Dalian develops semiconductor lighting venture
By Zhu Chengpei (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-03-19 10:33

China will spare no effort to promote its semiconductor lighting programme over the next few years, said a senior official with the Ministry of Science and Technology.

"Semiconductor lighting will inevitably replace traditional lighting all over the world," Ministry Vice Secretary-General Li Jian said yesterday at the commissioning ceremony of Dalian Lumei Optoelectronics Corporation. The venture is a key project for the State's programme in Northeast China's Liaoning Province.

As an important step to quicken the programme which was initiated last June, the ministry approved Dalian as the first of two cities for establishment of semiconductor lighting industrial bases. The other city is Xiamen in East China's Fujian Province.

As the largest manufacturer and exporter of lighting products, with annual sales of 44.5 billion yuan (US$1.95 billion) and exports of US$4.3 billion last year, China has great potential as a market for the new lighting industry, Li said.

Statistics showed that electric consumption for lighting last year was around 200 billion kilowatts.

Experts say that 70 per cent of that energy can be saved if LEDs (light-emitting diodes), a key technology for semiconductor lighting, is applied.

Last July, Dalian formed a leading group headed by Mayor Xia Deren and started the construction of the Dalian Photonics Industry Park, in an effort to attract 300 high-tech enterprises to the city.

"As a good beginning of the development of the industry in the city, we have listed the construction of the park as a priority among government tasks," Xia said.

He said that Dalian will make semiconductor lighting one of the increasing sectors of its economy, together with information technology (IT) industries in the coming years.

With a total investment of US$150 million, Dalian Lumei is a joint-venture of the US-based Lumei Optoelectronics Corporation, which was previously AXT Optoelectronics,and Dalian Luming Science & Technology Group, the largest supplier of patented afterglow materials in the world.

"As the only high-quality LED wafer and chip manufacturer in China, Dalian Lumei turns out 600 million LED chips yearly which are widely used in solid-state lighting and fibreoptic communications," said Lumei Optoelectronics Corp President Gordon Liu.

With its core team of overseas students and more than 30 patents filed worldwide in the LED field, Lumei exports more than 30 per cent of its LED chips worldwide to the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the United States, as well as to China's Hong Kong and Taiwan, Liu said.

"Lumei's objective is to become a world-leading supplier of ultra-bright LEDs," Liu said.