It is no stranger to mention UV-LED. It is another important direction of the active layout of major LED companies. The momentum and speed of its growth have far exceeded expectations. In addition, the early signing of the "Water Minority Convention" in 2013, is expected to be a worldwide mercury ban by 2020, is undoubtedly the biggest boost to promote the development of UV-LED.

According to the market analysis report made by the relevant media, UV-LED is gradually infiltrating into various applications, coupled with some policy impetus, the market share of UV-LED is expected to reach 500 million US dollars by 2020. It can be seen that UV-LED is a product with huge market potential and business opportunities. From 2014 onwards, the media have reported information about UV-LED, and increasing year by year, it can be seen that UV-LED has been in the spout of the wave, is the trend of industrial development.

A few years ago, UV-LED manufacturers in the market can be called not many, but Japan, the first half, LG, SETi and so on a few. In recent years, more and more companies have started to invest in news, such as:

Osram signed a strategic agreement with HexaTech, Osram expanded cooperation with Stanley, Osram acquired LED Engin Inc., Ray Vio joined hands with Digi-Key Electronics, Osram led a research group to develop high-power UV-LED, Asahi developed quartz lenses suitable for UV-LED packaging, and Toho Japan joined hands with Osram to develop high-power UV-LED. Developed UVB, UVC products and so on. This shows the importance of UV-LED to the international factory. In addition, Taiwan has joined hands with research and development to set up UV-LED brand Bioraytron. Look at the mainland, upstream enterprises such as Qingdao Jiesheng, San'an Optoelectronics, Zhongke Youwei, Hongli Zhihui, Guoxing Optoelectronics, Ruifeng Optoelectronics and other manufacturers are also positively layout.

UV-LED is another hot spot after Blu-ray LED, but after these years of development has not yet formed a relatively complete industrial scale in China. Since the advantages are obvious and R & D is active, why is there no real industrialization yet? Personal analysis is made in the following aspects:

"The cost is relatively high.

The most demanded products for UVA are curing, printing, exposure and other industrial applications. However, most of the machines in factories still use mercury lamp as the light source. UV-LED has obvious advantages such as long life, energy-saving and environmental protection, but the purchase cost after modularization is relatively increased, which makes some users temporarily unacceptable.

"You need to replace the equipment.

Users have been using mercury lamp desk operations, if the replacement of UV-LED need to buy a machine or modify the machine, this part of the investment has also made many people shy;

"Need to be changed" formula.

The curing, printing, exposure and other industries have formed a complete supporting industrial chain after years of development. Inks and dyes contain a variety of chemical ingredients, commonly known as formulations. These formulations are developed for mercury lamps. Not all existing inks and dyes can be irradiated with UV-LED to achieve operational results. Ink companies develop new formulations and invest a lot of manpower, material and financial resources, and they need a process.

The overall reliability needs to be improved.

Industrial applications of UV-LEDs are relatively harsh on reliability, that is, the requirements for chip, packaging, modularization are more stringent. At present, the performance of UV-LED products of international manufacturers can be satisfied, while the product parts of domestic manufacturers are still in the development stage, there are still some deficiencies to be improved.

R & D investment is high.

Relative to the international large factories, the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars, the R&D investment of domestic companies is relatively small, and the scale is also small.

UVB used in phototherapy or plant lighting, not much understanding of medical aspects, so do not make too much comment, but according to its characteristics, medical equipment and medical applications of this high value-added industry can be applied; but UVB is not suitable for plant lighting applications, UVB indicators and UVC is very close, the most important point is, the irradiation distance. Very short distance, plant lighting generally requires large areas of lighting, if the application of UVB that cost will be enormous to frightening, but also to stick to plants to illuminate, slightly away from the early investment will be turned into nothing.

Look at UVC again. It's LV in LED. It can be said to be a luxury. At present, UVC can not be sold as a commodity, because UVC chip or packaging, and conventional products are very different, the current UVC is more technical strength: I can do UVC chip, then I am in the chip industry is a very strong role, I can seal the UVC, then I am in the packaging industry is the leader in technology. UVC is the symbol of identity.

From the industry, UVC is the main field of disinfection and sterilization, such as water sterilization, food sterilization, air purification and so on. The prospect of application is still very impressive, but the feeling is not practical.

First, the price of UVC.

In the past two years, it has declined, but it is still expensive in the LED industry, which limits the enthusiasm of most downstream application companies.

Second, the performance of UVC still needs to be improved.

The most important is the radiation power and life, a few years ago, the UVC or 1mW class, although there are now 100mW class, but the price is not beautiful, life is a hard injury to UVC. In the LED family, UVC can be said to be a short-lived ghost, chip technology or packaging process a little less controlled, UVC will die early, and UVC radiation range, need to be close to the sterilized object to be effective.

Third, the cost of people's livelihood is high.

If we want to achieve a certain scale of industry, we must use it for people's livelihood. For example, the direction of water sterilization, a network shopping mall household water purifier sales of the highest price range in 2000-3000 yuan, back to calculate the profit of each link, the cost of raw materials can even be as low as several hundred yuan, water speed 1-1.5L/min in the conventional water purifier needs how many mW of UVC? How much does the cost of UVC account for the water purifier cost? Under the constraints of low efficiency and high price, UVC is not accepted by white power companies in the direction of domestic water sterilization, food sterilization and air purification are also the same.

Fourth, there is not enough pain.

As a result of living habits, I am a northerner, northerners do not use hot water to wash dishes and chopsticks before eating in restaurants, but Cantonese can. When I first came to Guangdong, I was not used to it. I often didn't wash it, and I didn't feel uncomfortable after eating. For example, a bottle of 500 mL pure water after opening for three days will not have any discomfort, a bucket of pure water for a few days will not have any problem, since no problem why pay for added value? In addition, some people must drink boiled water to cool the warm water; food sterilization, food is generally stored in the refrigerator, fruits should be cleaned before eating raw, some people use detergent or salt to sterilize, after cleaning bacteria basically no residue, low cost. Meat or some vegetables need to be cooked before eating, high temperature has killed all the bacteria, some people will say leftovers next meal to eat, this situation is to eat before heating again, steam or microwave oven, is also sterile. Even if it is sterilized by UVC, it can be eaten after a few days, but the average person will still throw away the food. Therefore, I think the application of low value-added, pain point is not enough, is not just the people's livelihood is also an important reason for restricting development.

Fifth, there are few effective applications.

UVC is a relatively new product, around its design of the application program began to sprout like bamboo shoots, but really meet the needs of the actual assembly effect of the program is very few. For example, suppose you sterilize your chopsticks with UVC products before eating in a restaurant, then the question arises: How many mW of UVC do you use? How do I need to shine? How long is the exposure? What is the effect of the irradiation? Although there are many people studying UVC, there are few people who can answer the data.

These are my humble opinions on the current market situation of UV-LED. Of course, UV-LED still has some problems, but it does not mean that there is no need for development. For example, the route of UVA can develop rapidly. Personally, I think that UVA should do a good job in the integration of resources in the industrial chain. Chips, packaging, modules, equipment and dyestuff companies need to be closely linked and planned from the whole industrial chain. Only in this way can we face the 2020 Water Minority Convention and speed up the development of UVA. However, UVC still needs to further improve its performance and reduce its cost. At the beginning, it can be applied in some areas with absolute high added value. At the same time, it also needs to develop more effective application schemes, which will be converted to civilian use when the conventional LED level is really achieved and the "second kill" bacteria is achieved in special use environment.