Dow Corning has established a new silicone production unit exclusively for Light - Emitting Diodes (LEDs) in Jincheon, Korea to support the booming global LED market and meet the needs of customers in Asia.
The Jincheon site will manufacture silicone intermediate materials and encapsulants which are essential elements in the LED packaging applications (PDF size = 1 MB). Dow Corning silicone solutions help protect LEDs from environmental elements such as humidity and moisture and provide excellent stress relief and UV resistance providing long-term reliability. Silicone encapsulants are used for protecting and sealing LED semiconductor chips thereby increasing light output and minimizing heat build-up.
According to a research by iSuppli Corp., the global LED market is expected to show 2.9% revenue growth this year even in the economic downturn. The research projected that LCD-TV market alone is expected to consume $163 million worth of LEDs in 2009, up 221.9% from $51 million in 2008. By 2012, LCD-TV LED revenue will grow to $1.4 billion, a nearly 9x expansion from 2009.
Dow Corning's range of gels, resins and elastomers are used in automotive, backlighting in Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) in mobile phones, television, computer monitor screens, traffic and signal lighting, and general lighting applications. Silicone encapsulants have a longer life than organic encapsulants, reducing replacement and maintenance costs and solid waste.
"Silicones are used in a wide variety of electronic devices because of durable dielectric insulation and their ability to provide useful properties such as clarity, stability stress relief and heat dissipation. Dow Corning has successfully designed silicone solutions to meet the challenging needs of the local and global LED market," said Jeroen Blomhard, global executive director, Dow Corning Electronics Business. " This investment in the new production line will help us to support the robust growth of the LED market, and to work with our customers to lower the cost of ownership by encourage widespread adoption of LEDs as "green" products due to their low energy consumption."