Taiwan IC Designers Venture into New LED Applications

The growing use of LEDs in all kinds of applications has prompted Taiwan IC design houses to extend their presence into this segment. Most of the deployments by these companies, however, are still in a start-up stage as LED development involves complicated patent issues and the design houses prefer to maintain a low-profile before landing any orders from well-known companies.

Most Taiwan IC design houses that have started deployment in the LED driver IC segment are focusing on outdoor billboard applications. Of which, Macroblock and Silicon Touch Technology have already established a good market share in China, Korea and North America, as evident in the sales trends of the companies in recent years, industry players commented.

As LED-powered billboards are starting to replace traditional billboards and as more LED-powered billboards are installed in the runup to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, both Macroblock and Silicon Touch have guided that their first-quarter sales in 2008 will be a record high.

Besides Macroblock and Silicon Touch, Taiwan IC design houses that have entered in the LED driver IC segment can be classified into three main groups – companies related to United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), LCD driver IC design houses and analog IC design houses.

Integrated Technology Express (ITE) and Novatek Microelectronics, the two IC design houses that have close ties with UMC, have both indicated that they would introduce LED driver ICs in 2008.

Existing LCD driver IC design houses, including Himax Technologies, Novatek Microelectronics and Orise Technology, have also started their respective deployments into the field, the industry players detailed.

Advanced Analog Technology (AAT), Analog Integration Corporation (AIC), Global Media Technology (GMT), Leadtrend Technology and Richtek Technology are some of the analog IC design houses that have already deployed into the LED driver IC segment, with most of them focusing on LED backlight applications for handsets, notebooks and streetlights. The industry players remarked that the analog IC makers may have to spend a longer amount of time in deploying in terms of technology and cost in applications besides handsets.