LED plant lighting requirements are higher
From the third quarter of 2021, the shortage of LED red light chips for plants will be crowded out by the market demand for automotive and infrared LEDs, especially in high-end chips.
At the same time, power driver ICs are still out of stock, shipping schedules are delayed, and North America’s crackdown on illegal indoor marijuana growers has also affected the shipment performance of end products, causing some LED plant lighting manufacturers to slow down their production plans and material stocking efforts.
The rapid development of horticultural lighting has cast a shadow. In the future, should we ride the wind and snow and break the ice, or stop in time and stop when we see it? In order to gain an in-depth understanding of the company's layout and strategy, LEDinside has conducted in-depth communication with first-tier companies on issues such as plant lighting's pain points, difficulties, and market development trends.
Traditional lighting VS plant lighting: higher requirements and higher threshold
LED plant lighting is very different from traditional lighting, mainly in terms of usage scenarios, performance, technology, etc., which also makes LED plant lighting have a high industry threshold.
As a comprehensive supplier of lighting and plant factory solutions, Zhongke Sanan believes that plant lighting products put forward higher requirements for system research and development capabilities, independent innovation capabilities, quality and cost control capabilities. Among them, the main difference between technology research and development and other lighting products lies in the design of light formula.
In terms of chips, Ganzhao Optoelectronics pointed out that plant lighting products mainly focus on photosynthetic photon efficacy PPE/photosynthetic photon flux PPF, while general lighting mainly focuses on LM and anti-blue light.
For different uses, customers have different requirements for chip performance. Huacan Optoelectronics pointed out that LED plant lighting requires chips with higher light efficiency and higher reliability. When pursuing a luminous efficiency of 230lm/w, it is necessary to use specially optimized substrates, flip-chips, special mirrors and other technologies; In pursuit of high requirements, extremely high requirements are placed on the selection of process and key raw materials.
On the packaging side, Hongli Zhihui pointed out that the biggest difficulty in entering the LED plant lighting market is that to develop and produce a set of high-yield and high-quality LED plant light sources or lamps, it is necessary to simultaneously solve the intelligent control of light environment, plant photobiology, the problem of the integration and development of the three semiconductor technologies.
Nationstar Optoelectronics said that the difference between plant lighting and traditional lighting is that plant lighting is more in line with the growth characteristics of plants. It needs to be considered from the perspective of bio-optics, not only to match the needs of different plants for PPE/PPFD, but also to combine the spectral formula is adjusted for the growth of plants in different stages. In this regard, Nationstar Optoelectronics is also at the forefront of the market, with a professional plant growth laboratory and a spectral database for simulating plant growth.
Ruifeng Optoelectronics believes that entering the horticultural lighting market not only requires technical reserves of light sources and modules, but also needs to understand the market and policy trends. In addition, for different regions, different plant species, different growth stages of the same plant, etc., it is necessary to establish the most suitable and efficient "light recipe" database and corresponding plan, so the stickiness between the supply side and the demand side is also higher.
Jinko Electronics said that plant lighting is mainly based on high-power and high-efficiency products, which requires enterprises to accumulate for a long time in LED packaging technology. At the same time, customers have high requirements for the life of LED plant lighting products, and the products need to have a quality assurance of 5-10 years.
Xuyu Optoelectronics believes that plant lighting products are special lighting products for plant lighting occasions. For example, according to the application object of plant lighting, it is necessary to design a spectrum that can cause a specific response of plants; according to the particularity of the spectrum, it is necessary to utilize the rich and tunable spectral properties of LEDs to realize and optimize the spectrum. From the packaging point of view, excellent packaging technology is required to achieve high optical quantum efficiency and high reliability products, and excellent optical design is also required to maximize light distribution and intensity.