Happy Birthday(s) LEDs!… But what does it mean? Tom Griffiths – Publisher October 9, 2012
October 9, 2012…October 9, 2012 marked the 50th birthday of the visible LED, accomplished by Dr. Nick Holonyak, Jr. at General Electric. Dr. Holonyak's invention was a the first practical visible semiconductor-alloy laser, accomplished with a blend gallium-arsenide-phosphate (GaAsP… quite an appropriate acronym), in parallel with Jim Hall's efforts with GaAs that resulted in the infrared semiconductor laser. Holonyak had a simple goal relative to Hall's laser effort… Nick wanted to see what was going on. (GE put out a quick write up, including an interview with Dr. Holonyak here). Of course, red alone wasn't going to cut it, and notably, on July 7, 1972, Herb Maruska the first blue/violet LED emitting at 430nm, and bright enough to be seen in a well-lit room. So happy belated 40th to the blue LED as well.
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LEDs Dominate and are Set to Take Over $1.8 Billion U.S. Flashlight Market, According to ElectroniCast Consultants LIGHTimes News Staff
October 9, 2012…ElectroniCast Consultants, a market research firm covering LEDs and electronic devices, reports that the United States flashlight (torch) market reached $1.824 billion in 2011. The company says that LED flashlights dominate the product mix. Additionally, the LED flashlights are forecast to gradually displace the other light-source types of flashlights which include: Halogen, Argon/Krypton Incandescent, Xenon Incandescent, Fluorescent and High-Intensity Discharge (HID). In 2011, Rechargeable LED flashlights held the leadership position in relative market share.
The ElectroniCast study also segments the use of flashlights by end-user groups, including: Government use in Military/Law Enforcement/Emergency; other segments in Government; Commercial/Industrial; and Consumer applications. Flashlights are reportedly available in wide range of prices depending upon the application.
Electronicast says that in terms of value, the Commercial/Industrial end-user group is forecast to maintain the lead in relative market share during the forecast period (2011-2016). However, the Consumer/Non-Specific category is forecast to maintain a dominant market share lead in terms of volume (number of flashlight units).
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LIGHTING FOR TOMORROW 2012 AWARDS
The tenth annual Lighting for Tomorrow competition recognizes the best-designed, energy-efficient lighting products entering the residential market. The 2012 competition featured energy-efficient light emitting diode (LED) lighting fixtures, replacement lamps, fixture retrofit kits, and lighting controls. Lighting for Tomorrow continues to challenge manufacturers to improve their design of solid state lighting (SSL) products that will meet consumers’ expectations.
The competition is designed to stimulate the market for attractive, energy-efficient residential lighting fixtures that use a fraction of the electricity of standard incandescent fixtures. Over the last 3 years, Lighting for Tomorrow, has encouraged lighting control manufacturers to enter lighting control devices with the requirement that they be compatible with energy-efficient technologies, such as fluorescent or LEDs. By encouraging new designs and technologies, Lighting for Tomorrow aims to increase market acceptance and awareness of the growing opportunities in energy-efficient lighting.
The 2012 judging panel held in June at Underwriters Laboratories (UL) University in Research Triangle Park, NC, reviewed a total of 124 products including, 67 LED fixtures, 34 LED lamps, 13 LED retrofit kits, and 10 lighting control devices. This was the largest number of entries Lighting for Tomorrow has had over its 10-year history.
The judges were particularly impressed with the quality of LED fixtures entered this year. Of the 30 companies that submitted LED fixtures, approximately half received some type of recognition. While only four products were selected as winners, nine honorable mentions were selected and one product was given special recognition.
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China LED Market Suffering Growing Pains
China LED Market Suffering Growing Pains
October 4, 2012…In 2012, numerous government projects and subsidies have spawned a booming LED market with the LED firms. Much of the LED market is centered around the LED makers headquartered around Shenzhen in the Guangdong province. While subsidies have been plentiful, they have reportedly been given to all LED firms regardless of the quality of their products, according to a Digitimes article. For this reason low quality products can still compete in the market with low prices. Additionally, many of the small small LED firms are not well structured financially. This has prompted some China LED industry observers to predict that by 2015, around 30% of the firms will be acquired by peers or exit the market.
In 2012, around 80 LED firms in Shenzhen have declared bankruptcy. One notable example is LED display maker Shenzhen YJG Optoelectronics which claimed revenues exceeding CNY100 million before declaring bankruptcy.
Market researchers have have concluded that the market for LED billboards is saturated after six years of compound annual growth of 28.5 percent from 2001 to 2007, and an additional growth spurt in 2010 due to the World Expo in Shanghai. The high growth rate attracted many players.
The saturated LED billboard market has pushed firms such as Absen Optoelectronics to switch focus to LED lighting products. Absen announced a plan to provide integrated OEM/ODM services for LED lighting in 2012. The firm plans to increase LED lighting revenues to 50% of total revenues in three years. Absen has been focusing on the domestic enterprise lighting market. Absen believes low gross margin has become the norm in the LED lighting market. This is the reason why most LED firms favor the corporate lighting market that has certain set requirements for LED products.
Uniquely, China-based Neo-Neon has been expanding its customer base through ODM/OEM business. The firm enables customers that have the intention of entering the LED lighting market to begin production immediately by providing a complete production process. Neo-Neon also provides free technology transfer and training that can help customers begin production within one week, according to the firm. The business model has reportedly been helping the firms to expand to markets such as Poland and Turkey. Neo-Neon not only provides LED lighting module, the firm also sent technicians to help customers with production.
China-based Sanan Optoelectronics is a fast-growing LED chipmaker that entered Taiwan to compete with its main local rival Epistar. Sanan Optoelectronics currently has 144 units of 2-inch MOCVD equipment with capacity utilization rate approaching 90 percent and has a monthly capacity of around 100,000 AlGaInP LED expitaxial wafers and 300,000-400,000 units for blue LEDs. Sanan has become a supplier for Taiwan-based LED packaging firms such as Unity Opto and BrightLED. Sanan has been expanding capacity and expects that by 2013, annual capacity of LED epitaxial wafers will reach 10 million units and LED chips will reach 30 million units. In mid-August, Sanan announced that the company has obtained subsidies of CNY12.15 million for sapphire substrates from Anxi County. The construction of the plant is near completion and equipment will be installed with production scheduled to begin in 2013.
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Cirrus Logic Digital Controller/Driver Delivers Near 100 Percent TRIAC Dimmer Compatibility
SSLDesign News Staff
March 28, 2012…Cirrus Logic has created an integrated driver, the CS161X, that the company says solves frequent compatibility problems when LED replacement lamps (LED "bulbs") or luminaires are used with standard TRIAC dimmers. The company, which is known for its analog and mixed signal components, filed over 40 patents in the process of developing their solution. During a recent visit to Cirrus Logic in Austin, Texas, Product Marketing Manager, Will Draper pointed out, "Despite the hundreds of dimmer switches on the market from around the world, no real standard exists that can accommodate the LED luminaires. Unlike an incandescent lamp, which appears as a resistive load to the dimmer, an LED will look more like a capacitive load, as will most electronics." A simple analogy would be wiring your stereo into a dimmer switch and attempting to use the dimmer to control the volume.
The company has applied smart adaptive signal processing technology running TRIAC interface algorithms to form the basis for Cirrus Logic's TruDim technology. Cirrus spent over 3 years and tested over 200 available dimmers during the development the company's new CS161 LED controller. In their testing, Cirrus found that that the closest competing technology was only able to be compatible with about 71 percent of the dimmer switches tested, with the industry average closer to 50% compatibility. As the team pointed out, the problem is not a trivial one, and it effects the perception that the public has of LED lighting as a whole.
"Several years ago Cirrus Logic identified the growing LED market as an area where we could leverage our signal processing expertise and solve meaningful engineering challenges," said Jason Rhode, Cirrus Logic president and CEO. "As it turns out, solving the challenges of dimmer compatibility was enormously complex, and we're pleased that one of the largest LED lamp manufacturers has showcased our first LED controller precisely because it provides near- perfect compatibility with every installed dimmer from around the world that we could find and test."
The company tested each of the dimmers with 1, 5, and 10 LED lamps running in parallel. For each of the dimmers, the company tested functionality, flicker free steady state, flicker free transient state, smoothness of dimming, and the minimum and maximum dimming range. When a consumer brings home a $20-$30 LED replacement lamp from the store, and plugs it into a light socket, the consumer expects it to work perfectly with every dimmer they could put it with. Failure to meet that expectation is having a growing impact on the industry more consumers willing to try the lamps at lowering price points. (See: Demonstration on YouTube).
The CS161X is the first family of products in Cirrus Logic's new line of LED controller solutions. According to the company, its unique adaptive dimmer compatibility algorithm controls the boost stage to enable flicker-free phase dimming across the light spectrum, including "deep dimming" down to zero percent light output. The CS161X integrates a variable conduction mode boost converter (CRM/CCM), providing power factor correction and dimmer compatibility with primary-side control, constant output current, and quasi-resonant flyback or buck output stage. It includes solutions for both 100-120 VAC and 220-240 VAC line voltages. The dimming solution is reportedly compliant with Energy Star, NEMA SSL6, and IEC 61000-3-2. Cirrus Logic says that the CS161X is now in volume production and is available in a 16-pin SOIC package priced at $0.81 (USD) in quantities of 100,000. Commercial Lighting Tampa
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LED Lighting will Change Everything
Tom Griffiths – Publisher
February 23, 2012…Every technological revolution encompasses two distinct phases, and LED lighting is no exception. In the first phase, inventors work to adapt a new technology as some form of direct replacement for the incumbents while the second phase involves new applications that likely have never existed. LED lighting has started with standard street lights, ceiling troffers and replacement lamps (PARs and A-lamps), which is comparable to the first horseless carriages in the automobile evolution, or for the PC, networked systems in the accounting and materials departments. In that second phase, though, entirely new applications emerge, both for the technology itself, as well as in those areas it "suddenly" enables. When cars and trucks became capable of reliable travel at speeds above 50 MPH, highways came into being and the car was now a long distance travel tool. Some related 'apps' that followed were in-dash car radios (and the resulting music industry explosion), motels and fast-food. In the case of the 'networked PC and optical communications revolution', once we had arrived at high-speed networking and the thing called 'the internet', the E-commerce (and search engine) bonanza began, along with the whole mobile device and 'apps' revolution. In much the same way, LED lighting will revolutionize more in our lives than most people can imagine (and it shouldn't come as a big surprise that this will be a big focus at the SSL Summit, April 3-4 in Long Beach).
One key area will be related to better lighting for our interior and exterior environments. The word "better", in this case, is intended to be broadly encompassing, including such things current talking points as better color rendering, better quality, better efficiency. Perhaps more important, though, what I'll call the "future betters", which would be such things as better for you (healthier), better utilized, more responsive to each of us as individuals, better for our overall productivity. LEDs, by their nature, are "designed" to produce light narrow wavelength ranges. Blue, red or green are produced at specific sets of blue, red or green wavelengths, depending upon the material properties of the semiconductors doing the work. What that implies is the we can "tune" the mix of wavelengths involved in doing whatever jobs is asked of them. In some cases, such as theatrical or movie stage lighting, it may be to enhance different tones to create a better balance or specific emotional effect. In other cases, we want to use those narrow LEDs wavelengths to "pump" the light out of a phosphor blend, which gives off a fairly broad spectrum of light. Whether tuned at the manufacturing or system level, the end result is that we're able to pretty much specify what mix of wavelengths we want to produce, which also means choosing wavelengths we want to experiment with.
The folks at RPI's Lighting Research Center (LRC) have done some interesting work recently in determining what appears as "white light" to people, and not unsurprisingly, they've discovered that it doesn't appear to precisely match the white-light curve that we've defined relative to incandescent light sources. RPI has also done work in uncovering how light affects our bodies, most notably in conjunction with melatonin, which affects circadian rhythm, seasonal affective disorders and jet lag. They're able to conduct this testing, large part, because LEDs have provided a tool to allow them to deliver specific frequencies and blends of light. I just recently heard about a new Alzheimer's care facility that is being built from the ground up specifically as an Alzheimer's facility. Attention will be paid to creating an environment that contributes to the patient's well being, including anything that is known to arrest the progress of that terrible disease. You know lighting is going to be a big part of the puzzle, and as we learn more and more about it, why shouldn't we expect that the correct ambient and "treatment" lighting will be able to add years to the "lucid time" that those afflicted have available to them. This just scratches the surface of what we're about to learn about light, and how to harness it to improve people's quality of life.
The second key area will be in "smarter" lighting. Again, it's an encompassing term that not only describes the amount of on-board intelligence, but speaks into how the photons are applied, and how they interact with the occupants of the space. In simplest terms, light will go from passive to "active". One big way will be to adjust the amount of lighting required based upon the combination of daylight, occupancy, productivity and availability. Sometimes that will be a balancing act, such as in the midst of a California heat wave when availability is poor, demand is high and brownouts are imminent. While we might like that outside wall conference room a little brighter, our actual productivity won't be affected in the meeting if the lights are low or even off. A meeting only illuminated by what's coming in the window is a lot more tolerable than having to recover work lost on our desktop PCs when the grid came crashing down… we'd 'get it' and wouldn't even grumble.
A big part of that will smarts will be enabled by a whole new generation of sensors. Companies like Redwood Systems are fully focused on a sensor in every luminaire (fixture) to provide motion/occupancy as well as ambient light feedback. All that ties into the software (and more software, and more software) that assimilates the data and manages it according to the users' and facility operators' desires. Those lighting management systems will have all the hooks in them to tie into other aspects of the environment, including HVAC and security, so ultimately, the building will be one tightly managed system. And since the one "have to" that will operate with the finest granularity is lighting, it can be expected that those sensors in every luminaire will serve as the backbone for virtually all the sensing that needs to take place. In a recent visit to Redwood, as they provided a few live examples of the monitoring and response, it was easy to visualize that the response to a late-night intrusion alarm being the arriving police officers finding their path from the front door to the hiding "perp" being carefully illuminated, with the bad-guys' position being lit in a bright red (or black and white stripes, if you prefer). That's a lot better than walking into a dark building, trying to guess where the bad-guy may be, while hoping you can illuminate him (or her) with your Maglite before they manage to target you… Down come the insurance rates and we're all economically happier as well!
The goals for the LED lighting industry should be pretty straight forward. To help everyone the world over to live happier, healthier and more productive lives. That will combine the elements of optimizing energy use, lowering the cost per lumen, and increasing the usefulness of the lumens that are delivered, both relative to how they are delivered now, and towards the idea of nearly-perfect light every where we need it, and not where we don't. As folks like Derry Berrigan, Jeff Miller and Chip Israel have worked to teach us, working with something as elemental as light really is important to us all.
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Philips Lumileds Introduces Luxeon M LED for Outdoor and Industrial LED Lighting Applications
LIGHTimes News Staff
January 26, 2012…Philips Lumileds has introduced Luxeon M, an illumination grade LED. The The company says that the Luxeon M was designed specifically to simplify solution design, reduce costs, and provide the optic control and quality of light required by high-bay and low bay lighting solutions and outdoor lighting applications. The Luxeon M will come in 3000K, 4000K, and 5700K versions each with specified minimum CRI of 70.
The company says that each part is hot tested and specified at 85C and delivers what the company calls Freedom From Binning. Philips Lumileds plans to make the Luxeon M broadly available in the second quarter of this year.
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Student Designers at College for Creative Studies Partner with Visteon, Osram on Future Vehicle Lighting
LIGHTimes News Staff
December 30, 2011…The College for Creative Study, (CCS), Visteon, and Osram, in their collaboration during the 2011/2012 academic year. As part of CCS’s ongoing Corporate Sponsorship program, 18 CCS Transportation Design Seniors researched areas of development of new exterior automotive lighting and styling concepts. Osram notes that these projects have taken on an added dimension because of the opportunities presented by Osram’s LEDs technology and Visteon application knowledge.
“We often partner with automotive companies but we are equally excited when we partner with automotive suppliers. It is important that our students understand all the elements that must be taken into account when creating outstanding designs,” said Chairman of the Transportation Design Department Mark West. "We are training students in a new area of design development and new LED lighting technology for global vehicles."
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Luminus Single-Chip LED Can Replace 300W Xenon and 175W Metal Halide Lamps
LIGHTimes News Staff
December 15, 2011…Luminus Devices, Inc. of Billerica, Massachusetts USA, a maker of Big Chip LEDs(TM), has announced that its next generation CBT-90 white LED provides the equivalent system-level light output as formerly used 300W Xenon and 175W metal halide lamps within specialty lighting applications, including medical and entertainment lighting. The CBT-90, consists of 3mm x 3mm chip mounted on a metal core PCB. Luminus says that the lamp is now 25% brighter and capable of producing more than 2,200 lumens at its top end input current.
Luminus says that in entertainment lighting, spot and wash fixtures are being converted from specialty high intensity discharge lamps such as 175W metal halide to the CBT-90.
"The new CBT-90 performance has never been achieved before by an LED," said Chuck DeMilo, Global Director of Product Marketing for the Lighting Business Group at Luminus Devices.
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Congress overturns incandescent light bulb ban
Congressional negotiators struck a deal Thursday that overturns the new rules that were to have banned sales of traditional incandescent light bulbs beginning next year.
That agreement is tucked inside the massive 1,200-page spending bill that funds the government through the rest of this fiscal year, and which both houses of Congress will vote on Friday. Mr. Obama is expected to sign the bill, which heads off a looming government shutdown.
Congressional Republicans dropped almost all of the policy restrictions they tried to attach to the bill, but won inclusion of the light bulb provision, which prevents the Obama administration from carrying through a 2007 law that would have set energy efficiency standards that effectively made the traditional light bulb obsolete.
Stopping the bulb ban was a chief GOP priority coming into this year, with all of the candidates seeking to become chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee saying they would push through a repeal. That bill cleared the House but Democrats blocked its consideration in the Senate.
House Republicans then insisted on adding a provision into the year-end spending bill, and it was one of the last major sticking-points in the negotiations.
The spending bill doesn’t actually amend the 2007 law, but does prohibit the administration from spending any money to carry out the light bulb standards — which amounts to at least a temporary reprieve.
The spending bill is full of similar provisions that are included year after year to restrict what administrations can do.
At $915 billion in discretionary spending, the bill amounts to $750.6 million per page, and funds the vast majority of government operations, from defense to homeland security to federal parks. Since it is a must-pass bill, it also becomes a major battleground for policy fights such as the light bulbs.
Among the other policy riders attached to the bill is a requirement that all new federal employees be run through E-Verify, the voluntary government system for checking to see if employees are authorized to work in the U.S.; restrictions on the administration transferring suspected terrorist detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the U.S.; and a ban on the District of Columbia using government money to pay for abortions.
The GOP tried but failed to attach restrictions on the Obama administration’s nuclear waste policy, its international family planning policy and major restrictions on the president’s environmental agenda. Mr. Obama and Democrats also forced Republicans to remove provisions that would have prevented him from requiring government contractors to disclose their political contributions — though they cannot be required to disclose them as part of an application for a loan or grant.
“These contentious policy riders had no place in our annual appropriations bills, and it was encouraging that we were able to remove nearly all of them from the final version of this bill,” said Rep. Norm Dicks, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.
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