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DOE Calls on DOE and Federal Laboratories for Round 6 of SSL Core Technologies Program
LiGHTimes Staff
March 5, 2009...The United States Department of Energy (DOE) released a research call to DOE and federal laboratories for its on-going Solid-State Lighting (SSL) Core Technologies program.
The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Building Technologies Program, are reportedly seeking applications from all DOE National Laboratories, National Science Research Centers, Department of Defense Laboratories ,or any other Federal Laboratory for applied research in the SSL Core Technology Research program area.
The DOE defines "Core Technology" research as applied research needed to advance SSL technologies which provides problem-solving knowledge and data needed to overcome barriers identified in the “Program Areas of Interest” section of the Research Call. Round 6 Research Call for SSL Core Technologies,
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SemiLEDs Settles With Nichia
March 5, 2009...SemiLEDs, the LED chip-maker of Boise, Idaho USA, reports that it has settled a lawsuit with Japanese LED giant, Nichia. Company spokesmen for SemiLEDs were unable to make any comment due to the legal constraints of the settlement.
The settlement appears to be tied to Nichia's recent settlement with Seoul Semiconductor. Nichia and Seoul Semiconductor recently ended a range of ongoing patent lawsuits. One of the settled disputes was a lawsuit over Nichia's Korean patent No. 491,482. The lawsuit alleged that Seoul Semiconductor's Z-Power LED P9 series infringed up on Nichia's patent. Seoul Semiconductor then revealed that its Z-Power LED P9 series use Mvp LED chips
from SemiLEDs. (Ref: Coverage).
SemiLEDs released a statement in October 2008, that it successfully defended its customers (mainly Seoul Semiconductors) in Korean patent litigation.
SemiLEDs made the announcement that it and Nichia have withdrawn their patent litigation as a result of a settlement between the parties. SemiLEDs News Release
Philips Makes Bold Moves in Solid State Lighting Business
SSLDesign News Staff
February 27, 2009...In the last several weeks Royal Philips Electronics of the the Netherlands and Philips Lumileds have been very active in the solid state lighting realm.
Philips introduced a new solar powered LED-based reading lamp. In another bold move, Philips acquired an Italian LED luminaire maker, Ilti Luce. Philips News Release.
Earlier in the week, Philips Lumileds announced that its Luxeon Rebel LEDs have officially exceeded the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Star guidelines for lumen maintenance. (Ref: Coverage).
So it is not surprising that UK luminaire maker, LiteLED reportedly released a new strip LED luminaire, which leverages the K2 version of Luxeon LEDs from Philips Lumileds.
LiteLED says that the strip luminaire it created can efficiently replace fluorescent T5 and neon lights.
Philips Lumileds News Release.
Among the company's recent accomplishments, Philips developed a solar powered LED-based reading light specifically to allow continued educational work after dark for people in parts of the world without electricity such as Africa. Philips Lighting News Release,
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Advanced Lumonics, LLC Announces UL Listing and FCC Certification for Two Series of LED Bulbs
SSLDesign News Staff
February 27, 2009...Advanced Lumonics, LLC, of Boca Raton, Florida a maker of retrofit modules, announced that its EarthLED EvoLux and ZetaLux series of LED bulbs have achieved UL listing and FCC certification. The company notes that the UL Listing will allow the use of EvoLux and ZetaLux in a variety of projects that require this certification prior to installation and open up many previously untapped markets for LED technology. Company News Release, SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
DOE Publishes Round 7 of Caliper Test Results
SSLDesign News Staff
February 26, 2009...The United States Department of Energy released Round 7 of its CALiPER test results. This round of testing looked at the performance of LED- based downlights, outdoor lights (including street lights), and retrofit replacement lamps. In all categories, the performance varied widely among the different products tested. However, as with previous CALiPER results, the average efficacy for each luminaire improved significantly compared to previous tests. For Round 7, the average efficacy in lumens per watt was approaching 40 lm/W. The efficacy for the luminaires tested ranged from an extremely low 9 lm/W to a high 71 lm/W. Round 7 of DOE's CALiPER Tests, SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
LED chipmaker Opto Tech to Take on Taiwan Street Lamp Market
LiGHTimes Staff
February 26, 2009...Taiwan-based LED chip maker, Opto Tech, is reportedly close to releaseing LED-based street lamps. The company revealed in a recent Digitimes article that its products for 6-meter and 8-meter wide roads are currently being validated by the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection. The company indicated that its LED street lamps for 12-meter wide roads are still under development, using the company's self-developed heat sink module optical design.
Luxeon Rebel Lumen Maintenance Exceeds Energy Star Guidelines
LIGHTimes Staff
February 25, 2009...Philips Lumileds of San Jose, California USA, reported that test data for its Luxeon Rebel LEDs reveals that its performance exceeds the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Star guidelines in terms of the ISEMA's LM-80 lumen maintenance benchmark for 6000 hours. The LM-80 standard is not to be confused with estimated lifetime which can be extrapolated along a performance curve if tests are done for several different times at a given temperature.
The Energy Star guideline for lumen maintenance requires that after actually running for 6,000 hours, an LED which is running at a temperature that is equivalent to what it would be in a luminaire, must maintains 91.8 percent of its brightness, or 94.1 percent of its brightness for outdoor commercial or residential settings. However, after an actual test of 6,000 hours for Luxeon Rebel LEDs running at 350 mA at 55 degrees Celsius, the LEDs maintained 99 percent of their lumen output. Company News Release,
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Commentary & Perspectives...
Should we ban 5 mm white LEDs from illumination applications?
Guest Editorial - Robert Sagebiel
March 5, 2009...Our guest editorial this week is from Bob Sagebiel, a longtime LED, solid state lighting and opto-electronics industry contributor. Bob has had some recent insights on one important issue that continues to reflect negatively on the quality of LED lighting products that can find their way into consumer's hands.
A recent local Illumination Engineering Society (IES) chapter meeting was focused on LED education, providing a good opportunity to see "the typical impression" that members might have about LED lighting. The meeting included a presentation from one of Philips Lumileds' regional marketing representatives, and several other manufacturers' reps were showing off LED light fixtures and replacement lamps. There were some very good looking products offered by some of the luminaire companies, with products were priced in the $100 range for the classic 6-inch down light fixtures.
In the LED replacement lamp section, we saw a number of screw-based lights that were built with 4- and 5-mm round and oval LEDs. The rep had just picked them up that day and did not have any hard data on these devices. If you have been in this industry long enough you have seen the potential for substantial problems with optical epoxy components used for illumination. This issue is far from common knowledge for end users. In a nutshell, blue light causes epoxies to turn brown over time and degrade the lumen output substantially. The common expectation is that 4- and 5-mm LEDs usually do not last more than 8,000 or 9,000 hours in operation. While this is great if you are building inexpensive keychain flashlights or other LED "accent" lights that are expected to have short "duty cycles" and disposable life times, or if the end user has little interest in a long-life product with CRI, CCT or blue color shift as it ages. (For a good graphic on this, check out this chart that Luminque's Kevin Willmorth has posted at his blog.)
While it is tempting to use these "low cost" LEDs ($0.05 cost per LED for an "all bin" selection vs. a cost of $1.60 to $3.00 for a power LED) in anything one would classify as an "illumination product", the cost per lumen doesn't add up. The best these parts can offer (without overdriving) is approximately 35 candelas at 15 degrees viewing angle (approximately 2 lumens) vs. 80 to 120 lumens for the current illumination grade power LED devices. And while 4- and 5-mm parts may let you get away with no secondary optics and no heat sink (and if you are using 60 or 120 of them you could even wire them to operate as a 120V AC rectifier circuit and cut down on you driver costs as well), what you wind up with is a potential product liability nightmare.
What is an illumination grade LED? A definition that many would agree with is any white LED with 40 lumens/watt or higher output at 350 mA, a110 - 120 degree viewing angle and meeting the IES LM-80 lumen depreciation minimums that would allow US Energy Star qualification of a luminaire into which they are incorporated.
In a recent discussion with Jovani Torres at Cree, he commented that he had seen over 100 companies in the Far East offering fluorescent lamp retrofit products using 5-mm LEDs as the light source. I am also seeing companies offering fluorescent lamp and PAR lamp replacement products using 5 mm LED components and selling them through an aggressive "green" sales pitch. Even using the 5-mm approach, initial costs of these products are still high enough that those who chose to finance their new lights and pay for them out of the utility savings will be greatly disappointed as soon as they start to see that the color from fixture to fixture and lamp to lamp varies widely. Compounding the disappointment will be the blue color shift due to the change in the dominant wavelength of the blue LED. As the blue LED die heats up, the wavelength emission shifts out of the efficient range of the phosphor, allowing more blue photons to escape the package, which increases (i.e. blue shifts) the color temperature. This phenomenon is usually seen within the first 1,000 hours or less in the smaller devices, and can show up in as little as 24 hours if they are overdriven).
Beyond the blue-shift, comes the degradation of the optical epoxy material in the package. The best 4- and 5-mm products today have just a 10,000 to 12,000 hour operating life before the optical epoxy package turns brown. So much for those 30,000 to 100,000 hour life claims a consumer might see as part of that "cool bulb" label! This is not a slam on small die vs. large die blue LEDs. There are some great small die solutions available today, but you won't find them mounted in 4- and 5-mm axial-lead packages, but rather in a more thermally efficient package that addresses some of the key thermal issues for SSL products.
If you are see a slick sales person (last year's mortgage broker?) come into your business trying to "help" you save 20% to 80% on your lighting electric bill every month, make sure you know what it is they are selling! Lamps and fixtures using white 5-mm LEDs are a lighting scam that will damage the initial ramp up of the LED lighting markets. If you're inside the industry, do what you can to make sure that the big box store merchandise buyers understand this (complaining to a store manager might get word headed in the right direction). Those big-box stores have almost single-handedly moved CFLs from a 4% market share to 25% market share in the last 3 years and whether they realize it or not, they too have a stake in not be offering 5-mm LED lights as "illumination grade" solutions to their customers!
If we don't pull together as an industry in combating the junk, consumers and
small commercial users are in for a rude awaking. Not all LEDs are created equal
and that message needs to get out into the consumer and commercial markets ASAP.
Before we ever see LED light bulbs on a store shelf, the merchandise buyers
should demand that any "LED light bulb" be US DOE Energy Star compliant. If
not, they should insist on seeing the independent test data that verifies compliance.
They should run all new LED lamp suppliers through a continuous 1,000 hours
(6 weeks) "life test" to see if it maintains the same color, or if there is
any color-shift compared to one fresh out of a box. Yes, they should even ask
for the data on the drive current each LED will see, and compare that to the
device ratings. Of course, they aren't going to do those things... so the next
best alternative is to take the "easy" approach and just say "NO" to those 5-mm
LED "cluster" lamps and fixtures and "YES" to buying only US-DOE Energy Star
compliant luminaires and modules! Caveat emptor!
Bob Sagebiel's wide-ranging opto-electronics career has included marketing and sales leadership roles with such notable organizations as Arrow Electronics' Lighting Group, Chicago Miniature Lamp, Dialight, Siemens and General Electric. He has several filed patents in the opto-electronics field. Bob can be reached at rsagebiel@gmail.com
From time to time, SSL Design and LIGHTimes are pleased to publish opinions and thoughts by guest editorialists. Since these are opinion pieces, the views expressed may not be those of our publications, and individual facts have not been placed under our microscope to verify that they are "the only truth". We encourage you contact the editorialists directly with counter opinions, and you should feel free to cc editor@solidstatelightingdesign to keep us in the loop.
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