Reflection and analysis of the development process of “no package” in LED lighting industry

Time is like running water. Whether these “three no” products are “stunning” or practical in the industry, there is no standard answer to tell us that we need to reflect on whether the emergence of new technology is a revolution or purely “ Playing soy sauce" role?

Therefore, this newspaper will be a series of plans to reflect on the "three no" technology products. In this issue, we will first reflect on the development process of "no package".

No packaging technology promotes industrial chain integration

Since 2013, no packaging has been a hot topic in the LED industry. In the industry, "no package" has the name of package-free, chip-level package.

In fact, the so-called no-package does not really eliminate the packaging process, but advances part of the packaging process to the chip process stage, that is, flip-chip directly seals the pad to the bottom of the package, without gold wire, without bracket, simplified The production process reduces production costs and the package size can be made smaller, while the same package size provides more power, which is the chip scale package. Since no packaging technology can significantly reduce costs, LED companies including Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States have released similar chip-scale packaged LED products.

It is reported that the advantage of unpackaged devices is that the packaging of individual devices is simple and miniaturized, and the material cost of each device is reduced as much as possible. And the capacity of the package-free mass production is large, so as to meet the demand for explosive growth in the market, and the cost of the device is lowered by the large-scale production effect. In addition, there are three main technical solutions for the non-packaging process: first, dicing the LED wafer, then mounting the flip chip on the substrate material on which the circuit has been fabricated, and then performing other packaging processes, and finally dicing and dicing Obtaining single or multiple LED modules is a relatively popular method and a relatively mature process. Secondly, after the LED wafer is metallized, the flip-chip LED chip is fabricated by dicing, and then the front side and the four sides of the flip-chip LED chip are coated with a fluorescent layer material to achieve the purpose of packaging, which can be directly downstream. Lighting customer application. This method is a relatively common practice on the market at present, and it is also the direction in which various LED factories compete for development. Thirdly, after the LED epitaxial wafer is completed by the metallized electrode, the phosphor is directly coated on the wafer pole, and the chip is cut and split to realize no packaging. The process route is technically difficult, and is still in the early stage of industrialization.

For the lack of packaging, the industry has already said a lot of things, some are praise, and some have a neutral attitude. Tang Guoqing, general manager of Samsung LED China, believes that the birth of no package allows upstream chip companies to directly connect downstream application companies, realize the integration and shortening of the industry chain, and reduce the entire circulation cost in the long run. The lighting companies can choose according to their own needs. With the right light source to design, the innovative design of the luminaire will be completely liberated. After a wide range of applications, the cost advantage will become larger and larger, and the social benefits will become increasingly obvious. Some people in the industry believe that no package sacrifices the simplicity of the original mature process, increases the complexity of chip fabrication, is not conducive to production yield, and the impact of production yield offsets the cost advantage to some extent, and the existing industrial ecology. The chain is not fully compatible; and the original production equipment is not applicable, but will increase the cost of new equipment purchase, and explore new processes. Therefore, it is impossible for LED chips to truly achieve "no package".

Still can't change the life of the traditional packaging factory

At present, the competition in the whole industry is extremely fierce, the price of industrial products is declining, and the gross profit of manufacturers is shrinking. How to reduce costs has become an objective condition that manufacturers cannot ignore in R&D technology. The cost reduction advocated in the non-packaging technology is obviously the most attractive side, and it also represents the most cutting-edge technology in the LED packaging industry. It not only saves a part of the packaging, but also has good concentration and high reliability. The advantages of flexible optical control are a breakthrough in the cost of subverting the industry.

However, since the gold-free and stent-free packaging process can be directly completed by the chip companies, packaging companies need to actively explore more living space upstream or downstream, for example, using years of experience in the packaging field, and chip companies. Cooperate to complete some processes, etc. At the same time, due to the large amount of funds required for equipment upgrades, if SMEs cannot catch up with the pace of process upgrades in time, or the capital chain cannot support the upgrade of equipment, it will likely be eliminated.

Tang Guoqing believes that from the perspective of the current development model, the industry development will move from “1+1+1=3” mode (chip factory + package factory + application) to “1+1=3” (chip factory + application) The model of the business, eliminating this "1", which is the packaging factory, seems to be vertically integrated in the industrial chain of the LED industry. However, despite the "out of the pack" chip, the wave of sweeping traditional packaging companies has caused "panic" in packaging companies. Question: Is traditional packaging companies disappearing due to the emergence of no packaging technology? The reporter also interviewed many companies on this issue and asked them to talk about how to look at the emergence and development of unpackaged technology. The reporter got the answer that no packaging now seems impossible to eliminate the life of traditional packaging, and since the development of the LED industry, no packaging technology completely replaces another packaging technology. There are also some manufacturers who are honest and have not understood the lack of packaging technology, so they can not be evaluated.

Next package technology trends

Compared with the overall packaging market scale, the advantages of no packaging are obvious, but it is still weak. According to market research, there is no large-scale application of non-package technology on the mainstream general-purpose lighting products, and the current domestic manufacturers of mass production are rare, and there are only a handful. Among them, Zhongshan Stereo Optoelectronics is a front-line manufacturer that does not have packaging in China. The reporter learned that some of its unpackaged products have been applied to street lamps for part of the pilot.

The reporter learned in the interview that most people in the industry said that no packaging technology is good for both gimmicks and actual technological innovation. For lighting, technology not only requires innovation, but also needs to consider whether new technologies can Fully exploiting applications in a wider field, such as measuring the maturity of non-encapsulation technology, it is important to be truly mature application to enterprise products. Otherwise, it is just a conceptual technology, a niche technological innovation.

Perhaps, the current market share of non-packaging technology is not large, there is no large-scale implementation of the application in circulation lighting, and there is no cost reduction caused by scale effect. However, it is undeniable that its appearance is really good for the packaging manufacturers, giving a profound technical debate and reflection in this industry, and it is also the next trend of packaging technology.