Wistron Invests in Global Lighting Technology, Will Expand LCD TV Production

An investment by Wistron in light-guide supplier Global Lighting Technology (GLT) secures a key component for LED-based displays as the company expands LCD TV assembly, GLT Sales Director Brett Shriver told us. Wistron, which forecast its LCD TV shipments’ passing 10 million units by 2011, said it will pay up to $20 million for 17-19 percent of privately held GLT. GLT is building a light-guide assembly facility near a new Wistron manufacturing base in Guangdong, China, that’s scheduled to start production in 2011. The new factory will double Wistron’s capacity for LCD TVs, officials of the company have said. Wistron assembles LCD TVs for Sony and other CE manufacturers and will use GLT’s light guides for TVs 20 inches and larger, Wistron officials said.

GLT’s technology features LEDs directly molded into a light guide, maximizing the amount of light entering the LCD by eliminating losses caused by air gaps. It also enables control of the LED size, shape, depth, pitch, density and angle of rotation. The guide can be paired with brightness enhancement or diffuser film to increase brightness. “They are trying to source a backlight and they would get a value in buying it from a company they own a part of,” Shriver said. “The main reason for the purchase was the TV industry. Basically all the backlight suppliers are trying to team up with TV and monitor suppliers."

Wistron’s purchase of a stake in GLT follows its sourcing components from the company for desk phones and printers, Shriver said. Wistron didn’t get board seats in the arrangement, and GLT’s management remains, he said. The deal followed GLT’s $26 million sale to Rambus late last year of 84 optoelectronic patents, including those covering some of its MicroLens technology. Fourteen GLT engineers transferred to Rambus to help it start a general lighting and flat-panel backlighting business, Shriver said. GLT kept the right to license the patent from Rambus. Many of the patents dated from GLT’s founding and covered microptical features and the way LEDs would be patterned and shaped, he said. GLT kept 84 patents, most granted during the past 18 months covering manufacturing of light guides for large-size TVs, Shriver said. Among the IP sold to Rambus “there were a lot of patents that were ready to expire, and we weren’t getting value out of them because we weren’t defending them properly,” he said.

Besides the facility that GLT is building as part of Wistron’s complex, the company has factories in Shanghai and Suzhou, China. Suzhou handled volume assembly of plastic light guides, and Shanghai was responsible for value-added manufacturing including the integration of film with light guides, Shriver said. GLT typically works with four or five LED suppliers, including Philips’ Lumileds, Shriver said. Lumileds distributor Future Electronics’ Future Lighting Solutions Division is demonstrating lighting products using GLT technology at the Light Fair in Frankfurt, Germany.

While GLT once partnered with LED supplier Luminus and OEM supplier Jabil Circuit on a 46-inch LCD TV, the venture ended as CE manufacturers chose white LED edge and backlit designs over a red, green, blue combination, Shriver said. The companies had worked on an RGB design, he said. “The industry didn’t go the direction we expected as far as the TV market that we were engaging,” Shriver said. A large number of LCD TVs featured 200 to 300 white LEDs per light guide, rather than a smaller number of RGB LEDs, he said. While white LEDs had the early edge as a backlight source, “it doesn’t mean that RGB LEDs aren’t going to be there in the future, Shriver said. For now, “it wasn’t the direction the market went."

The shift toward LED backlighting from CCFL is expected to accelerate, industry officials have said. AU Optronics forecast that 65 percent of LCD TVs will go LED by 2012, up from 20 percent this year. About 80 percent of PC monitors will contain LEDs by 2012, and all notebook panels will feature them next year, AU said. In Taiwan, LED demand is expected to be 20-30 percent greater than the available supply, the research firm Semi Taiwan said. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. is investing $170 million in an R&D center and fabrication facility in Hsinchu, Taiwan, at first, Semi Taiwan said. AU Optronics subsidiary Lexstar plans to expand production after its merger with affiliate assembler Lighthouse.