Sapphire substrate shortage shock wave

The sapphire substrate upstream of the LED chip has caused price increases and has been in the industry for some time because of tight supply. It is currently reported that the quoted price for 2-inch sapphire substrates has exceeded US$20, an increase of 50% from the price in the first quarter of 2010. Affected by this news, Rubicon Technology, a US manufacturer of sapphire crystals, announced today that it will raise US$61.5 million to expand its crystal growth and post-crystal growth capacity. There are even rumors that Samsung is taking the opportunity to monopolize the supply of sapphire substrates to crack down on competitors and prepare for the future to dominate the LED industry.

It is not worth making a fuss about whether the prosperity index of raw material supply and demand or the rise or fall of product prices was originally high or low in an industry. As Li Gang, general manager of Shanghai Sapphire, said, there is indeed a shortage of sapphire substrates on the market, and the price of sapphire substrates is also rising, but we have yet to hear which company has stopped production because sapphire substrates are not available. of. Therefore, it can be seen that the main reason for the tight supply of sapphire substrates and the price increase in this round is actually that the market is in an early warning state. If, as some media reports say, there are nearly 500 MOCVD installations, there will indeed be a situation in which supply falls short of demand, but at the moment it is no more than the expectation that production capacity will increase rapidly. It does not seem to worry too much. However, further consideration will reveal that an expectation is that the price of a sapphire substrate will show a 50% increase in less than six months, which fully reflects the immaturity of the young LED industry.

Comparing two or three years ago in the solar photovoltaic industry, it is also an emerging industry. The same great concern, the same bright prospects, driven by financial subsidies in Germany, Spain and other countries, the market demand quickly broke out, but this also led to the entire supply and demand contradiction The intensification, coupled with man-made follow-up and speculation, ultimately led to contradictions in the upper polysilicon stage, which gave rise to abnormal market prices: In just two or three years, the price of polysilicon material had risen from around US$200 to US$500. In order to grab this round of ultra-high-speed express trains, Chinese companies actually planned to produce up to 100,000 tons of polysilicon material (in 2006, China’s annual production capacity was only 400 tons). Even once there was a domestic use of plutonium to produce raw materials, phenomenon. As a result, prices have collapsed and the overall development of China's solar PV industry has been affected.

Now, both the market demand and the country's subsidy policy have leaned towards the LED industry. At the same time, a large number of LED chip factories have also emerged. These companies have also planned an astonishing production capacity: the investment of Sanan Optoelectronics, the BDO Runda project, the private placement of Silan Micro, the capital increase of Hong Kong Microcrystals... According to National Semiconductor Lighting The statistics of engineering R&D and industry alliances, and in 2010, China is expected to add 140 new MOCVD equipments, together with the MOCVD quantity of Korean and Chinese Taiwanese manufacturers, and the emergence of sapphire substrates and MO gas sources. The shortage of other raw materials and the increase in prices are not surprising. As Jiang Zhongyong, general manager of Hangzhou Shilan Mingxin said, the shortage of sapphire substrates may exist in the current year and the next year. The main reason is that there are fewer sapphire substrates and the production capacity is insufficient. Its shortage will naturally drive companies to expand production or join new companies, so that supply and demand can be rebalanced. However, what we need to avoid is drastic price fluctuations and the ups and downs of investment. We call for orderly industry order and healthy market competition. Otherwise, it will pose a severe test for the immature LED supply chain system, and even affect the future development of the entire industry.