LED substrate material is the basic material of semiconductor lighting industry, which determines the development route of semiconductor lighting technology. At present, the materials that can be used as LED substrates include Al2O3 substrate, SiC substrate, Si substrate, GaN substrate, GaAs substrate, ZnO substrate, etc., but the most widely used commercial substrates are Al2O3 substrate, SiC substrate, Si substrate, so three different technical routes have been formed. From the current development of LED substrate industry, sapphire substrate is still the mainstream of LED substrate. At the same time, driven by the steady growth of LED downstream application market, the demand for upstream LED sapphire substrate materials will continue to grow.
Sapphire is the most important substrate for LED chips, accounting for more than 95% of the market share. Most of the major LED manufacturers use sapphire substrates. Due to the high cost of silicon carbide substrate and patent monopoly, almost no other manufacturers are involved except some manufacturers in the United States. Silicon substrate technology starts late, the industry scale is relatively small, and the market share is not high. Therefore, although silicon carbide substrate and silicon substrate have begun to take shape in the market, sapphire substrates will continue to lead the market development for some time.
According to the prediction of OFweek industry research institute, the global LED lighting market will maintain a growth rate of about 8% in the next three years, and the global market scale is expected to exceed 740 billion yuan by 2021. At the same time, driven by the demand of small spacing, Mini / Micro LED, the LED display market continues to grow steadily. By 2021, the global LED display market is expected to exceed 50 billion yuan. Therefore, the steady growth of LED downstream applications will drive the continuous growth of sapphire substrate material market.
