Research Report of Electronic MiniLED industry in 2022

Demand side: hardware entrepreneurship is the main driving point, and Mini LED hits the market

Mini LED refers to the size of 50-200 micron LED chips, Mini LED can be used for backlighting and direct display fields. Mini LED backlight is an upgraded version based on traditional LED backlight, which is also the best substitute for Micro LED in the development process. Compared with traditional LED backlight, Mini LED backlight uses smaller LED chip particles, finer display effect and higher brightness. At the same time, it is more energy-efficient than OLED, and supports accurate dimming, avoiding the problem of uneven backlight of ordinary LED. Compared with Micro LED, Mini LED has higher yield and lower cost, which has obvious advantages in mass production.

In 2021, Mini LED will usher in the first year of large-scale commercialization. Global panel and electronic product terminal giants have launched Mini LED backlighting products. According to Arizton, the global Mini LED market will grow from $150 million in 2021 to $2.32 billion in 2024, with a CARG of 149.2% in 2021-2024. The domestic Mini LED market will grow from 1.6 billion yuan in 2019 to 40 billion yuan in 2026, with CARG of 58.4% in 2019-2026.

Compared with traditional display, Mini LED display effect is more delicate and higher brightness. The technical indicators of Mini LED backlight display are mainly divided into height, contrast, gamut, Optimal Distance value, etc. In terms of brightness, scattered Mini LED can achieve high brightness (> 1000nit); In contrast, Mini LED can achieve ultra-high contrast (100000:1) through fine Local Dimming; In terms of partition, the traditional straight down backlight is dominated by 100 level partition, while the Mini LED backlight is dominated by 1000 level partition. In terms of OD value, the OD value of ordinary TV is about 20~30mm, while the Mini LED TV can achieve 0 OD.

From the progress of product launch on the market, major manufacturers at home and abroad continue to launch new Mini LED backlight products, and the promoters cover machine manufacturers and LCD display manufacturers. Mini LED backlight has become a consensus of innovation and development in the display industry. In the LCD display segment, BOE adopts glass-based AM drive technology, releases 75-inch and 86-inch TV backlight products, 34-inch display backlight products, and P0.9 display products are the first in the world. TCL also recently released X11 series Lingyao QD-Mini LED wisdom screen TV equipped with Mini LED backlight display technology. Among them, the flagship TCL X11 65-inch version, 75-inch version and 85-inch version are priced at 13,999 yuan, 17,999 yuan and 27,999 yuan respectively. The flagship TCL X11 adopts Mini LED panel and QLED technology, supports 2304 quantum dot light control, and is equipped with 576 backlight driver chips, which improves the contrast and precision of picture quality in an all-round way. In addition, TCL QD-Mini LED's strategic goal is to penetrate more than 60% of TCL's large-size sales in the next three years. TCL continues to carry out strategic layout in high-end Mini LED TV, which is expected to drive the rapid development of Mini LED industry.

In the whole machine process, Apple, Huawei, Samsung, Lenovo, Hisense and other terminal manufacturers have increased their efforts to launch Mini LED display products, and their products are all over PC, Pad, TV, VR, automobile and other fields. Mini LED products have rapidly penetrated into the whole machine.

At present, Mini LED backlight has become the breakthrough of LCD industry, is an important technology upgrade track of traditional LCD display, and has become the next growth point of LED industry. At present, the Mini LED backlight market has officially started production. From the perspective of downstream application distribution, TV and pen TV market will greatly promote the expansion of Mini LED demand. Take Mini LED backlit TV as an example. According to LEDinside statistics, the overall TV shipments in 2021 will be 210 million, of which 2.1 million are Mini LED TVS, among which 1.5 million are Samsung TVS. Domestic Mini LED TV penetration has a huge space for improvement. Secondly, the automotive and VR markets also have sufficient power space.

2. Supply side: The industrial chain has the advantage of mass production, and the glass-based scheme has more imagination

Mini LED backlight industry chain is derived from the traditional LED backlight industry, is the upgrade of the traditional LED backlight industry. At present, relevant manufacturers of upstream chips, midstream packaging and downstream display in the industry chain have been laying out Mini LED. Mini LED is gradually maturing in terms of capacity, technology and products, and the mass production process of Mini LED continues to accelerate.

The penetration rate of Mini LED mainly depends on the balance between technology and cost, which plays a key role in the market expansion of Mini backlight. Mini backlight cost mainly depends on: substrate cost (the more partitions, the more dense wiring may be more layers), chip cost (the more partitions, the more LED chips and driver chips), manufacturing cost, yield and future maintenance cost. Among them, backlight substrate, manufacturing cost and LCD panel account for high cost proportion.

From the point of view of the chip end, the yield, consistency and cost control of the Mini backlight chip end have been basically mature, and there is still a large space for the cost to explore, and the packaging end is also expanding to more efficient, high yield and low cost technology. On the manufacturing side, as the Mini LED industry chain continues to mature, the scale effect brought by the substantial increase in shipments will effectively reduce manufacturing costs. From the Mini LED chip side, chip manufacturers are accelerating the expansion of production, capacity release effect will gradually appear in 2022. In mainland China, SAN 'an Optoelectronics, Hucan Optoelectronics, Zhaochi Shares, Aoyang Shunchang Optoelectronics, Jucan Optoelectronics, Ganchao optoelectronics and other companies increase investment in Mini LED field, and steadily promote the expansion plan related to Mini LED backlight; In Taiwan, manufacturers represented by Fusai have also implemented capex plans for Mini LED.

At present, chip manufacturers are gradually overcoming technical difficulties, chip efficiency and yield are rising together, and the production cost of upstream link is expected to continue to fall. The core space for cost reduction of Mini LED chip is not entirely material and process, but when the industry grows exponentially, it is easier to achieve the cost reduction goal by converging the product to a few general application schemes. In addition, the packaging side is also more efficient, high yield, low cost technology expansion. With the continuous growth of orders, packaging factories actively expand production, such as The Nanzhuang Geely Industrial Park project of Guoxingguang Electric, the Mini/Micro LED production base project of Ruifeng Photoelectric in Hubei, the Mini LED phase II park of Hongli Zhihui, etc. At present, packaging enterprises Mini LED capacity growth rate is maintained at a high level.

The cost of Mini LED backlight accounts for 20% of the whole machine, and 50% of the backlight board cost lies in PCB. From a global perspective, most PCB manufacturers have already laid out Mini LED PCB substrates, including domestic PCB enterprises such as Pengding Holdings, Oskon, Zhongjing Electronics, Shenghong Technology, etc., and Taiwan enterprises such as Xinxing, Taiding, Tongtai, Korea Yongfeng, etc. At present, the domestic PCB industry chain is relatively mature, with sufficient technology and production capacity preparation, providing a strong support for the rapid growth of Mini LED.

MniLED technology path can be distinguished according to different packaging substrate materials. At present, the technology path of Mini LED includes PCB scheme and glass scheme. Among them, PCB is a commonly used LED substrate, which has the advantages of mature technology and low cost, and is mainly promoted and used by LED industry chain manufacturers. Glass substrate is one of the key materials of LCD, glass based Mini LED panel factory promotion has a strong leading force. In terms of cost, PCB packaging mainly uses double-layer boards, which are mainly imported at present. In the future, with the domestication of high-end PCB materials, the system cost of PCB scheme is expected to decrease. However, the more partitions of the final product, the more PCB layers will be used, which also increases the overall cost. The glass substrate scheme mainly uses the photolithography technology to carve the line directly on the glass substrate, and its photolithography mask and other one-time investment costs are high, while the cost is low after large-scale application.

In terms of performance, PCB has low thermal conductivity and poor heat dissipation performance, and it is easy to warp and deform in large size. The glass base has higher thermal conductivity and heat dissipation capacity. In addition, glass substrate flatness is higher, compared with PCB in chip transfer technology is easier to break through. The disadvantage of glass base is that it is fragile and the yield is lower than PCB. In terms of application prospect, PCB-based scheme is the mainstream technology path of current domestic manufacturers and has been adopted by most LED manufacturers. The glass-based solution will gradually exert its own advantages and have full market potential due to its own cost and performance advantages. (Source: Think Tank for the Future)

3. Industrial chain tracking: prosperity continues to rise, and capital expenditure rises further

Taking the electronics industry in Taiwan as an observation point, Mini LED's prosperity continues to rise, and the expansion of capital expenditure highlights the industry's recognition of the development direction of Mini LED. From the perspective of companies involved in the industry chain, JINCo, the leading LED chip company in Taiwan, China, achieved revenue of NT $1.81 billion in February 2022, up 74.11% year on year, and decreased -12.81% month on month. The company is now building an annual production line of 300,000 4-inch Mini LED chips, and the 4-inch Mini LED backlight is expected to increase to 1.5 million chips from 1 million in 21 years. In addition, JMC invested NT $610 million to acquire a plant in Zhunan to prepare for mass production of Micro leds in two to three years.

China Taiwan yiguang in 2021 annual revenue of 25.028 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 15.86%, hit a new high in nearly 4 years since 2018, mainly from the company last year in infrared, optical couplers, invisible light, and Mini LED related packaging components/modules and other major products demand strong push. In terms of Mini LED, the company will expand the import of downstream applications in 2021, and the overall shipment scale is expected to maintain double-digit growth in 2022. In addition to the original TV and laptop screen panel backlight demand growth speed, car Mini LED related products are also expected to increase. In addition, the company is currently working with north American brand customers on the new Mini LED backlight.

The main business of Taiwan Surface Adhesive Technology Co., Ltd. includes purchasing and management of raw materials and accessories, engineering design process, SMT assembly process, quality assurance, logistics management and after-sales service. Mainly responsible for packaging business in Mini LED field. In 2021, TBT reported revenue of 65.72 billion yuan, up 58.72% year on year, and net profit after tax of 3.713 billion yuan (NT $), up 69.26% year on year, hitting a record high. In February, 22, the company's revenue reached 5.81 billion yuan, up 73.6% year on year. The accumulated revenue in the first two months reached 12.11 billion yuan, up 70.9% year on year, setting a new record for the same period in the past year, mainly benefiting from the lack of materials in the second half of last year, and the momentum continued to the beginning of this year. The company, which makes assembly lines for Apple's iPad and MacBook Pro models, shipped 8.5 million units in 2021 and expects to ship 15 million units by 2022. In 2021, Mini LED revenue accounted for about 25%, it is estimated that this year in the gradual easing of external adverse factors, and customers are expected to launch new products, capacity can reach full load, revenue is expected to increase to 30%. In terms of production capacity, TMPCO has 210 SMT production lines in 2011, and it is expected to increase by about 10 lines in 2015. The company will focus on developing more Mini LED customers. With the continuous increase of Mini LED demand and the growth of memory business, the company is expected to achieve rapid growth in performance.

Londa Electronics Co., LTD. (Londa Electronics) main business includes the production of LED, including epitaxial, grain, packaging, is the only LED industry in Taiwan region of China vertical integration of upstream, middle and downstream process to lighting product application one-stop production enterprises. Mainly responsible for chip production and packaging business in Mini LED field. In February 2022, Londa reported revenue of NT $374 million, down 16.66% year-on-year and 27.84% quarter-on-quarter. In the first two months of 2022, londa reported cumulative revenue of NT $893 million, down 11.37% year-on-year. At present, the company has started to deliver Mini LED to panel customers. After American brands launched Mini LED backlight related applications, non-Apple camps were guided to join the design. The 21Q4 production has been greatly expanded, and the new production capacity has been delivered to customers in 22Q1. The company's invisible LIGHT LED products will expand 3 times of production capacity in 21 years, accounting for about 30% of the revenue, and will expand another 50% capacity in 22 years.

Fucai Investment Holding Co., LTD. (FUcai) was established by two leading LED groups of Jingyuan Optoelectronics and Londa Electronics in Taiwan through stock exchange. Its main business covers epitaxy chips, chips, packaging and modules, and its product applications cover display, professional lighting, automotive, sensing, 5G communication, power and other applications. Mainly responsible for chip production in Mini LED field. In 2021, Fusai reported revenue of 36.425 billion YUAN (NT $), up 53.7% year on year, gross margin of 20.9%, up 18PCt year on year, and net profit of 1.898 billion yuan. Revenue growth was mainly due to the COVID-19 backlight demand, high order red light demand, and Mini LED in 2021