Increased Chinese State support for SSL industry
After years of development, China’s SSL industry has established a relatively complete R&D system to cover epi-wafer processing, chip fabrication, device packaging and integrated system applications. In 2006, the China State Council released the ‘National Medium and Long Term Program for Scientific and Technological Development (2006-2020)’ to ensure the creation of “energy-efficient and long lifetime SSL products” becomes a priority topic in this most important energy field. In the same year, the Ministry of Science and Technology allocated approx. US$45 million from the ‘National High Tech R&D Program (2006-2010)’ to support R&D and industrialisation of SSL technology. Through this it’s clear that the SSL Industry in China has entered an important historic period.
Mission of the CSA
Founded in October 2004, the China Solid State Lighting Alliance (CSA) membership now numbers 73 leading Chinese SSL companies and research institutes. The main target of CSA is to facilitate the National SSL Program by promoting the technological advancement and commercialisation of SSL. This is done through resource networking, technology innovation, practical operation and collaborative development. CSA is committed to making full use of current resources to establish an information technology database and a technology service platform for the industry. It is also encouraging the win-win approach that will come from mutual and regional cooperation between upstream and downstream ends of the industrial supply/value chain. The CSA is also working to establish an international cooperation network for integrating resources.
The future for Chinese/European SSL cooperation
China plays an important role in the global SSL industry and looks set to grow to have the largest SSL market in the world. Meanwhile, Europe has a strong industrial background in SSL and abundant business resources. CSA is interested in looking for partnerships in Europe to promote cooperation between Chinese and European SSL players in business and R&D and will be working with the Plastic Electronics Foundation as their intermediator. CSA also has hosted a successful annual event, ‘China International Forum & Exhibition on Solid State Lighting’ (“CHINA SSL”), since 2004. It has become well establis hed and is the largest and most influential SSL event in China. The cumulative number of attendees at forum has reached 2,000 while that of exhibition is over 40,000.
