when comparing silicon wafers with current LED manufacturing costs

Production of LED chips is typically done on two to four-inch wafers with an expensive sapphire substrate but Toshiba and Bridgelux have developed a process for manufacturing gallium nitride LEDs on 200mm silicon wafers, which Toshiba has brought to its new production line at Kaga Toshiba Electronics Corporation, a discrete products factory in northern Japan.The low power consumption and long life of white LED lighting is winning wide adoption in general purpose lighting, TV backlighting and other areas of application. In the 2011 financial year, the global market stood at led high bay light and it is expected to almost double to 1,250 billion yen (£9.3 billion) in 2016 financial year. Going forward, Toshiba will promote product development and global sales toward securing a 10 per cent share of the world market in 2016.Last year, Bridgelux said it had successfully used silicon wafers to make commercial-grade LED components for the first time and that it had produced GaN-on-Si LEDs in the lab with an efficacy of 150 lm/W. It claims there is a potential 75 per cent improvement in cost when comparing silicon wafers with current LED manufacturing costs.
Toshiba expects to begin production this month of its first white LED silicon wafer product, the TL1F1 1W LED, which it says will deliver 112 lm at 350-mA drive current. The company plans to produce 10 million units per month.The company will start sales of white LED packages to offer general and industrial OEMs what it claims will be a cost-competitive alternative to current LED solutions.A glut of manufacturing capacity and near-collapse in rare earth metal prices is driving down the cost and hence encouraging the rapid take-up of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting.LED lights are based on semiconductors and therefore do not require traditional lamp manufacturing expertise. This has opened opportunities for LED chipmakers to challenge the incumbent incandescent light bulb manufacturers such as Philips,led flood light and General Electric (GE), who have enjoyed a near-monopoly of the market according to an FT article.

The Financial Times believes LED technology is reaching a tipping point, particularly for the commercial sector, as price declines bring forward the payback time on the initial cost of investment. According to McKinsey, quoted in the article, LEDs are set to account for 41 percent of the overall value of the lighting market in 2016 and 63 percent by 2020, versus 12 percent last year.Lighting is one of those facets of modern life that we rather take for granted, but it is a huge consumer of electricity and LED lights consume a fraction compared to traditional incandescent lights or even fluorescent lights, which are themselves capable of up to 75% savings in power over incandescent.Lighting accounts for 19 percent of global electricity consumption, so changes that slash the energy consumption of the sector could have a significant impact on electricity demand.