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Editorial: News for the supply chain and questions from an end user
... We're just back from the recent Blue 2008 LED supply chain conference that was held last week in Hsinchu (aka "LED-town") Taiwan, and with the 13-hour time change, we're compensating for creative-thinking gridlock by covering two distinct topics this week. We're often asked why LEDs can't simply just be...
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Summit
2008:
What we learned
The feedback is in, and the consensus was: Just
what we needed, do it again soon. In case you missed the Solid
State Lighting Design Summit 2008 in Weehawken, New Jersey, be sure to take
a look at the final
agenda for what went down in the first-of-its-kind event. The Summit brought
together industry thought leaders, pioneers, leading designers, lighting decision-makers
and innovators from the across the solid state lighting eco-system. Read
the conference report...
Solid State Lighting Design
is here to serve the information needs of lighting designers, specifiers, and
decision makers, along with luminaire designers, lighting system integrators
and lighting subsystem developers with application, product and market news
updates for this rapidly evolving technology. Our readership also includes LED
packagers, technology enablers and service companies seeking the the answers
to how best to meet their customers' needs.
Solid
state lighting promises to create unprecedented changes in what we can do with
light. Simultaneously, it will deliver on a promise of massive global energy savings
and access to useful nighttime lighting that has not been conveniently available
to nearly 2 billion people around the world. We're glad to have you join us in
the revolution!
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ActOne LED Lighting Provides Inviting Atmosphere for Starlight CasinoMay 29, 2008...The Starlight Casino in New Westminster near Vancouver, Canada, has an alluring atmosphere created by ActOne’s LED lighting tubes. The lighting effect is reportedly generated from the dispersion of color lights from 200 LED lighting tubes. The LED lighting tubes, which are over draped mesh-screen curtains, have a total length of 700 feet The Starlight Casino located in the Greater Vancouver area is a brand new $110-million, 100,000 square foot gaming and entertainment facility that was completed last December. It has 850 slot machines and 45 gaming tables plus restaurants and bars. The casino draws as many as 15,000 customers a day. The interior designer worked with ActOne to provide a theme with a warm and inviting atmosphere for the casino’s customers.
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KramerLED Provides Line of LED Luminaires for Wide Range of Indoor Applications
SSLDesign News StaffMay 29, 2008...Kramer Lighting has launching a new brand, KramerLED, utilizing LED technology. The KramerLED brand features daylight harvesting, dimming capabilities and what the company says is superior light control. The brand is patent-pending product line for commercial indoor lighting. According to Kramer, the keys to a high efficiency LED interior luminaire are thermal management and optical control. The KramerLED brand uses heat pipe technology and patent-pending offset axial optics. Kramer says it offers superior efficiency, performance, and longevity. KramerLED uses the new X-Lamp MC-E LED from Cree, Inc. The MC-E chip retains the same 7mm x 9mm footprint as the existing XR-E family but with four times the light output.
KramerLED luminaires boasts that its brand of LED luminaires provide a significant reduction in energy consumption and overall efficiency with equal or better performance than traditional sources. The line features proprietary NanoOptic technology, which is comprised of direct contact refractors sealed to the LED dome. When used in combination with premium optical materials and advanced optical design techniques such as Total Internal Reflection (TIR) (not to be confused with the LED company acquired by Philips Lumileds), Kramer says its technology enables up to 96 percent optical efficiency.
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Nexxus Lighting Touts 95 Lumens per Watt LED Lamp Line
SSLDesign News StaffMay 29, 2008...Nexxus Lighting Touts 95 Lumens per Watt LED Lamp Line
Nexxus Lighting showcased its new LED lamp line at LIGHTFAIR International 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada USA. The company boasts that the line of lamps has an efficacy of 95 lumens per watt. LED lamps are part of Nexxus’ new Array Lighting brand. The Array Lighting LED lamp line features the company’s patent-pending Selective Heat Sink technology, which the company says lowers thermal resistance to record levels, and produces the lowest power, highest efficacy LED lamps on the market. Nexxus contends that the Array Lighting LED lamp line uses 80 percent less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and operates for an average of 50,000 hours.
Nexxus says it will initially offer four new LED lamps in the Array Lighting line: Array LED MR16, Array LED PAR16, Array LED PAR30 and Array LED G4/G6. The company notes that each lamp is fully dimmable and comes in cool white and warm white color options.
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Strategies in Light is an executive-level conference on high-brightness
LEDs produced by Strategies Unlimited and PennWell Corporation.
Now
in its tenth year and the longest-running conference in the LED
industry, this event is considered to be the premier annual forum
for presenting current commercial developments in high-brightness
LEDs and providing unparalleled networking opportunities for component
and equipment suppliers, manufacturers, and end-users of HB LED
devices. Strategies
in Light is the US-based event to learn about the latest innovation
in HB LED markets, applications, products, and regional activities.
This is the kickoff event of the year, which supplies the critical
market forecast you need to keep the industry working for you. Register
online now, or contact lubah@pennwell.com
for more information.
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The Improved Edge From BetaLED is Showcased at LightFair International 2008
SSLDesign News StaffMay 29, 2008...BetaLED, a brand name of Beta Lighting of Sturtevant, Wisconsin USA, showcased the Edge family of products at LightFair International 2008. The Edge family of products includes round LED and direct post-top spider mount fixtures. The company says that the sleek architectural form provides unmatched performance in efficiency, uniformity and longevity. While, the Edge family of products has been around since 2007, the key to the improvements are the optics and proper thermal management. "The new round shape builds on the Edge family and addresses the need for more LED solutions," said Beta Lighting president Al Ruud. "This line expansion offers more choices for added design flexibility."
According to the company, the Edge round incorporates 40 to 120 high-brightness LEDs with proprietary NanoOptic refractors. One of the key advances, the efficient NanoOptic refractor provides superior light distribution and significant energy savings because it minimizes wasted light outside of the target area.
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Philips Fortimo/Lexel Downlight Families Incorporating LUXEON Rebels
SSLDesign News StaffMay 29, 2008...Philips Lighting has introduced its new Fortimo family of downlight modules at LightFair International in Las Vegas, Nevada USA. According to the company, the downlight modules demonstrate the general lighting capabilities of the LUXEON Rebel power LEDs. The company says that the Fortimo family of modules accompanying thermal and power systems, enable lighting OEMs to quickly and easily equip the architectural and specification communities with complete white and tunable downlight solutions. LED-based lighting modules, such as Fortimo, as well as Philips' Lexel RGB-type module solutions, can potentially reduce energy consumption by as much as 50% compared to CFL. In contrast to the single CCT Fortimo, the Lexel modules can deliver fully CCT-controllable white illumination in the similarly compact footprint the the LUXEON Rebel enables.
The Fortimo downlight module (DLM) 1100 uses 18 royal-blue LUXEON Rebel LEDs and a remote phosphor lens at the top of a mixing chamber to create a white-light module delivering 1100 lumens of light output with an efficiency of 62 lm/W. A second version of the Fortimo module delivers 2000 lm at 45 lm/W, which was initially introduced with a 4000K correlated color temperature, uses different remote phosphor lenses to allow for the possibility of additional white CCT options in the future.
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May 29, 2008...Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) reportedly hopes to accelerate reaching a set of standards for LED street lamps, according to an article in Digitimes. The MOEA reportedly expects to publish its first set of standards during Q1 2009, the article indicated. The agency in part hopes to catch up with the progress of governments from other countries.
In 2007, the MOEA reportedly created an alliance to help establish LED lighting standards and hold quality reviews in 2007. Wednesday, the alliance introduced five related protocols, which will be sent for review by the Bureau of Standards, Meteorology and Inspection (BSMI).
According to the published protocols, LED street lamps will be required to deliver a life-cycle of 20,000 hours. Additionally, a device operating continuously for 11 hours per day, will be required to carry a life-cycle of five years. The agency is targeting the end of 2008 as the time for the complete review of 11 protocols (which includes standards for in-door LED lighting applications) by year-end 2008. The MOEA expects to release its finalized standards in March 2009.
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Philips Lumileds Announces Technology and Process for Bin Number and Size Reduction
LIGHTimes StaffMay 29, 2008...Philips Lumileds announced at LightFair International in Las Vegas, Nevada USA, that it has reduced the number of white color bins for the company’s warm white Luxeon Rebel LEDs. The company cites a new technology roadmap for Lumiramic phosphor technology as the reason for the improvement in white LED consistency. Philips Lumileds calls the binning of white LEDS, a “work around”, that helps LED manufacturers manage the variation in color and tint that is part of the LED fabrication and packaging process. The company points out that to date no solutions decrease or eliminate the risk of inconsistency. Philips Lumileds also points out that most LED makers have resorted to producing greater volumes of LEDs and discarding those that do not fit within the desired color ranges. This ultimately results in higher costs.
The company explained in its latest press release that while white LED efficiency has improved to 80 lm/W over the last 18 months, the industry still needs to improve consistency. Philips Lumileds says it has taken a major step in that direction with its Lumiramic phosphor technology. Philips Lumileds’ key innovation, is a process in which the Lumiramic phosphor technology of pre-measured ceramic plates is matched with a TFFC die of appropriate thickness and correct wavelengths to target specific color temperature.
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Seoul Semiconductor's Acriche Receives UL Mark From U.S. Product Safety Testing and Certification Group
SSLDesign News StaffMay 22, 2008...Seoul Semiconductor of Seoul, Korea, announced that its LED-based lighting source, the Acriche A2 and A3 series, has been tested, evaluated and found in compliance with the specifications required to bear the Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL) Component Recognition Mark. The company points out that the the UL designation adds to Acriche’s previously awarded safety designations. In December, Seoul Semiconductor’s Acriche received the European Union's CE-Marking and German TUV certification for product and environmental safety standards. The company indicated that the latest safety designation confirms that Acriche meets the most stringent global standards for product component safety.
The company points out that UL is nationally recognized for its rigorous and unbiased product safety testing, and UL has worldwide recognition as an important safety standard for a wide range of industries. The company explained in a recent news release that before a product is eligible to bear the UL mark, it must successfully complete a certification process. Additionally, UL certification requires a thorough follow-up process to ensure continuous compliance with the applicable requirements. Seoul Semiconductor says that the UL mark is a distinction that will help increase and accelerating global market adoption of Acriche.
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Advanced Lighting Systems Completes LED Lighting of Mississippi River Bridge
SSLDesign News StaffMay 22, 2008...Advanced Lighting Systems, a Nexxus Lighting partner company based in Sauk Centre, Minnesota USA, has completed the lighting for the Norbert F. Beckey bridge in Muscatine, Iowa. The bridge, stretches from Iowa to Illinois across the Mississippi River to a point 170 miles west of Chicago. On May 12th, a ribbon cutting ceremony officially marked the opening of the completed bridge.
“The lighting system only requires 43 Advanced Lighting Systems LiveLED 100 RGB fixtures to illuminate the fifteen hundred foot bridge including the girders measuring 60 to 90 feet high and piers 100 feet high,” explained Paul Benton, National Sales Manager for Advanced Lighting Systems. “Using a DMX lighting controller, multiple color patterns wash the structure and create a stunning picture for this bridge and the surrounding area of Muscatine.”
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editor -at - solidstatelightingdesign.com
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Info7 -at - solidstatelightingdesign.com
or call +1 (512) 257-9888
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Commentary
& Perspectives...
News for the supply chain and questions from an end user
Tom Griffiths - PublisherMay 14, 2008...We're just back from the
recent Blue 2008 LED supply chain conference that was held last week in Hsinchu
(aka "LED-town") Taiwan, and with the 13-hour time change, we're compensating
for creative-thinking gridlock by covering two distinct topics this week. We're
often asked why LEDs can't simply just be made cheaper by taking advantage of
what we know from silicon-based semiconductor manufacturing, and the the supply
chain update will cover some of those concepts. We'll share the update at a bit
of a primer level to help the readers that live more at the application or fixture
level to maybe better relate to some of the challenges going on "down below".
Supply chain is alive, well and attacking costs We'll likely share
more about what we heard from an incredible line up of "power
speakers" at Blue over the coming weeks, but when it came to the supply
chain, an overriding theme this year were updates on options to continue to drive
the costs out, as well as increase the overall throughput for the LED industry.
Kyma Technologies CEO, Keith Evans, shared some thoughts with regard to ways to
drive cost out of the epitaxial processes (basically analogous to properly matching
and spreading the sauce on a pizza... differing materials in the substrate ("crust")
and epitaxy ("sauce") create defects in the epitaxy that will compromise
the ability to maximize the number of LEDs on a wafer (let's say that the pepperoni
is only edible when it has been cooked on a perfectly smooth area of the sauce").
It's a 5-10 hour epi processing time, in which less incompatible layers are laid
down progressively to lead in small steps to the final gallium-nitride (GaN) layers
that the individual blue LED circuits can etched on (blue being the primary color
underlying most white LED solutions today). In the process of innovating a way
to produce a substrate that is extremely compatible, but currently $5K to $10K
for a 2-inch wafer, they found a cost effective way to do those intermediate layers
and trim roughly 20-40% off the processing time at costs at that stage, as well
as increasing throughput by 30-70% which translates to more LEDs on the same equipment,
and therefore less capital expense loaded up into the price. Similarly,
the CTO of Australia's BluGlass, Scott Butcher, shared the status of their new
processes that produce that useful and consistent GaN layer on top of glass. It
would appear to be cheaper and immediately scalable to larger diameter wafers.
The move from the current 2-inch wafers to 4- or 6-inch wafers greatly increases
the number of LEDs you can get from single processing run (the old pi times the
radius squared thing as it relates to the amount of surface area you have to work
with, and therefore less useless edge space, less handling equipment, etc, etc).
Oleg Kachalov of Russia's Monocrystal shared a development path for using their
sapphire starting substrates (by far the coolest, shiniest material amongst the
sponsor showcase displays) in 4- and 8-inch processing systems. Sapphire represents
the starting point for 80% of the high brightness LEDs out there, so the move
from 2 to 4 to 8 inches represents the most apparent version of a future that
ultimately drives the material and processing aspects of the LED costs to a fraction
of what they are today. Key to that is the consistency and crystal uniformity
in that substrate (bumpy crust leads to inconsistent sauce application, which
ruins more of the light-emitting-pepperonis). Monocrystal claims it is able to
get the same level of surface quality in the 4- and 8-inch substrates as it has
been getting from the 2-inch models. Paraphrasing what Cree's Director of SSL
Business Development, Mark McClear, shared with us in February, "2008
is the year we really begin to drive the costs out of the LEDs so they can get
into all the applications they belong in." End users encounter
more sophisticated technology, more sophisticated terminology. It was
a fun call from a nice guy who is an electrician in the mid-section of the US.
"I'm working with a contractor who's specifying these $75 LED replacements
for fluorescent tubes and I'm trying to figure out what some of this terminology
means, can you help me?" Hadn't even thought of making it an editorial
discussion at the time, so this was just for fun, and it definitely got us thinking.
Many of our spec sheets and discussions in the solid state lighting industry are
at the more technical lighting level where beam angles and color rendering (CRI)
are commonplace. But not every LED-based lighting installation is going to be conceptualized
and specified by a lighting designer. Builders and electricians are in on this
deal two. I'm confident that the recessed fixtures or kitchen overhead in our
last house weren't reviewed by anyone but the builder. While he may have been
experienced as a builder (although naming the company "Waterloo" was
apparently an experiment and the company lived up to it's name... exiled much
like Napoleon), it's doubtful he carefully researched all the fixture options
to choose one with specific radiation angles or "lux on the target"
values. The questions seemed kind of basic, since they are so important
to understanding the characteristics of one LED lighting module or luminaire compared
to another. Beam angle? My reply, "Hold your arms up in front of you
in an A-frame shape and touch your middle fingers together. Now move your elbows
in and out. The fluorescent fixture uses the sheet metal to vary how broadly or
narrowly the light is cast. LEDs control it right there in what you would call
the bulb." Lumens seem less than for the standard 40-watt tube; will it
give me as much light? "In general, the LEDs can do more with less since
they should only be generating light in that beam angle. The tubes you are used
to have to bounce the majority of their photons off the reflector and you lose
as many as 2/3 in the process, depending on the fixture." It says it's
a cool white and says 5500, can we get warm white as well? "Manufacturers
usually offer a range of 'color temperatures'. The trade off with LEDs are the
warmer the light, typically moving from 'cool' at 5500K (for Kelvin) to 'warm'
at something near 3300K. I'm noticing fluorescents seem to have the color temp
labeled on them at least some of the time, so if you're not sure of what you want,
try some of those tubes to see what fits the environment. There's also a pesky
thing called CRI for 'color rendering index'. Above 90 is good, and less than
that you need to see if it looks ok for what you're trying to do." How
do I know these are saving me energy? "Ouch, good one. The simple answer
is comparing lumens per watt. Your big fluorescent tubes typically run up to 80,
so that's sort of the benchmark. The tricky part is 'useful lumens per watt' or
'effective' ones, since LEDs point all the photons where you need them to go,
while fluorescent tubes scatter a good chunk of them. There will be some more
standards, like EnergyStar or SSLITA's planned labeling initiative, that will
start to be helpful for this, but things are kind of wild and woolly out there
right now, and while I can assure you that if you buy it for cheap, you'll get
cheap, I can't assure you that if you pay a lot, you'll get a lot. Check the warranty,
figure out if the manufacturer is going to be around to honor it, and definitely
insist on seeing how they look in a real world setting before committing to purchasing
a ton of them." Are these really ready for what we're planning to do with
them? "My belief is that they at a place I'd call 'barely ready'. As
long as you are making sure you're getting 'lighting-class LEDs', that the LED
manufacturer is backing up your fixture supplier, and understanding that 6 months
from now, you'll be looking at stuff that's substantially better, I'd say go for
it. It takes a while to build a building and the experience you'll have from sorting
out the good stuff from the junk will position you as a leader and you'll only
spill a little blood." Yes, it's risk versus reward once again...
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