Lighting manufacturers in Taiwan are able to offer ever more complicated light-emitting diode (LED) products, reflecting the impressive technological progress they have made over the years.

When the suppliers began introducing their products 10-odd years ago, they focused mainly on low-end applications because of a lack of high-performance technology. Today, however, many of them have developed their own niche technologies.

Over the past two years or so, Taiwanese manufacturers have begun using high-power diodes that consume at least one watt of power in their products, indicating a move toward higher-margin high-end applications.


The LED Advantage


For example, Laster Tech Co., founded in 1999, will launch a high-profile promotion of its high-power automotive lamps this year, following four years of development. It introduced the new products for 16 car models, including the Ford Escape, Toyota Altis, and certain Mercedes-Benz and BMW models, at the end of last year.

The move upmarket is being made, explains Jeff Chuang, director of the company's automotive lighting division, because "Prices of low-power products are terribly low as a result of overcapacity for handsets."


Chuang reports that his division has overcome a number of technical problems, such as heat dissipation, that have long troubled suppliers. As a result of its development efforts, the company has won 10 patents, mostly for circuit and mechanical-structure design of the lamp modules, and on styling, as well as safety approval from the United States Department of Transportation and Society of Automotive Engineering (ASE).

The new products are expected to help boost Laster Tech's revenues above last year's estimated NT$1 billion (US$31 million at NT$32:US$1).

"Our LED automotive lamps give us a huge advantage over common automotive-lamp manufacturers, " Chuang says. "We started out with LED sales and the development of product applications. These lamps are totally different from traditional lighting sources, and they require specialists who are knowledgeable about LED technology. Common automotive-lamp suppliers may not have that knowledge."

Chuang himself has been working as an LED engineer for about 10 years, and 20% of the company's 250 employees are LED experts who have at least a bachelor's degree and specialize in optical, mechanical, electrical, or firmware sciences.

The company has many competitive advantages besides technology. It is said to be the exclusive sales agent for diodes made by Lumiled, the world's largest supplier of high-power LEDs, in Taiwan and mainland China. "Lumiled is in talks with leading carmakers worldwide about the supply of LED lamps, " Chuang reports. "If the deals go through, we're likely to be Lumiled's contract supplier." Before securing such orders, the company's lamps will remain available only in after market for rebuilt cars, with brand name "CharDIN". The brand name means automotive lamps in Taiwanese pronunciation.

Laster Tech has a 30-person R&D team as well as equipment including beam analyzers from Optronik of Germany, welding systems for mounting LEDs on printed circuit boards from IVAS Tech, and automated production lines for automotive lamp modules. It utilizes production software from CAD Tooling, TracePro, SolidWorks, ProE, and VISI.

The company saves on production costs by designing products at its Taiwan headquarters and manufacturing them in mainland China, where it operates several module-packaging and lamp-assembly facilities.

In the middle of this year the firm will begin making LED backlight modules for liquid-crystal display (LCD) panels, another move in its strategy of shifting from mature to developing markets. "Embryonic but rapidly developing markets are our major targets, " Chuang notes. "These markets include automotive-lamp applications and LCD-panel backlight applications."

Sales of backlight modules for mobile phones helped boost the company's revenue by 300% last year. That growth, Chuang explains, "came as a result of strong demand for mobile phones and our use of patented diodes, which freed us from patent lawsuits." Osram is the main source of the firm's diodes used for this purpose. (Later is also the sole agent for Osram diodes in Taiwan and the mainland.)

As part of its expansion, Laster Tech plans to open offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Seoul this year after setting up an office in Shanghai in 2001. It will also set up offices in Los Angeles and Dallas in the U.S.


Musical Colors

Total Charm Enterprise Co. spent eight years developing a unique LED music lighting system, which it introduced in May 2004. The system features a patented control box that automatically changes the color of lights according to the tempo of the music. "When the melody is romantic, " says the company's president, Lai Win-cheng, "tender lights come on. When a rock 'n' roll song is detected, passionate lights pop on."

What makes this control box unique is its sensor software, which can mix red, blue, and green diodes to create 1, 774 different colors according to the music. One of the colors is gold, which, the president claims, no other company can produce. The systems measure 30 cubic centimeters in size so that up to 24 of them can be combined into a large music light wall for entertainment venues such as disco pubs and bars.

Total Charm was founded 30 years ago to turn out decorative lighting systems using tungsten bulbs. However, Lai reports, "We felt, many years ago, that we had to transform ourselves if we wanted to lead the industry or even just survive. We chose LED lighting because the diodes have a wider range of color variations than tungsten lamps. In addition, the changing colors of LED lights can be easily handled via digital methods, which isn't possible with tungsten lamps."

A special patented internal structural design allows the company's LED music lighting system to project the same or different lights simultaneously to the six faces of the translucent epoxy resin cube in which it is located.

Lai says that he has enough orders for the system, which bears the "DATMOS" brand and has CE and UL certification, to keep production running until November this year.

The company also plans to work on LED lighting for outdoor applications which, Lai says, "requires higher technology than indoor lighting, and thus commands higher profits."


Amplified Illumination


Another leader in the line, Innovative & Superior Technology Inc., recently impressed the lighting industry with a patented LED desk lamp, which won a design award in an LED-lighting competition organized by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).

First Chen, the company's president, says that the lamp has a patented design which can amplify the illumination of its LED lamps to at least 500 luxes at a distance of 50 centimeters, regardless of the power level of the lamp. In addition, the president claims, "No other LED lamp can match ours in terms of the even distribution of light on the surface of lighted objects."

Chen, a mechanical-engineering graduate of the National Cheng Kung University, and his engineers spent about four years developing the new LED lighting technology before they were ready to introduce it last year.

Originally the design unit focusing on electronics products under a design company that Chen set up in 1992, Innovative & Superior Technology was spun off about four years ago and has since focused on LED lighting because, the president stresses, "LED lamps will become a mainstream lighting source because of the emergence of environmental protection as a global issue."

Citing a study by the Photonics Industry & Technology Development Association (PIDA), a government-backed market research organization, Chen says that the global market for high-bright white-light LED applications will expand to NT$130 billion (US$4.06 billion) in 2007, up from a projected NT$100 billion (US$3.1 billion) this year.

The president says that his company participated in the MOEA's lighting-design competition in order to gain exposure for its patented technology.

The desk lamps, which employ licensed diodes so as to avoid patent problems, will first be exported to Europe because the European Union imposes additional tax on imported lamps with parts that contain poisonous mercury. "LED lamps don't contain that kind of poison, " Chen explains, "so that gives them an advantage not only in environment-friendliness but also in competitive pricing."

According to a survey carried out by Chen's company, desk lamp prices average NT$3, 200 (US$100) in Europe and NT$1, 000 to NT$3, 000 (US$32 to US$94) in Taiwan. "Our LED lamps will definitely carry prices that are lower than the European average, " Chen says, "because they will very likely be free from the poisonous mercury taxes."