How should the COB light source market develop? See what LED experts at home and abroad say!

The industry is fragmented and a hundred schools of thought are contending. Some people once said that it will divide the world into three parts. In the future, will it take the path of small profits but quick turnover through SMD scale standardization, or will it take the path of high profits through in-depth refinement and customization?

International Enterprise Arguments

Wen Jianhua, Senior Vice President of Bridgelux Asia, said that the two are complementary to each other and proceed simultaneously in two dimensions. On the one hand, the size and supporting equipment are gradually standardized, such as the standardization of power supplies, optical devices, etc., in the hope that standardized modules can be used to reduce the supporting and management costs of lighting manufacturers. On the other hand, in terms of light color, there is an increasing demand for customization. As we all know, Bridgelux has been leading the development of the industry in the field of light color. Not only was it the first to launch a standard product with a 3-step color tolerance, of course, many companies in the industry can now provide such standard products, which shows that the industry as a whole is making progress. At the same time, Bridgelux also launched special color point products and high GAI ClassA products, which greatly enriched customer needs for different application scenarios. Therefore, standardization is the trend in size matching, while customization is the choice of light and color for different scenes.

Fang Ning, Vice President of Sales of Luminus China, believes that from Luminus's perspective, customization is a product that cannot guarantee long-term stable supply and quality assurance. LuminusCOB uses highly automated equipment and highly integrated systems to control the manufacturing of batch products. Each product needs to be matched with corresponding tools and systems, which costs a lot and requires a large amount of and long-term aging verification. , and the demand for customization is usually small and changes frequently. Highly automated equipment cannot meet the production of small quantities and multiple models. Standardized production can control products in a long-term and stable state, and the key quality control points of COB are well established in the product design stage. Automated production can ensure maximum production repeatability, optimal production stability, and very high output efficiency, bringing long-term production cost advantages.

Domestic Enterprise Arguments

Wei Shiquan, deputy general manager of Shenzhen Tongfang Optoelectronics, believes that in the lighting industry, bulbs and lamp tubes are relatively common and low-priced, so they are suitable for vertical integration. Fully automated production can be achieved through packaging, injection molding, metal stamping, assembly, and final packaging to increase profit margins.

In the high-end lighting market, due to the personalized design of lamps and specialized applications, it may not be able to effectively improve the price-performance ratio of each component to make the product more competitive. Therefore, companies positioned in the field of high-end lighting products are less likely to benefit from vertical integration and can consider focusing on expanding their own product markets to maximize profits and market share.

Zheng Haibin, deputy general manager and marketing director of Jiangxi Zhaochi Optoelectronics, said that customized products are determined by differentiated market demands, such as special application requirements such as high CRI and high-gloss products. At present, the COB market is not completely finalized. We believe that customization and standardization will coexist in the short term, but the overall trend of COB modular standardization is inevitable.

Lei Lining, general manager of Hongli Optoelectronics, said that the structure of COB itself determines its customization, because both the finished product and the structural details of the lamps are different, which determines the necessity of COB customization. Of course, customers will gradually transition to standard sizes, because only when sizes are standardized and interchangeable can the basic conditions for cost-effectiveness be met.

Lei Lining also said that as a major COB manufacturer, the first thing to do is to reserve the ability to cope with customization, and at the same time gradually guide the unification of products for multiple customers in order to reduce costs. In fact, when a certain product reaches a certain volume, customization becomes a standard part. In this regard, Xia Xuesong, general manager of Silicon Energy Lighting, also said that more customers require customization, which is also standardization.

Song Dong, vice president of Jinko Electronics, said that the customization of COB and the standardization of LED may seem like a paradox, but they are not. In fact, customization can achieve small-scale standardization, and standardized things can also be customized on a small scale, because it is still difficult to achieve global standardization.

Zou Yiming, general manager of New Moonlight, believes that the customization of COB is a lamp product that meets the needs of special lighting or illumination environments. The COB light source is produced to meet the needs of COB's material specifications, dimensions, packaging process, photoelectric color and other parameters. The standardization of COB is one of the important witnesses of the increasingly standardized, large-scale and branding development of the LED lighting industry.

Yin Hui, deputy general manager of Shengpu Optoelectronics, said that the customization of COB is the advantage of COB. If standardization is formed, it will definitely follow the old path of SMT, that is, price reduction. If we talk about the standardization of COB, then the products of international COB giants will be the standardization of industry COB, but it will not cover all, and there is room for survival.