South Korean LED maker Seoul Semiconductor Co Ltd is now mass producing its new 'WICOP' products, with a luminous efficiency of 210lm/W (350mA).
Composed of just an LED chip and phosphor, it does not require chip packaging (e.g. frames and gold wires etc). This new concept of LED product hence does not require any investment in packaging equipment and parts that need to be packaged (previously essential for LED manufacturing).
Picture: Comparison between conventional LED (left) and WICOP (right).
Seoul Semiconductor says that its new WICOP product (Y22) launched recently has broken the convention that if the product is structured simply (with only a chip and phosphor) then it would be hard to enhance luminous efficiency. The product has been realised based on Seoul Semiconductor's proprietary LED chip manufacturing technology and other related technologies. In particular, it has achieved higher luminous efficiency than conventional packaged high-power LED products. It is also reckoned to be over 17% more luminously efficient than CSP (chip-scale package), which is similar in appearance.
As the company that developed WICOP (claimed to be the world's first package-less LED), Seoul Semiconductor has supplied WICOP to both IT and automobile manufacturers since 2012. In 2015, it launched two models of WICOP lighting products. Now that it has started to mass produce WICOP with a 210lm/W luminous efficiency for the first time, it has positioned itself as a pioneer of package-less LED products.
Seoul Semiconductor says that the importance of high-power LEDs such as WICOP has recently risen rapidly in the global LED market. Market research firm Strategies Unlimited showed that in 2015 super-high-power LED products (with high luminous efficiency, such as WICOP) comprised 20% of the total LED market, and should exceed 30% by 2020.
"The WICOP products which have been independently developed by Seoul Semiconductor would render the currently increasing investment in the packaging industry unnecessary, and will become the standard for next-generation LEDs as it is an innovative product that reflects a new wind of change in the LED market," reckons chief technology officer Ki-bum Nam. "We will continue to develop various solutions related to WICOP for customers in addition to developing new WICOP products with a luminous efficiency of over 220lm/W by 2020," he adds.
