China's LED standards are still in their infancy, with enterprises taking tentative first steps
LED made headlines throughout 2010, with the World Expo and Asian Games shining with the brilliance of LED lighting everywhere; LED TVs were hot sellers in major retail outlets, and the "Ten Cities, Ten Thousand Lights" project has been extended to 21 cities. There is no doubt that LED is currently the hottest topic in the electronics industry. In just one year, the LED market size leapt from USD 700 million in 2009 to USD 1.07 billion in 2010. This dream-like growth rate has attracted numerous enterprises to join the LED boom sparked by "Ten Cities, Ten Thousand Lights," where the good and bad are mixed together, and LED quality varies widely.
Since the LED lighting market has only just started, lacking unified interfaces and specifications, compatibility between products is relatively insufficient, leading to great difficulties in repairing LED lighting failures after they occur, creating numerous obstacles on the road to LED popularization. Wang Wenfeng, Product Manager of Wede International Trading Co., Ltd., pointed out that LED products are not manufactured according to unified standards, and LED products of the same specifications from different manufacturers have different performance or certain parameters.
"Customers and we often have differences in our understanding of the product; the lack of specifications has caused customers to develop a sense of distrust toward us." Wang Wenfeng has encountered situations where customers submitted sample applications, only emphasizing a particular parameter such as wattage. After the samples were submitted, it was found that other parameters such as luminous flux, color temperature, and color rendering index could not match the customer's products, resulting in product selection errors.
Facing the diverse demands from end customers for power, LED quantity, modularization and other technologies, Xu Qin, Product Manager of Shanghai Lanboke Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., pointed out that diversified market demands have added many specifications for LED manufacturers. Unable to mass-produce or stock inventory inevitably extends delivery cycles, or forces compromises in product quality in order to meet deadlines. These are problems easily caused by the lack of standards.
Without rules, nothing can be accomplished. As an emerging technology, LED's own luminous efficacy, heat dissipation, color temperature, brightness, illuminance and other indicators remain unstable. Once the market lacks corresponding regulations, it will fall into disorderly chaos, thereby hindering the healthy development of the LED industry. Wang Wenfeng lamented that without unified standards it is difficult to regulate and manage the market, and there is no basis for quality evaluation. There are many types of LED-related products on the market, with LEDs of the same 5W varying widely in lumens. The market is flooded with products of varying quality, with inferior products being sold at high prices or passed off as good ones. The Korean Amotech LEDs distributed by Weide International are high-power, high-end products, with performance stability far superior to similar products. However, the lack of standards cannot highlight the advantages of the product, causing it to lose its due competitiveness.
With the game rules being issued, the LED market is facing reshuffling. Similar to the inherent disadvantage of the late start of the semiconductor industry, although China's LED lighting industry holds a large downstream LED product application market and the massive consumption capacity of one-fifth of the world's population, it still plays the role of a follower in LED technology, which also limits the formulation of relevant LED standards in China.
Zheng Haowen, Director of the National LED Professional Committee, pointed out incisively that the reason why most of China's many "pilot projects" and "demonstration projects" have remained small-scale trial applications is that the maturity of technology and the market has not yet become clear. However, the lack of clarity in the market stems from the uncertainty of technology. The long-term uncertainty in technology comes from the fact that neither LED lighting nor displays have their own suitable standards. Without their own standards, the advantages and characteristics of LED products cannot be highlighted. Also, since LEDs do not have their own standards, it is difficult to have acceptance criteria during government procurement. Fortunately, the LED industry has recognized the importance of standards and has invested considerable effort in recent years to promote product and even industry standards.
A series of national and industry standards for LEDs continuously promulgated by the state from 2009 to 2010 are expected to curb the chaotic situation in China's LED market, providing LED manufacturers and consumers with a yardstick for measuring the quality of LEDs. On December 15, 2009, the draft for approval of six LED-related standards led by the National Technical Committee for Standardization of Lighting Appliances was approved, becoming national standards. Together with the two mandatory national standards previously issued, a total of eight were successively implemented in 2010. In addition, in January 2010, the Semiconductor Lighting Technical Standards Working Group of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued nine semiconductor lighting industry standards including the "Blank Detail Specification for Power Light-Emitting Diodes of Semiconductor Optoelectronic Devices". In addition to the above national and industry standards, local governments in Guangdong, Shenzhen, Shanxi and other places have also successively introduced a series of local standards to guide the development of the LED industry.
LED companies have generally welcomed the long-awaited national standards. The introduction of 8 national standards has broken through the bottleneck constraining the development of China's LED industry, screening out truly capable enterprises for development while forcing inferior small workshops out of the market. Xu Qin stated bluntly: "Before the standards were promulgated, everyone was feeling their way across the river. The entire market was rather chaotic—some companies adopted a wait-and-see approach, while others, driven by profit, only wanted to cash in on the 'hot' trend. No sooner did a new product emerge on the market than imitations quickly followed."
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Obviously, after the introduction of the standards, the LED industry will face a major reshuffle. Companies that fail to comply await the fate of being eliminated. Those that remain, whether manufacturers or distributors, will have a clearer direction for developing LED products and can make market judgments based on the standards, producing products that meet customer needs.
Weide International, the agent for the Korean LED brand Amotech, is full of confidence. Wang Wenfeng believes that the formulation of standards will raise the corresponding requirements for cost and technical strength in LED, and that forming certain industry barriers is inevitable. This will achieve the survival of the fittest among enterprises, promote the standardized and rapid development of the LED lighting industry, and guide the industry toward an orderly, standardized state. "For competitive enterprises, standards are not a barrier, but rather provide a more advanced technical benchmark."
Zhang Shilin, Manager of Neo-Neon Holdings Limited, stated that the national standards are tantamount to establishing the rules of the game for the LED market. They provide a production basis for LED chip manufacturing, packaging, design, testing, and certification, breaking open the technological black box of LED and returning the basis for judging and selecting products to consumers.
The standards have been in effect for half a year, yet their influence has been waning. At the China Electronics Fair, this writer noticed at the Neo-Neon booth that Neo-Neon's LED products were displayed according to the color spectrum of the U.S. Energy Star, with the emphasis placed on overseas standards, while the several standards newly introduced in China were not adequately reflected in the manufacturers' displays.
The applicability of standards in the market determines their authority and credibility. Although LED national standards and industry standards have been successively promulgated, demonstrating the determination of relevant authorities to regulate the LED market with strong measures, the reality that their influence has waned remains hard to conceal after nearly half a year of implementation. Liu Shaolin, regional manager of Shenzhen Absen Industrial Co., Ltd., pointed out bluntly that China's LED national and industry standards are still incomplete, lacking key indicators such as LED lifespan, color temperature, and heat dissipation, resulting in overly low technical thresholds, thereby losing the guiding role of national standards.
"Over the past few years in China, there have been countless units, from local to central levels, formulating LED standards, but to date they have not truly entered the right track, and the problems of insufficient replaceability and interchangeability are clearly evident." Zheng Haowen further explained with examples that the southern regions where the LED industry is concentrated formulate relevant standards based on local industrial and environmental characteristics—for instance, the low-temperature starting power supply for streetlights is only applicable to ambient temperatures in central China and further south. Due to the technical and market thinking barriers of the local LED industry, the standards issued fall into regional limitations and thus lack interchangeability. In addition, excessive specificity leads to a lack of replaceability, such as unnecessary material and characteristic restrictions. Zheng Haowen believes that before enterprises and relevant industry institutions possess sufficient macro-level and mature strategic thinking, forcibly formulated industrial standards are inherently problematic, and the likelihood of failure increases accordingly.
The LED industry chain is relatively long, ranging from upstream semiconductors to downstream traditional mold assembly, and every link actually affects the performance of the final product. Therefore, the work of standard-setting needs to be considered from multiple perspectives. Zheng Haowen emphasized that when setting standards, the purpose and sustainability should first be considered. Taking Taiwan as an example, the standard-setting for LED streetlights was earlier than in other countries and regions, but when the standards were issued, only 5 manufacturers across Taiwan passed the so-called standards, and their replaceability and interchangeability were consequently undermined.
Countries competing for the discourse power of LED standards to test the competitiveness of LED enterprises. The purpose of LED national standards is not only to regulate market order and support outstanding domestic enterprises; the deeper implication behind them lies in seizing international discourse power over LEDs and increasing bargaining chips in international market competition. Countries such as South Korea, the United States, and Japan have successively put forward LED standards to lobby international organizations for adoption, attempting to seize the commanding heights of LED standards in order to lead the LED industry.
As early as 2009, South Korea had already initiated a proposal, intending to promote its national standards for LED lamps and luminaires to IEC international standards. The United States, naturally, would not stand by idly and let international LED standards fall into others' hands, and proactively issued Energy Star standards for LED light source luminaires, clarifying the specifications of LED lighting products, attempting to leverage American LED leaders such as CREE and bridgELux to influence the market and thereby quietly pave the way for elevation to international standards. As of April 1, 2010, a total of 17 manufacturers, comprising 19 brands and 300 products, had passed Energy Star's Category A temporary certification for residential and non-residential LED luminaires (Residential and non-residential luminaires). In addition to well-known LED giants such as Cree and Philips, the list also includes a Chinese name—Neo-Neon, which obtained the LED Energy Star energy-saving label on December 4, 2009 for its recessed downlights (Recessed downlight). This makes it easy to understand Neo-Neon's high-profile promotion of Energy Star at the China Electronics Fair.
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In the Americas market, in addition to the gatekeeping role of Energy Star, a UL standard draft targeting solid-state light sources is also being developed. Due to the high cost of UL certification and the cumbersome certification procedures, this truly tests the strength of LED companies, posing considerable challenges to enterprises attempting to enter the American market.
In Europe, because each EU country has its own calculations, the introduction of systems and regulations has been delayed. Currently, the entry threshold for the European market is relatively loose, and the CE technical amendment regarding solid-state light sources still refers to traditional light sources.
Countries around the world using LED standards to erect barriers will inevitably form certain technical barriers, blocking some foreign LED companies from entering. In Wang Wenfeng's view, the differing standards across countries have both advantages and disadvantages for the development of the LED industry. "The lack of unified standards across countries will bring a certain degree of confusion and disorder to enterprises in the short term. In the long run, export-dependent enterprises may face challenges, as standard barriers will exclude non-compliant companies, forcing those facing elimination to improve their processes in the short term, thereby enhancing their competitiveness."
The binding force of standards is questionable; LED companies are proactively improving key indicators. Looking at overseas markets such as Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea, using standard barriers to limit LED imports and thereby protect domestic markets has proven effective. However, the development process of China's LED industry differs from that overseas, and overseas experience cannot be copied blindly. The high-end LED chip market has been monopolized by foreign chip giants such as Cree, Osram, Philips Lumileds, SemiLEDs, and Nichia. Nichia, Toyota Gosei, and Mitsubishi Chemical hold top-tier phosphors and optical materials, leaving Chinese companies with little room to act, and the domestic market will find it difficult to break through technical bottlenecks in the short term. For the Chinese market, which is at a disadvantage in the upstream of the LED industry, the introduction of LED manufacturing standards is tantamount to helping overseas giants erect technological barriers, with little significance in promoting local industry development.
Zheng Haowen pointed out that international companies already possess very mature manufacturing technologies in the semiconductor fabrication sector, so it seems to have little significance for China to formulate standards for LED devices. Repeatedly attempting to formulate standards that cannot reflect the corresponding height of industrial technology and market will push industrial development into a predicament with nothing to follow. "China has an absolute necessity for standards at the application product end, and these must deviate from the original standards." He believes that continuing to apply traditional lighting standards to LED lights is actually quite unfair, and that from a market promotion perspective, the advantages of LED lights—such as energy saving, controllable illumination angle, fast response time, long lifespan, and environmentally friendly manufacturing—should be reflected. From the consumer's perspective, the questioned aspects should be clearly specified, such as heat dissipation, light decay, color temperature, and illuminance, all of which should be regulated in the standards.
Although clear standards have not yet been established for many key LED indicators, some manufacturers have already invested substantial manpower and resources to voluntarily improve LED heat dissipation, light decay and other performance aspects, with LED technology taking the lead in development.
The biggest problem exposed in LED applications is that the lifespan of LEDs is not as ideal as expected, and the root cause of LED "short life" lies in the LED driver. Zhang Shilin said that the actual lifespan of LEDs is indeed very long, and the short life of LED lamps is closely related to driver failure. "The power supply may not account for a large share of the lamp's cost, but the lifespan of the power supply directly determines the lifespan of the LED." To this end, Neo-Neon established a dedicated team to study power supply design, and cooperated with LED driver and passive component manufacturers to find optimization solutions for LED power management.
LEDs have the advantage of being thin, light and compact compared to traditional lighting sources, but the small chip area also sows the seeds of poor heat dissipation. Most driver circuit failures stem from excessive temperatures caused by LED heat, which evaporates the electrolyte in the electrolytic capacitor, ultimately leading to the failure of the entire lighting system. Leveraging the advantages of vertical integration in the LED industry, Neo-Neon starts from packaging and comprehensively improves heat dissipation through plastic brackets, ceramic substrates, and thermal separation.
Poor heat dissipation also causes the aftereffect of LED temperature rise, and the luminous efficiency of LEDs is inversely proportional to temperature, with temperature being the main cause of LED light decay. Hong Hai, Deputy General Manager of Shenzhen Wenliang Electronics Co., Ltd., said that selecting silver adhesive with good electrical conductivity helps improve LED heat dissipation, thereby reducing LED light decay. Wenliang Electronics selects imported silver adhesive. Although the price is slightly higher than domestic silver adhesive, the product's light decay at 50,000 hours can be controlled at around 32%, nearly 10 percentage points higher than domestic silver adhesive.
The above means of improving packaging materials help LED heat dissipation in a passive way. With the growth of the LED industry, new business opportunities have also emerged — LED active heat dissipation. Sunon, a Taiwanese company, has launched a series of fans targeting LED heat dissipation, breaking through the bottleneck of slow packaging heat dissipation. Theoretically, the junction temperature of LED chips should not exceed 80 degrees, but the temperature environment of LEDs after actual packaging often exceeds the standard. Sunon's heat dissipation modules for MR16 (7-15W), E27 (15-25W) bulb, and 25-40W downlight lamps can effectively reduce the temperature of LED luminaires, and are equipped with over-temperature protection functions to prevent accidents caused by excessive temperatures. According to Xu Xueyi, Deputy Director of the company's Planning Department, the company's products have been adopted by Philips downlights, successfully reducing the temperature of a 31W downlight to 56°C.
Since 2008, the LED market has maintained a growth rate of over 20%. Countries around the world have been eyeing this big cake covetously, and various nations have successively erected standards barriers. Half a year has passed since China's national standards were introduced, yet the flood of low-price chips still cannot be stopped. How to formulate standards that are applicable to China's LED market and truly promote local LED enterprises is worthy of deep consideration. As Zheng Haowen said, only by considering from multiple perspectives can valuable industry standards conducive to the sustainable development of the LED industry be formulated, and only then can the industry be guided correctly in a sound direction of development. Otherwise, repeatedly attempting to formulate standards that fail to reflect the corresponding level of industrial technology and market will push industry development into a predicament with nothing to follow.
(Editor: zhouboone)