Fig. 6: Historical changes in white LED manufacturing cost structure.
Presented cost calculations are an outcome of the cost model (Methods and Supplementary Methods 6) for a single low- to mid-power GaN-based, classic chip, phosphor-converted white LED package, assuming an ideal factory with state-of-the-art equipment at a US location. a–c, Waterfall diagrams of white LED manufacturing cost structure split by manufacturing process steps for years 2003, 2012 and 2020. Process steps on the horizontal axis are sequenced from left to right in the same order as in the modelled LED manufacturing process schematically represented in Supplementary Note 2. Numbers for each process step indicate absolute and relative contributions to the total cost in the corresponding year. Note that numbers may not always add up to the total cost (US$1.11 in a for 2003, US$0.11 in b for 2012, US$0.05 in c for 2020) due to the accumulation of rounding error. d, Cumulative manufacturing yield after each process step for years 2003, 2012 and 2020. Note: cumulative yield of the manufacturing process step is the product of all upstream manufacturing process-step yields. CMP, chemical–mechanical planarization; depn., deposition; insp., inspection, litho, lithography; NA, not available.
