Page 177 - How China Is Winning the Tech Race

As recently as 2002, China imported all its high-performance chips for
LEDs, and the emerging domestic industry supplied only 5 percent of demand
in 2003. 23 But China has big am-
bitions, points out Robert Steele,
director, LED practice at the market
research firm Strategies Unlimited “China expects to be the largest market for
in Silicon Valley. “China expects to LEDs and solid-state lighting in the world.”
be the largest market for LEDs and
Robert Steele,
solid-state lighting in the world,”
director, LED practice,
he says.
Strategies Unlimited
Currently, Taiwan supplies
about 50 percent of the global LED
market, followed by Japan and
South Korea, with China at about 5 percent. 24 Most packaging for LEDs is
done in China —grunt work compared with the high-tech artistry of making
25
bright white LED lights, in which China is outpaced by the United States,
Japan, and Europe. “Chinese companies have failed to make an impression
with high-performance chips,” says Tim Whittaker, editor of LEDs magazine.
Taiwan, the world’s largest semiconductor producer and home to the two
top foundries globally, has a natural base for making LEDs. China does not
26
have that history of making high-volume and low-cost semiconductors, says
analyst Steele. “But they’re smart people. They’ll figure it out in maybe three
to five years.”
They already are figuring it out. Today, the skyline in Xiamen on the east
coast of China, right across the Taiwan Strait, is ablaze in a dazzling rainbow
of lights powered by domestically produced LEDs. A landmark bridge in
China’s third largest city, Tianjin, is lit with bright LEDs that change colors in
sync with shooting fountains of water above steel arches. Both sights sym-
bolize China’s fast embrace of tomorrow’s technologies, whether wireless
communications, software, or lighting.
LatticePower is setting a new paradigm for China’s status as an
inventor—not a manufacturer or nimble replicator—as the twenty-first
century unfolds. Now as China awakens, expect to see more Chinese tech-
nology breaking barriers, shifting the balance of power, and changing the
world as we know it.

LatticePower Corporation—China Lights Up the Globe 151