Based on the material shortages, Everlight Electronics Inc., Epistar Corp. and Formosa Epitaxy Inc. suggest that LED supply will not satisfy with the demand till the end of this year

Due to server deficiency of materials, such as sapphire substrates, although Formosa Epitaxy has speed up installing new MOCVD  equipment to adapt to the increasing downstream demand for LED, it still can't satisfy all its customers, according to Formosa Epitaxy's president F.R. Chien.

Epistar's president M.C. Chou suggested that shortages of sapphire substrates and special gas have even forced some insiders to temporarily leave their MOCVD equipment alone, but to secure stability of material supplies.In his opinion, the shortages are expected to last till the second half of this year, and are very likely to make global shipment of LED-backlit LCD TVs fail to reach 30 million units in the year. The penetration rate of new LCD TVs is 12.5% in the U.S. and 11% in China.

Robert Yeh, chairman of Everlight also predicts the global LED shortages to last till the end of this year.