Market trends

The global LED driver IC market saw old manufacturers expanding, and new manufacturers dividing market share in 2013. Due to strong demands for LED bulbs and LED tubes, many manufacturers are competing in AC to DC and DC to DC sectors of the LED IC driver market. Many new and old products have been released on the market.

In the international market, Texas Instruments (TI) LED driver IC has the highest visibility. European and U.S. companies including NXP, Marvell and others have also launched LED driver IC. Asian IC design companies’ optimistic outlook of future developments has led to their active entry into the LED market in 2013. IC design companies including Macroblock, Richtek Technology Corp., On-Bright Electronics Co., Silergy Corp., and Champion Microelectronic Corp. all have plans of entering this market.

Chinese analog IC manufacturer Silergy Corp. has already received LED lighting driver IC orders from Philips, NVC Lighting Technology and Everlight. Champion Microelectronic Corp. launched LED lighting driver IC in 2013 especially targeting the industrial and commercial lighting sectors. The company has also applied for certification from large Japanese and U.S. manufacturers. While Macroblock is focused on keeping its leadership in the high definition digital display market, and launching related LED driver IC products in the LED lighting market. In addition, Dashingtek Inc. LED lighting driver IC products are also entering Chinese and Indian markets, and has developed dimmable driver ICs to meet market demands. The product allows users to directly dim LED lights in smartphones and tablets. 

Technology Trends

Choosing LED driver IC solutions is very important. In 2013, the market was focused on the following trends:

1. LED driver IC’s have the advantages of high current output, which can successfully lower Electromagnetic Interference (EMI). 
2. New generation of LED driver IC designs all use constant power. Common isolated and non-isolated type LED driver applications from the past will have different supporters.
3. New low power (0.5W-3W) LED designs that integrates LED driver IC into CMC package also caught market attention in 2013. There is also a trend of highly integrated multi-chip package, and with AC driver LED components, these technologies have allowed LED lighting costs and stability to deliver completely different results than from the past. 

One of the reasons behind LED lighting products lowered costs and stabilization has been LED driver IC results in 2013.

(Author: Ivan Lin, Editor-in-Chief, LEDinsidehttp:// Translator: Judy Lin, Editor, LEDinside)