Prawn Connery
Well-Known Member
Haha! I don't talk to Teknik as much as GLA does these days, but he's none too happy about all the Covid lockdowns in Melbourne – I think they've hit his business quite a bit. We've been lucky in our part of the world.
Nichia are still the leaders, they just don't market themselves as well as Samsung and have really been behind the ball in addressing the horticultural market – something that Samsung has been fast to adopt. In fact, I got a call from the Nichia rep a couple of weeks ago asking what Nichia could do to make a bigger impact in horticulture and where we thought the cannabis market was going.
Now, we were telling Nichia two years ago that they needed to start developing chips for horticulture otherwise they would be left behind by Samsung. And they have been. The Koreans are nothing if not pragmatic (like the Chinese), but Japanese businesses can be very conservative and frankly Nichia didn't want to know about the cannabis industry two years ago. It was their loss. Samsung have really stolen a march on them and now they are scrambling to catching up.
What Nichia really needs to do is expand their line of monos – they don't even produce a 660nm chip – and keep developing their UV line. UV has been a big boone for Nichia as it has been in greater demand for disinfection since covid. This is one area where Nichia craps all over Samsung: Nichia has the most efficient UV diodes in the world, with the 405nm 3535 tested at over 72% efficiency by Teknik. The 395nm and 385nm chips are not far behind.
We also told Nichia they need to develop chips in the 420-430nm range, as this is where we see real future demand. 420-430nm coincides with a number of important absorption peaks in plants, namely Chlorophyll A, but current chips are not very efficient. So we see 420-430nm mono or white phosphor ("Sunlike" type chips) and 630-660nm monos being areas where Nichia can improve, and further development of UVA as being a good niche.
Nichia have just announced a new line of narrow bad phosphors as well, which we see a lot of potential of if they can get the efficiency up. We already use narrow bands on our High LIght 420 boards, but we use a custom three-die design and the new Nichia diodes only have one die, which means they are nowhere near as efficient at higher currents. We todl Nichia they need to bit the bullet and start making narrow bands in two and three-die chips, but Nichia said they were more expensive to produce and they couldn't see a market for them. Their loss again. Nichia may be world leaders in technology, but they are lagards in social and economic trends, IMO.
