Lextar Electronics is moving lighting and backlighting production lines from plants in Taiwan and eastern China to a new factory in central China, with the reallocation to be finished by early fourth-quarter 2018, according to company chairman and CEO David Su.
It is reshuffling its production lines to hike efficiency in overall production management, Su said. The factory in Taiwan will focus on producing LED and mini LED epitaxial wafers and chips, and on packaging for new applications such as automotive displays, 3D facial recognition and mini LEDs, Su said.
Lextar was developing mini LED backlighting in first-half 2018 and began shipments of 32-inch mini LED backlighting devices for gaming LCD monitors and high-end graphics displays in July, Su noted.
Lextar will soon begin shipments for a 15.6-inch mini LED backlighting application for high-end notebooks, and automotive displays, Su said. The challenge of developing mini LED backlighting devices lies is how to put the smallest volume of chips on an area while maintaining uniform light output across the area, Su explained.
In view of diminishing gross margins for LED lighting products, Lextar has been strategically decreasing lamp shipments by stopping development of new models and production since fourth-quarter 2017, Su said. LED lamp shipments have been declining and will end in fourth-quarter 2018, Su said, adding Lextar will only supply niche-market LED lighting products for special purposes.
Of the consolidated revenues for first-half 2018, over 60% came from backlighting and over 20% from lighting, Su said, adding as the revenue proportion for lighting is decreasing, backlighting's is expected to rise to 70-80% in 2019.
Lextar will showcase mini LED backlighting devices, mini RGB LED packages for fine pixel pitch displays and UFP (ultra-fine pitch) I-Mini (integrated Mini) RGB display modules with a minimum pitch of 0.3mm at Touch Taiwan 2018 in Taipei during August 29-31.
Lextar's mini LED backlighting device
Photo: Company
Article translated by Adam Hwang
