- Register
- Login
19°C
- Article
- . (0)
- Related content
Osram’s new LED chip factory in Kulim, Malaysia, has kicked off operation, as the lighting vendor continues to expand its production capacity.
“We are both on schedule and within budget,” Olaf Berlien, CEO of OSRAM Licht AG, was cited in a company press release as saying during an opening ceremony in Kulim on Thursday. He was referring to the construction of the new Malaysia plant.
“Given our enormous recent growth rates of 19% in the LED business, we are pleased to have the new production capacities. Our investment in Kulim also attests to the technology shift and our transition to becoming a high-tech corporation: At the beginning of this decade, conventional lighting still accounted for 80% of Osram’s business. Today, two-thirds of our sales are based on optical semiconductors.”
In November 2015, as part of its Diamond innovation and growth initiative, Osram announced plans to build the new LED chip factory in Kulim and to have it up and running by the end of 2017. According to Osram, the modular, expandable factory has now been put into operation just two years after the announcement. A total of EUR70 million were invested in the first stage of completion. Osram can expand the factory in two additional stages, entailing total investment costs of up to EUR1 billion, including expansion of the LED assembly capacities in Osram’s global factory alliance.
Energy savings of up to 80%, compared to conventional street lights, can be achieved with LED lighting, Osram said. In addition, LED has better light color stability and can be more quickly dimmed and adjusted, so that empty streets or sidewalks do not always have to be illuminated with full brightness.
The Osram factory in Kulim will produce blue LED chips which, by means of a converter layer, can generate white light. They are produced for general lighting purposes, such as the public street lighting, and also for facade lighting, private and commercial interior and exterior lighting, or for billboards, as well as for special applications such as horticulture lights.
The global LED market for general lighting is estimated to be EUR6 billion in 2018, roughly 6% of which is for street lighting, Osram said. An average growth rate in the market of 7% per year is foreseen through 2020. The overall market for optoelectronic components – including general lighting – will be EUR17.5 billion in 2018.
The plan is to also produce LED chips in Kulim in the medium term for premium applications, such as automotive lighting and video projection, Osram said. In comparison with the 4-inch technology, the production systems for 6-inch wafers produce 125% more LED chips per wafer in a single cycle.
Osram is currently investing worldwide in the expansion of the existing six sites in its LED production network. Osram said it is also expanding its plant in Regensburg, which currently has about 2,500 employees, and will additionally hire up to 1,000 employees. Premium LED chips and laser diodes, which are used, for example, in high-quality car headlights, will be manufactured there as well as infrared diodes for sensors that can be used in applications including facial recognition in mobile phones, or in cars for intelligent assistance systems (such as proximity control).
Osram said it will be expanding its site in Schwabmunchen. In the future, Osram will manufacture LED primary materials in clean rooms there. In addition, Osram also has another plant for LED primary products in the US city of Exeter. In Wuxi, China, Osram is expanding its capacity for assembling LED chips into complete LEDs with a housing and partly with primary optics too. In Penang, Malaysia, located near Kulim, LED chips are also manufactured and assembled.
- China AMOLED panel capacity expansion forecast, 2016-2020
This Digitimes Research Special Report examines the China AMOLED industry, focusing on the expansion capacity of the makers, the current implementation plans of major smartphone vendors in the market and the technological hurdles faced by the China makers.
- Taiwan server shipment forecast and industry analysis, 2017
Digitimes Research estimates that revenues from sales of server motherboards, servers, storage systems and related network system equipment by Taiwan-based vendors reached NT$555.8 billion in 2016 and the amount is estimated to grow 5.9% on year in 2017.
- Global notebook shipment forecast, 2017 and beyond
This Digitimes Special Report examines key factors in the notebook industry, including products, vendors and ODMs, that will affect total shipments in 2017 and through 2021.
