Abstract: China's LED silicon carbide carrier industry is in a critical stage of technology iteration and market expansion, showing the dual characteristics of localization breakthroughs and collaborative acceleration of the industrial chain. In 2024, the market size of China's LED silicon carbide carrier industry will be 677 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.52%. In terms of technology, domestic companies have achieved a large-scale leap from 4-inch to 8-inch carrier disks. Zhejiang Hexagon Semiconductor uses CVD silicon carbide coating technology to increase the thermal conductivity of the carrier plate to more than 150 W/m·K to meet the growth needs of Mini/Micro LED epitaxial wafers; Hunan Dezhi New Materials uses a pressureless sintering process to increase the density of the carrier plate to 98%, and its thermal shock resistance is significantly better than traditional materials.
1. Definition and classification
LED silicon carbide carrier tray is a high-performance ceramic component specially designed for LED production, also known as silicon carbide tray or SIC tray. In the LED manufacturing process, silicon carbide carriers are used to carry and protect wafers or chips, ensuring the efficiency and stability of the semiconductor process, while improving the performance and life of LED products. According to the classification of production technology, LED silicon carbide carriers can be divided into
2. Industry Policies
As the core component of the third-generation semiconductor industry chain, LED silicon carbide carriers are deeply driven by national and local policies. In recent years, China has laid out the silicon carbide industry from a strategic perspective, promoted technological breakthroughs and industrial upgrading through multi-dimensional policy tools, and built a systematic support framework for the LED silicon carbide carrier industry. In January 2024, six departments including the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Advanced Level, Energy Saving Level and Access Level of Energy Efficiency of Key Energy-Using Products and Equipment (2024 Edition)", which clarified the energy efficiency requirements for 43 types of energy-using products and equipment in 6 categories such as lighting appliances, including LED flat lights, LED downlights, Four lighting products, including non-directional self-ballasted LED lamps and LED lamps for road and tunnel lighting, have added LED flat lamps compared to the 2022 version, and the energy efficiency level requirements for two products, including LED downlights and LED lamps for road and tunnel lighting, are higher than the current national standards. This policy promotes the development of the industry in a more energy-efficient direction by setting higher energy efficiency standards. The newly added LED panel lights and the increased energy efficiency requirements for products such as LED downlights and LED lamps for road lighting will prompt silicon carbide carrier manufacturers to increase their production capacity. Invest heavily in R&D to optimize product performance and meet higher standards of market demand.
3. Development History
The development of China's LED silicon carbide carrier industry has mainly gone through three stages. In the embryonic period from 1907 to 1960, in 1907, Henry Joseph Round accidentally discovered the electroluminescence phenomenon while studying silicon carbide, which was the early scientific basis of LED technology; in 1962, Nick Holonyak, Jr. invented the first visible light LED, which was a diode based on gallium arsenide (GaAs). This period was a period of basic scientific research on semiconductor materials and luminescence principles. LED technology had not yet been commercialized and was mainly studied in a laboratory environment. Early discoveries laid the scientific foundation for later LED technology, but there is still a long way to go before practical applications.
During the start-up period from 1960 to 1999, in 1980, silicon carbide, as a material with high thermal conductivity and high breakdown electric field, began to be studied as a potential substrate material for LEDs; in 1993, Japanese scientist Shuji Nakamura and others successfully developed gallium nitride (GaN)-based LEDs. Blue LED, this invention greatly expanded the application scope of LED and laid the foundation for the manufacturing of white LED. In the late 1990s, research on SiC as a substrate material made progress. Because of its excellent thermal conductivity and chemical stability, it began to be used to grow GaN-based LEDs. During this period, LED technology began to be commercialized and was mainly used in indicator lights and digital displays in electronic products and household appliances. Silicon carbide began to attract attention as a potential material for high-temperature and high-power applications. The invention of blue LED made white LED possible, and the expansion of application fields drove the further development of silicon carbide materials in the LED field.
In the period of rapid development from 2000 to the present, in 2000, with the continuous advancement of LED chip technology, high-brightness LEDs began to be widely used in automotive lighting, mobile phone backlights and other fields. GaN-based LEDs on SiC substrates began to be widely researched and applied due to their excellent optoelectronic performance and reliability; 20 In 2010, with the advancement of the "LED Lighting Popularization Plan", high-power LED lighting products began to spread rapidly, and the application of SiC materials in the LED field continued to expand. Especially in the production of high-power LED chips, it was favored for its high thermal conductivity; in 2020, SiC was widely used in Mini The production of LEDs and Micro LEDs, which have high thermal conductivity and chemical stability, is critical to achieving smaller size and higher density LED arrays. During this period, LED technology further developed. The use of new materials such as silicon carbide improved the performance and reliability of LEDs. High-power and high-efficiency LED products became the mainstream of the market, and silicon carbide materials were used more widely.
4. Industry Barriers
1. Technical Barriers
The production of silicon carbide carrier disks involves core technical links such as high-purity raw material preparation, crystal growth, and precision processing, forming a very high technical threshold. Silicon carbide crystals need to grow in a high-temperature sealed environment above 2000°C, and parameters such as silicon-to-carbon ratio, temperature gradient, air flow pressure, etc. need to be precisely controlled. A slight deviation will lead to crystal structure defects. Only a few companies in the world have mastered the technology for stable mass production of substrates above 6 inches, and the yield rate of domestic companies is generally low. In addition, the hardness of silicon carbide is close to that of diamond, and cutting, grinding, polishing and other processing steps are prone to edge chipping. Special technologies such as laser processing and ion beam processing need to be developed to further raise the technical threshold.
2. Capital and scale barriers
The construction cost of a silicon carbide carrier plate production line is high, covering the purchase of high-end equipment, technology research and development, talent introduction, etc. For example, the construction cost of an 8-inch silicon carbide wafer line reaches billions of yuan, and continuous investment is required for technology iteration. At the same time, downstream customers have extremely high requirements for product consistency and stability, and companies need to achieve large-scale production to achieve cost optimization. Currently, the global silicon carbide substrate market is dominated by giants such as Wolfspeed in the United States, which reduce costs through large-scale production. However, domestic companies are at a disadvantage in cost competition due to their small scale.
3. Customer Certification and Market Barriers
The certification cycle for silicon carbide carrier suppliers by LED manufacturing companies is as long as 1-2 years, involving multi-dimensional assessments such as product quality, supply stability, and after-sales service. Once a partnership is formed, customer stickiness is high and it is difficult for new entrants to quickly enter the market. In addition, international giants bind core customers through long-term cooperation, and domestic companies need to gradually penetrate through cost-effective advantages, but they face problems such as low brand awareness and insufficient market trust.
5. Industrial Chain
1. Industry Industrial Chain Analysis
The upstream of the LED silicon carbide carrier industry chain mainly includes raw materials and production equipment. Raw materials include silicon carbide powder, graphite substrate, etc., and production equipment includes crystal growth furnaces, precision processing equipment (laser cutting machines, ion beam polishing machines, etc.), etc. The midstream of the industrial chain is the production and manufacturing of LED silicon carbide carrier plates. The downstream of the industrial chain is the LED application market. The LED silicon carbide carrier industry chain is shown in the figure below:
2. Analysis of industry leading companies
(1) Zhejiang Lufang Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd.
Zhejiang Lufang Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2018 and is headquartered in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. It is a high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development and production of silicon carbide coating technology and silicon carbide products. The company's core team is composed of returned Ph.D.s and senior industry experts with strong technical strength and is committed to promoting the application of silicon carbide materials in semiconductors, LEDs, photovoltaics and other fields. The company's self-developed chemical vapor deposition (CVD) silicon carbide coating technology can achieve nanoscale uniform coating on the surface of the carrier plate, significantly improving the thermal stability and corrosion resistance of the carrier plate. This technology has been applied to 8-inch silicon carbide carriers to meet the high-precision requirements for LED epitaxial wafer growth. Through doping modification technology, the company has developed silicon carbide composite materials with low thermal expansion coefficient (<3.5×10 K¹) and high thermal conductivity (>150 W/m·K), which can effectively reduce thermal stress during the manufacturing process of LED chips.
(2) Hunan Dezhi New Materials Co., Ltd.
Hunan Dezhi New Materials Co., Ltd. was established in 2017 and is headquartered in Zhuzhou, Hunan. It is a high-tech enterprise specializing in the research, development and production of silicon carbide ceramic materials and products. Relying on the technical support of the Powder Metallurgy Research Institute of Central South University, the company focuses on the localization of high-end silicon carbide components in semiconductors, LEDs, photovoltaics and other fields. The company uses a pressureless sintering process to prepare high-density silicon carbide carrier disks with a relative density of more than 98%, which significantly improves the material's thermal shock resistance and mechanical strength. This technology breaks through the size limitations of traditional hot-press sintering and can produce large carrier disks with a diameter of up to 450mm. The company deposits a corrosion-resistant coating on the surface of the carrier plate through plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), which effectively resists halogen gas corrosion in the MOCVD process and extends the service life to more than 2,000 hours.
6. Current status of the industry
China's LED silicon carbide carrier industry is in a critical stage of technology iteration and market expansion, showing the dual characteristics of localization breakthroughs and coordinated acceleration of the industrial chain. In 2024, the market size of China's LED silicon carbide carrier industry will be 677 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.52%. In terms of technology, domestic companies have achieved a large-scale leap from 4-inch to 8-inch carrier disks. Zhejiang Hexagon Semiconductor uses CVD silicon carbide coating technology to increase the thermal conductivity of the carrier plate to more than 150 W/m·K to meet the growth needs of Mini/Micro LED epitaxial wafers; Hunan Dezhi New Materials uses a pressureless sintering process to increase the density of the carrier plate to 98%, and its thermal shock resistance is significantly better than traditional materials.
Note: This article is reproduced from the Zhiyan Industry Encyclopedia Platform
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