Bloom of worldwide lightweight and ultra-thin laptops market is boosting use of LED backlights in netbook PCs and CULV-based notebook PCs, from which Taiwanese LED industry is benefiting significantly, according to industry sources.

After Taiwan’s major PC maker Acer, HP and Dell have followed suit to launch ultra-thin, CULV-based notebook PCs, which will help boost popularity of LED backlights, noted institutional investors. Presently, LED backlight modules have been adopted in over 95% of netbook PCs for better power efficiency than traditional CCFL modules.

Epistar Corp., a Taiwan-based leading epitaxial wafer supplier, has got its production lines fully occupied by shipping its high-brightness LED chips to Japan’s Toyota Gosei on an ODM (original design manufacturing) basis. And the firm’s 2000mcd blue green LED chips which are for shipping in the second half of the year also have strong potential to gain market acceptance among global notebook PC brand manufacturers.

Taiwan Nano Electro-Optical Technology Co Ltd, a LED backlight module supplier affiliated with leading display panel supplier AU Optronics Corp, managed to ship over 1 million units of LED backlight modules in March alone, owing to growing demand of CULV-based notebook PCs. The firm expects its shipments this year to reach 13 million -14 million units.

Other LED suppliers in Taiwan, like Formosa Epitaxy Inc., Radiant Optoelectronics Corp., Lite-On Technology Corp. and Everlight Electronics Co., have also got ready to cash in on the sales booms brought by emergence of lightweight laptops.

The market survey institute DisplaySearch estimates the worldwide penetration rate of LED-backlit notebook PCs to surge to 50% at the end of this year from 20% in the first quarter, due mainly to CULV-based models to fuel the growth in the second half.