After entering this year, various companies have begun to adjust their strategic layout, and have moved to the high-end market and LED market segments. Among them, with the rapid growth of commercial lighting and industrial lighting demand, the demand for COB products with excellent light efficiency performance has also grown rapidly, and has become a favorite in the LED industry.

According to data from the Advanced Industry Research Institute of LED Research (GGII), by 2019, COB will account for about 15% of the output value of LED lighting packages, and has a large market in the field of commercial lighting. After nearly 6 years of development, COB has become more prominent in its own advantages.

Of course, the greater the market space, the greater the competition and the threat of price wars similar to SMD devices. So, will COB be far from the price war? Let's take a look at what COB manufacturers say.

Material prices are rising, COB prices are difficult to drop
I believe everyone has also noticed that most packaging companies have flocked in the past two years, coupled with the continuous decline in patch prices, resulting in a rapid decline in COB prices. However, these are the laws of market development.

Dr. Shao Pengrui, Technical Director of Jingtai, believes that since 2016, the entire LED market has been developing in a good direction. With the rapid growth of the penetration rate of the LED lighting market, the development of the COB market will gradually become more rational.

In fact, it is not just COB, but there is not much room for price reduction of all kinds of LED devices, or they are all sold at a meager profit, and even some companies are selling at a loss. "Currently, the COB price in the packaging market has bottomed out. As major raw material manufacturers gradually adjust their prices upward, the downward trend in COB prices has slowed in the third quarter."

In fact, since 2010, COB has gradually become a new demand point in the market. Up to now, its price has been dropping for six consecutive years, from a few yuan per watt to the current few cents per watt.

Introduced, in commonly used COB light source products, the order of the price proportion of each part is chip, gold wire, glue and bracket. Among them, the chip accounts for more than 50% of the light source cost, and some may even approach 70%. Therefore, the rapid decline in COB prices depends largely on the decline in chip prices.

After these two years of price fighting, the COB market this year has gradually become more rational, and the prices of chips, phosphors, glue and other auxiliary materials have reached a relatively historical low. Next, the room for COB price reduction is very limited.

Indeed, this year's market reversed, the LED industry "price increases" one after another, the prices of chips, packages, displays, raw materials, etc. have risen over and over.

In this regard, Hong said, “Because the upstream raw material prices have not much room for decline, the COB price will not see major changes in a short time.”

The competition among manufacturers is fierce, and market segments become the focus of efforts
The market has always been very cruel. The price war that constantly refreshes the bottom line has caused many packaging factories to withdraw. As packaging raw materials are facing the trend of rising prices, the trend of COB price decline will also slow down.

According to reports, "Due to fierce market competition, the next package manufacturers will focus on market segments to maintain product gross profit margin."

Judging from the current market situation, COB prices will continue to fall in the next few years, but the next COB price reduction space is very limited. It seems that "COB profits are getting meager, which will force companies to upgrade process technology, generate performance premiums, or form a new value system. Flip-chip COB with smaller light sources and higher luminous efficiency will become the next market trend."

However, in the mass production of flip-chip COB, most manufacturers take a wait-and-see attitude. The analysis is mainly because the current supply link of flip chip COB is immature, and domestic companies mostly do samples, with a high defect rate and temporarily unable to mass production. At the same time, the size is not uniform, processing needs, and customer needs are different, which also makes it more difficult for market mass production.

As we all know, COB has a natural advantage, that is, good light quality. It has a greater advantage in the control of light color quality in optical design effects. However, the industry often ignores this advantage and is limited to the indicators of light efficiency and energy saving.

Wang Gaoyang said frankly, "The current COB light source technology is becoming more and more mature, and the market has a stronger demand for COB light sources. Packaging manufacturers no longer stay at the initial technical solution stage, and turn to the pursuit of high-quality, high-efficiency COB cost-effective stage. Flip-chip non-gold wire packaging technology with high performance and high quality has also become a new direction for COB light sources."

COB technology is mature and applied in multiple fields
After LED enters the lighting field, general-purpose products such as bulb lamps, flat lamps, and tube lamps have reached a stage of relatively mature technology, but COB is still in the stage of increasing the proportion of applications, and its market growth will increase in the next two years. There is a significant increase.

It seems that "COB is obviously different from small and medium power. LED will move towards standardization, while COB will move towards a customized and personalized market. The overall market usage will gradually increase. Of course, this is also the downstream enterprises' Real needs."

The performance is improving every year, every quarter, and every month, while the price is constantly falling. This is a common law in the semiconductor industry.

"As a COB manufacturer, in addition to the advantages of ensuring product performance through innovation and technological improvement, including expansion of scale, it is also necessary to define a more accurate quality fit to meet the more grounded market price requirements." Mentioned, in terms of demand , From the past commercial lighting, gradually developed to outdoor lighting, car lighting and special function application markets.

At present, COB products are growing steadily in the application market of downlights, spotlights, ceiling lights, and outdoor lighting, especially downlights and outdoor lighting.

According to relevant data, the share of shipments of high-end commercial lighting such as downlights is more than 35%, and the share of COB shipments for outdoor lighting (street lights, industrial and mining lights, floodlights, etc.) is about 25%. However, because of the different application characteristics of ceiling lamps, COB does not have enough cost-effective advantages compared to SMD in use.

"Compared with high-power LEDs, COB LEDs have product design advantages and high luminous efficiency advantages, which can enhance the competitive advantage of the high-end lighting market. So said.

"In short, stable quality, down-to-earth prices, fast service response, and the ability to cope with the impact of new technologies, new markets, and new competitive situations with customers are the key elements to meet demand.