2021 Global Lighting COB Package Manufacturers Revenue Ranking at a Glance

In 2021, while COVID-19 is still alive, global economic activity has recovered markedly relative to 2020. The epidemic control in Asia is relatively successful, and various commercial activities will gradually resume in the second half of 2020; after entering 2021 in Europe and the United States, various sports events and commercial activities have also been restarted. All in all, the impact of COVID-19 on the economy is gradually fading, which also makes the LED lighting industry that has been sluggish for a whole year have a significant recovery in 2021. TrendForce Jibang Consulting data shows that the global LED lighting market will reach 64.6 billion US dollars in 2021, an increase of 9.2% year-on-year.

Although SMD technology is the mainstream, the product homogenization is serious

The growth of the finished lighting market is also driving the growth of the lighting LED packaging market. At present, the LED lighting packaging products on the market are mainly divided into SMD and COB products, and Lamp LED has basically withdrawn from the lighting market. SMD LED packaging technology threshold is low, the market demand is large, TrendForce Jibang consulting data shows that more than 95% of the lighting LED devices on the market are SMD LED products. In recent years, SMD LED product specifications have been concentrated to 2835, 3030, product homogenization is more serious, market competition is more intense.

COB technology performance is excellent, positioning high-end commercial photo market

Another packaging technology is cob (Chip on Board) packaging technology. COB is a chip on-board packaging technology, the chip with conductive or non-conductive adhesive glued to the interconnect substrate, and then the lead bond to achieve its electrical connection of the semiconductor packaging process, not only can reduce the manufacturing process of the bracket and its cost, but also has the advantage of reducing thermal resistance of heat dissipation.

Compared with SMD LEDs, COB has the following advantages:

1. High packaging efficiency, cost savings

The COB packaging process and the SMD production process are not much different, but the COB packaging is much more efficient in dispensing, separation, spectroscopy and packaging. Compared with discrete LED devices, COB light source modules can save primary packaging costs, optical engine module production costs and secondary light distribution costs of LEDs in applications.

2. Low thermal resistance advantage

The system thermal resistance structure of SMD packaging is chip -solid crystal glue -solder joint -solder paste -copper foil -insulating layer -aluminum, while the system thermal resistance of COB package is chip-solid grain glue-aluminum. The system thermal resistance of the COB package is much lower than that of the traditional SMD package, so the LED luminaires in the COB package have a longer service life.

3. Light quality advantage

SMD packaging through the form of patches to paste multiple discrete devices on the PCB board to form a light source component for LED applications, which has the problem of spotlight, glare and ghosting. The COB package, because it is an integrated package, is a surface light source, with a large viewing angle and easy adjustment, which can reduce the loss of light refraction.

4. Application advantages

CoB light source application is very convenient, no other process can be applied directly to the luminaire. The traditional SMD package light source also needs to be patched first, and then fixed on the PCB board by reflow soldering. It is not as convenient as COB in application. The COB device emits a surface light source, which is easier to achieve the consistency of light color and the easier to achieve a high-quality spot effect. Therefore, COB devices have been used in demanding lighting places, such as high-end hotels, high-end retail stores or museums and other high-end commercial lighting markets.

COB technology powers the smart lighting/health lighting market

In recent years, the intelligent lighting market has been in a stage of rapid development, Signify, OPPLE lighting, NVC lighting and other well-known manufacturers continue to introduce intelligent lighting products, COB technology in the intelligent lighting market has also been widely used. For example, the two-color temperature dimming cob light source can solve many technical and structural design problems faced by the intelligent lighting source at present, and is the best choice for intelligent lighting fixtures. In addition, because of its integrated package structure, it helps to achieve a small area, high brightness, which is conducive to the integration of two color temperatures, keeps the light angle constant, and is also more convenient for secondary optical design, making the spot more uniform.

In the field of health and education lighting, in recent years, the attention has become higher and higher, and the concept of health lighting has slowly penetrated into the market. Such as LED table lamps, because of the need to look closely, the quality of the light source requirements are much higher than other lamps. COB light source is more suitable for LED table lamp products, the use of COB light source technology table lamp has no stroboscopic, no electromagnetic radiation, low energy consumption, high illumination, high color rendering index many advantages, is the closest to the natural light of the new generation of light source, for the protection of the eyes, prevention of myopia has a significant effect.

International manufacturers are still dominant, and the rise of Chinese manufacturers is obvious

COB packaging technology due to the high threshold, and the application of the field is also in the high-end market, the price sensitivity is not high, so the current COB products are still dominated by international manufacturers, especially in developed markets such as Europe and the United States. However, with the advancement of technology in recent years, the product competitiveness of domestic manufacturers is also rapidly improving, and the rise trend is obvious. And with the popularity of COB technology, not only in the commercial lighting market, in recent years, the trend of masterless lamp design, but also gradually introduced COB products into the home lighting market. More and more families are beginning to use lighting products such as downlights and spotlights, which are the main application lamps of COB products. This is expected to further drive the market demand for COB packaging.

Globally, in 2021, The Japanese company Citizen still occupies the leading position in the lighting COB package. Citizen has been in a leading position in the field of lighting COB packaging, both in terms of technology and revenue scale, for many years. Although the share of the low-end COB market has shrunk in 2021, it is still in an absolute leading position in the high-end COB market, especially in high-end markets such as Europe and the United States, the market share of Citizen Lighting COB has been at a high level.

CREE continues to hold its second position in the world. CREE LED is the only manufacturer in the world to SiC as an LED epitaxial substrate, although in recent years, due to cost considerations, SiC substrate chips have gradually withdrawn from the market, but CREE in the field of lighting, has still been positioned in the high-end market. Therefore, CREE mainly promotes high-power and COB products, high-power products are mainly used in street lamps, outdoor high-power lighting and other products, and COB products are mainly used in commercial lighting and go through the circulation channel market.

Lumileds is one of the world's major LED packaging manufacturers, in the mobile phone LED flash market, Lumileds is in an absolute leading position; in the lighting market, also occupies an important position, is the core supplier of Signify lighting. In the COB field, although the proportion of revenue in the head office is not high, it still ranks third in the world.

Other lighting COB packaging manufacturers that have entered the top ten include Silicon Energy Optoelectronics, Preh, Tiandian Optoelectronics, Tongfang, Samsung LED, Hongli Zhihui and Langminus. Among them, silicon energy optoelectronics in recent years COB business showed rapid growth, into the supply chain of international manufacturers, production capacity can be quickly released, rapid increase in output; in addition, Puri in the COB market is also developing rapidly, after the merger into the development of crystals, further enriched the COB packaging product line, can cover more different levels of customers, COB revenue showed significant growth. In addition to the above top ten manufacturers, there are still a number of outstanding manufacturers in the field of lighting COB packaging, such as Ascend Spectrum Optoelectronics, Euront and so on.

Text: LEDinside