For 30 years, white LEDs have relied on uncommon earth supplies similar to yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) layered onto blue LED chips (Determine 1). Seoul Viosys Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ: 092190) introduced at the moment that it has damaged that dependency. We’ve developed a chip that emits white gentle with out utilizing uncommon earths, and have begun mass manufacturing. Chips could be as small as 10 micrometers (µm).
Seoul Viosys and its mother or father firm Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ:046890) have pioneered the micro-LED market along with WICOP. WICOP is a chip structure that utterly eliminates the bundle. The elimination of packaging is widely known within the business as a revolution within the 60-year historical past of semiconductors. With WICOP, the businesses have already developed and mass-produced ultraviolet, blue, inexperienced, pink, and infrared LEDs smaller than 100 μm, that are too small for the attention. WICOP 3 is third era know-how. Now, its capabilities have been prolonged to white gentle that doesn’t include uncommon earth parts (REEs).
Determine 1. New invention: white WICOP 3
financial affect
- white LED market
Of the $15 billion international marketplace for packaged LEDs, white LEDs account for about $10 billion. WICOP 3 permits them to get replaced with uncommon earth-free applied sciences.
Extra importantly, WICOP 3 is the world’s first white gentle semiconductor that allows white gentle with micro-LEDs smaller than 100 µm. At this dimension, it can’t be seen with the bare eye.
WICOP 3 makes use of no uncommon earths or packaging. Uncommon earths are a serious reason behind environmental air pollution, however WICOP 3 doesn’t include any uncommon earths. It additionally doesn’t include artificial silicone resins, plastics, or lead frames utilized in conventional LEDs. The result’s a product that prices about half as a lot to fabricate as conventional white LEDs and is far more environmentally pleasant.
- Creating new markets
Miniaturized transistors changed vacuum tubes and created an unlimited new market in electronics. The corporate believes it may do one thing comparable with micro white gentle semiconductors. WICOP 3 produces white gentle solely from gallium nitride (GaN). GaN is a pure materials, and the chips don’t include plastic, silicon, or different artificial natural supplies. Because of this, it’s nearly everlasting and might final for many years. In lighting, invisible micro-optosemiconductors could be embedded in wallpaper and window glass. Lighting gear can illuminate empty areas. This eliminates the inconvenience of fixing gentle bulbs and the excessive price of fixtures. The corporate expects that this may create a brand new market a number of dozen occasions bigger than the present $10 billion white LED market.
efficiency
In first mass manufacturing, a micro-LED chip measuring simply 25 μm × 10 μm produced 0.015 lumens of white gentle. Its chromaticity falls throughout the CIE commonplace white vary (Determine 2). Luminous effectivity is already approaching 100 lumens per watt (lm/W). The corporate goals to attain 200 lm/W inside two years. A standard 1,000 µm x 1,000 µm chip achieves 50 lumens.
Determine 2. WICOP 3 brightness by dimension
Technical significance
Till now, WICOP has allowed chips to be made smaller, however white gentle nonetheless requires packages containing uncommon earths. Due to this fact, white chips can’t be smaller than 1,000 µm. This was an obstacle to price discount. White micro-LEDs smaller than 100 µm (0.1 mm) had been additionally out of attain. Eradicating uncommon earths adjustments the scenario. White gentle is now attainable in each massive chips of 1,000 µm and bigger and micro-LEDs of lower than 100 µm.
The corporate compares this progress to 1948. That 12 months, Bell Laboratories in the USA moved its electronics from vacuum tubes to transistors. Seoul Semiconductor and Seoul Viosys are equally working past LEDs made for visibility. They invented chips too small to see that emit pink, inexperienced, blue, infrared, ultraviolet, and now white gentle. This transformation opens up a broader period of opto-semiconductors spanning AR and AI communications.
Determine 3. Comparability of semiconductor flip chips and WICOP chips.
Some merchandise bought as “flip-chip” LEDs replicate WICOP’s patented know-how. Seoul Semiconductor continues to guard mental property around the globe.
Improvement background and evolution
For the reason that 2010s, greater than 10 main Korean teams and greater than 300 Chinese language corporations have entered the LED market. Value competitors has change into more and more intense. Founder Chung Hoon Lee, who studied physics, concluded that the corporate wanted strategic, breakthrough know-how to outlive and develop. Since then, we have now invested roughly $100 million a 12 months in analysis and improvement and new innovations, even in years when the enterprise will not be worthwhile. Each silicon and optical semiconductors are made of soppy supplies, so they’re delicate to mud and moisture. That is why each have remained packaged for 60 years.
- WICOP (first era)
WICOP started with a easy query that Lee requested one night time. “Why do semiconductors need to be packaged?” After years of analysis, Seoul Semiconductor developed WICOP in 2018 and started mass manufacturing. This was the primary chip in semiconductor historical past that didn’t require a bundle. Silicon semiconductors have advanced from vacuum tubes to transistors to built-in circuits that maintain dozens or a whole lot of transistors. The corporate believed that WICOP might result in the same evolution in optical semiconductors, enabling invisible micro-LEDs beneath 100 µm. The corporate has been conducting joint analysis and improvement with the College of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) for 20 years. This examine created a 1 μm scale system.
- WICOP 2 (2nd era)
Prior to now, LEDs required a lens to manage the path of the sunshine. Lee additionally had his doubts. “Why do we have now to make use of lenses?” He additionally requested, “Why do semiconductors need to function solely at 3 volts when family energy is 110 or 220 volts?” WICOP 2 was born from that reply. It directs gentle with out a lens and operates on greater voltages of 12 or 24 volts. Electrical and hybrid automobiles function on high-voltage batteries. In these automobiles, high-voltage opto-semiconductors can scale back energy consumption by 20%. WICOP 2 is at present being provided to clients around the globe, together with Tesla.
- WICOP 3 (third era)
The third era was born out of the query, “Why do we’d like uncommon earths for white gentle?” Lee, founding father of Seoul Semiconductor, stated, “We’ve efficiently developed WICOP 3, which generates white gentle, and have begun mass manufacturing.”
Determine 4. Evolution of WICOP know-how with out packaging
Future plans
Soul Group consists of Soul Semiconductor and Soul Viosys. The group plans to begin mass manufacturing of WICOP 3 within the fourth quarter. First, it respects the corporate’s mental property and provides its merchandise to clients who belief them. WICOP 3 produces white gentle with out utilizing uncommon earths. It’s also the last word white gentle supply that can be utilized semi-permanently despite the fact that it has an invisible dimension of 100 μm or much less. Nonetheless, the group adheres to its “upkeep precept” of by no means competing with clients. As a substitute, it plans to work with key clients to develop new utility markets.
We’re on the lookout for provide chain companions
Seoul Viosys is an affiliated firm of Seoul Semiconductor. Fabricate sub-100 µm micro opto-semiconductors utilizing WICOP. Micro-LEDs constructed on WICOP can now transmit massive quantities of AI information over distances from lower than 1 cm to tens of meters. Over brief distances, information has lengthy traveled as electrons on copper wires. Electrons have mass. Beneath the info load of the AI period, copper hyperlinks decelerate, generate warmth, and enhance energy consumption. The corporate as a substitute transmits information as gentle. Photons don’t have any mass. 1,000 roughly 10 μm WICOP chips are organized in a grid inside 1 sq. millimeter (Determine 5). This array transmits information 10x sooner with 10x much less energy. Market analysis corporations similar to Omdia predict that this know-how, mixed with AR, will create a brand new $60 billion market inside 5 years. This represents half of at the moment’s DRAM reminiscence market.
Lee stated the corporate intends to make use of WICOP 1, 2, and three to assist folks around the globe stay higher lives via AR glasses and AI information communications. These strategies work at invisible sizes beneath 10 μm. To realize this goal, we’ll search dependable upstream and downstream micro-LED provide chain companions for AR shows and AI transmitters, and collectively we’ll construct a $60 billion new market.
Determine 5. WICOP chip array for AI communications: 1,000 WICOP chips × 1 GHz = 1,000 GHz
