Advanced Optical Silicone Boosts LED Lighting

According to the report of McKinsey Consulting, China accounted for 45% of the lighting market in Asia last year, while 12% of the Chinese lighting market came from LED lighting. According to the forecast of McKinsey & Company, the average annual growth rate of the LED general lighting market in China will reach 43% between now and 2016. Dow Corning, the world's leading silicone and silicon technology and innovation company, expects that the application of more advanced materials technologies will be a major factor in promoting this growth. Traditional LED materials have contributed to the growth of the low-power lighting market, while high-performance products such as silicone materials have helped solid-state lighting products cope with the increasingly stringent requirements of China's rapidly growing general lighting market.

“China's rapidly growing general lighting market is increasingly demanding for LED products such as chip-on-board package structures, which has extended the practical performance of traditional glass, epoxy and plastic packaging materials to the limit,” said Dow Corning Electronics Industry Solutions, worldwide According to Eric Peeters, vice president, “In this situation, Dow Corning found that Asian and global customers are showing increasing interest in high-performance optical silicone materials with advanced performance and processing flexibility.”

There are currently four major industry trends that have prompted the industry's growing interest in silicone materials, including:

Constantly pursuing higher performance—Although LEDs are already the most energy-efficient product of all light sources, Chinese designers are still pursuing higher energy efficiency products. Compared with the traditional materials, silicone has advanced optical properties and excellent molding properties, with special transparency, and thus can obtain more light output from the unit power, thus opening up the primary and secondary light sources. New design space.

Continuously improve the high temperature performance of LED - As China's LED designers are striving to increase the driving current of the lamps and reduce the overall size of the lamps, the working temperature of the new LED lamps has approached or even exceeded 150 °C. Such high temperatures can cause yellowing and physical degradation of traditional epoxy resins and plastics during long-term use. However, silicones still exhibit reliable optical and physical properties at temperatures approaching or exceeding 200°C, which ensures that the new generation of LED light sources meets or exceeds the highest requirements for lumen maintenance in today's lighting applications.

Constantly exploring more design spaces - traditional glass, polycarbonate and acrylic products are suitable for low-power LED products. At the same time, the Chinese market also needs new types of LED lighting fixtures that are difficult to process with traditional materials. Silicone materials have unique mechanical properties and open up a vast design space for secondary light sources, lamps, light guides, white reflectors, and remote fluorescent components. In addition, the excellent molding properties of silicone materials enable LED products to be made into highly complex shapes, small sizes, small slots, and thin-walled optical components. These requirements, whether organic polymers or glass, are difficult to achieve.

Continually cut costs - As China's LED manufacturers continue to seek higher luminous flux products at unit prices, many manufacturers are beginning to explore how to use optical silicones to help improve their products and process performance to minimize the total cost of ownership. Silicones are easier to mold than glass or plastic, so LEDs can combine both mechanical and optical properties to simplify the assembly process. In addition, the processing temperature of the silicone is lower, so energy consumption in the LED production process can be saved. Finally, silicone also has excellent thermal and optical stability, as well as excellent UV, chemical and impact resistance, ensuring that the LED light source has a more stable, reliable, high quality light output throughout the lamp life cycle. the amount.

"These emerging market demands will not hinder the development of China's new generation of LED lighting products, but the success of such a highly segmented and competitively motivated market in China requires the close cooperation of designers, manufacturers and material developers. ,” Peeters said, “The reason why Dow Corning has a leading position in its global peers is that it has been working with customers for years of collaborative innovation, striving to develop solutions for customers and helping them meet the most demanding market requirements, and thus compete. In victory."