Robert Steele (Photonics Director, Strategies Unlimited, USA): The experience of working with Chinese companies has convinced me that China can develop the highest level of technology and sell the highest quality products to the market. China's semiconductor lighting has a bright future.

"China Joins World Class Synchrotron Radiation Club"

When the Shanghai light source was just built, Nature magazine reported on the construction of Shanghai light source with the title of “China Joins World-class Synchrotron Radiation Club” and gave it a high degree of evaluation and affirmation. The International Evaluation Committee also spoke highly of the construction and speed control, quality and speed of Shanghai LAS accelerators, and considered it to be the top level, setting a benchmark for the future construction of international accelerators for large scientific installations. All light and line stations have reached the level of international third-generation stations of the same type. At the time of national acceptance, it also fully affirmed that Shanghai light source achieved excellent performance with the least investment and the fastest construction speed in the world, and became one of the third-generation synchrotron radiation sources leading the world in terms of performance indicators. It is a large scientific device in China. Another successful example of construction.

Zhang Xiaoqiang (Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission): The construction of “Shanghai Light Source” signifies that China’s major science and technology infrastructure construction has entered a new stage of development. With the construction of Shanghai's light source and other projects, China's major science and technology infrastructure construction has entered a period of rapid development. The construction of Shanghai light source will provide an important platform for China to enhance its original innovation capabilities and cultivate outstanding talents.