It’s reported that Tekcore Co. wants to become one of Taiwan’s top three manufacturers of LED epitaxy wafers and chips by 2010.
Tekcore Co., Founded in 2000, is already the island’s No.1 supplier of green chips, its green LEDs have captured 70 percent of Taiwan’s domestic market. Its green chips provide more than half of the company’s revenues. Tekcore president Jonathan Lu noted "We got our operation off the ground with blue chips, but we soon shifted our focus to green chip because cases of success in that field were quite few thanks to the more sophisticated technology that it requires. We’ve introduced bright and reliable green chips."
Lu stresses that staying ahead of the pack in the LED sector depends on technology-the technology needed to assure that products have both reliable quality and adequate brightness. An indication of his company’s technological prowess is the 50 or so patents that it has won. Tekcore has built up a solid technological foundation through alliances with the National Central University and the government-backed Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). Optoelectronics specialists from National Central University’s Department of Optics and Photonics have been invited to help Tekcore fix technological problem. C.C. Sun of that department is one of the company’s independent directors. ITRI has worked with the company on blue laser LED technology and indium tin oxide (ITO) technology, an effort which has helped to improve the brightness of high-power chips. Tekcore’s high-power blue chip now delivers 1,900 millicandela (mcd) of luminous intensity after being packaged.
"Along with Epistar, we’re one of the two LED chipmakers in Taiwan to produce blue chips of this intensity." Lu claims Epistar is recognized as the No.1 LED chipmaker on the island. Lu notes that Tekcore is Epistar’s equal in completeness of product range and gives his product lineup: AlGaInP four-element chips, red chips, yellow chips, GaN-based green and blue chips, ultraviolet chips, flip chips, and power chips. "Our production of four-element chips is still small," Lu concedes, "but we plan to boost it in the fourth quarter."
The company’s product reliability is proven by its blue chip’s excellent resistance to static electricity. At the company’s factory campus, a field test has kept an LED street light with white LED lamps built around the company’s blue chips has been kept burning around the clock in the open air for seven consecutive months; and, Lu indicated that so far none of the lamps has died, even though they went through some days with lightning. Its technological advantage and complete product lineup helped the company begin marketing its products the year following its establishment and to turn profitable in just three years.
Now, the company’s three factories turn out 300 million chips of various types a month, cut and uncut combined. Most of the products go to manufacturers of outdoor billboards, traffic lights, and LCD displays in Taiwan, mainland China, South Korea, and Japan. "Chips for lighting purposes account for only 10% of our sales right now," Lu says, "but there is huge potential for them to grow. We’re working to improve the luminosity of our power chips, hoping that they can achieve 20,000 mcd after being packaged."
The Tekcore president is optimistic about the LED lighting market, which he explains is more open than the other LED markets. Improving brightness and falling prices of diodes have reinforced Lu’s confidence in the potential for LED market growth over next 10 years. "Technology has advanced so that our products are close to the level of day-to-day applications," Lu comments. "The brightness is steadily increasing, and things could become perfect if only prices continue declining and thermal dissipation continues improving."
Lu thinks the prices of lighting LEDs will plummet when chipmakers cut costs by boosting the scale of production. "The market always has the final say on price," he notes. "The lighting-application market is not quite big enough yet; but once it grows to a critical size, we will expand our production scale." Lu may not be sure about when that will happen, but he is pretty certain about how to sharpen his company’s competitiveness. "Our advantage is that we have new products at each stage of development--for example, a high-static-resistance blue chip and a reliable green chip," he says. "In the next stage we will focus on display-screen backlight chips, and further improve static resistance and brightness."
Lu stresses that to keep competitive, chipmakers must constantly update their epitaxy-wafer-making equipment and recruit trained specialists to maintain it at optimal status. The company has boosted its defect-free ratio to over 80% and has organized a strong R&D team composed of professionals with degrees in materials science, optoelectronics, electrical engineering, physics, and chemical engineering from National Central University, National Tsing Hua University, National Chiao Tung University, and National Cheng Kung University.
Advanced technology, good planning, modern equipment, and skilled workers are not enough to ensure success; there is one more factor that is at least equally important. "Esprit de corps," Lu explains, "is the last but not least-important element. Our accomplishments could never have been made if we had not been so willing to work closely together."
Lu is confident of achieving his company’s annual sales growth target of 30%, and his goal of seeing Teckore among the top three Taiwanese manufacturers of LED chips and epitaxy wafers by 2010.
