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Seoul Semiconductor P7, awarded '2009 Product of Year' from a German Magazine "Elektronik" |
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Seoul Semiconductor’s Z-Power LEDs to be Utilized for "LED Farming Demonstration Project" in Japan
LIGHTimes News Staff
March 24, 2009...Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry has selected Seoul Semiconductor to supply 300 thousand LEDs for the "LED Farming Demonstration Project." The company will reportedly supply Z-Power LEDs emmiting red and blue light. Seoul Semiconductor says that the ‘LED Farming Demonstration Project’ held at the lobby floor of the building that houses the Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry in Tokyo, has been planned by the local economy & industry group of Minister of Economy, Trade & Industry of Japan in order to test and demonstrate the possibility of using LEDs as a new farming light source. Seoul Semiconductor News Release SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Torraca, Italy Becomes First Town with All LED-Based Streetlights
Scott McMahan, News Editor
March 20, 2009...Torraca, Italy may be the first town to use LEDs for all of its streetlights. The small village of about 1200 people has some 700 streetlights, and each one has 54 LEDs, according to an article in Scientific American. Not so surprisingly, the company to bring this innovation is also the company that started an LED City program for municipalities which use its products, Cree.
While the worldwide recession has put a damper on spending for city and municipal projects, the correlary is that they are looking for ways to save money. And since some of the best technology on the market has been tested and proven cost effective by none other than the U.S. Department of Energy, in independent tests, it is little wonder that municipal governments have chosen to make the initial investment which will pay-off in time of solid state lighting.
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EPA and DOE Seek Coordination and Expert Input on Energy Star Criteria
SSLDesign News Staff
March 20, 2009...In an unexpected admission, the Department of Energy and the Environmental protection agency issued a joint statement about the Energy Star criteria for lighting partners. In the statement, the two government organizations admited that there have been problems with interagency coordination and division of resposibilities. The statement made it clear that the EPA and the DOE hope to resolve these outstanding issues in the next 45 calandar days.
Furthermore, the organizations noted that they are aware of issues with regard to Energy Star criteria for Solid
State Lighting products and are committed to addressing the issues. Also, the organizations noted that they will work with
program stakeholders to continue to build on the success of the Energy Star program
to ultimately reducing energy use and avoiding emissions of greenhouse gases.
The statement was a significant departure from previous statements from each agency individually. (Ref: Editorial Coverage).Hopefully the new cooperation will help create more commercially viable clearly defined standards than the current criteria, and will allow real experts in the field to get their say. Joint DOE and EPA Statement
Philips Lumileds joins California Lighting Technology Center Affiliate Program
SSLDesign News Staff
March 20, 2009...Philips Lumileds reports that it has joined the California Lighting Technology Center as an affiliate member. Philips Lumileds says that as a member of the CLTC, it is working with luminaire manufacturers to develop market ready Luxeon LED based applications that meet the energy efficiency and lighting quality levels required to meet EnergyStar® and similar regional and national guidelines. CLTC was established through a joint effort of the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program and University of California at Davis. It conducts both cooperative and independent activities with lighting manufacturers, electrical utilities and the design and engineering professional communities. Philips says these valuable partnerships facilitate the commercialization of products developed at CLTC to bring viable research-based projects to the commercial marketplace in two years or less. SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Taiwan May Get Own Version of Stimulus Package for Funding LED Industry R&D
LIGHTimes News Staff
March 19, 2009...The United States may not be the only country in which has a govenrment-sponsored economic stimulus package that may go towards LED lighting research and products in addition to solar technology. Taiwan's Executive proposed a 5-year budget which inludes about $8.8 million for energy conservation projects including specifically the solar and LED industries of Taiwan, according to an article in Digitimes. Taiwan's National Science Council decided to transform LED and Solar R&D projects from an ordinary level to a national level beginning in 2009. The article cited industry sources who indicated that nationalizing LED and solar projects would give government funding for such projects the priority.
Cooper Acquires Illumination Management Solutions
LIGHTimes News Staff
March 19, 2009...Cooper Industries, a lighting company based in Houston, Texas USA, reported the company's acquisition of Irvine, CA-based Illumination Management Solutions, Inc. (IMS). IMS designs and manufacures specialized optics, and LED modules, and LED fixtures. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. IMS' LED systems and fixtures are for a variety of lighting applications including roadway, infrastructure, and safetyCooper Industries News Release SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Avago Technologies Introduces 3-Watt RGB Moonstone Power LED
LIGHTimes News Staff
March 18, 2009...Avago has introduced a 3-Watt Moonstone RGB LED for use in architectural and commercial lighting applications. The company boasts that the packaged device offers superior efficacy (lumens per watt), a compact footprint, a wide viewing angle, and an extended operating life. The company says that its competitively priced RGB LEDs called, the ASMT-MT00 3-in-1 LEDs deliver one 108 lumens and can be independently controlled to enable color-changing and mixing capabilities. The color changing and mixing capabilities make it ideal for designers developing decorative, retail, and wall washing lighting applications. Company News Release SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
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Commentary & Perspectives...
Endorsing more good approaches: Luminus-Nichia... and more on 5mm LEDs for lighting applications
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
March 26, 2009...While there was the expected amount of coverage on recent announcements regarding a relationship between Luminus and Nichia, we would offer an additional thought... the Luminus-Nichia deal will have a revolutionary impact on the LED marketplace and solid state lighting industry. (Oh, is that all?). You will find more on that topic further below, but first, some unfinished business regarding the suitability of 5mm packaged LEDs for general lighting applications. In our most recent guest editorial, Bob Sagebiel commented on the 5mm packages that seem to be too prevalent at the consumer level right now (saw some more at Sam's Club last week... "Lights of America" was the brand, and it was made in China... hmmm). He contended that they don't work well to start out, that they then proceed to discolor, die prematurely and generally reflect badly on the solid state lighting industry. In response, he received plenty of notes of praise for driving that stake into the heart of those devious little devices. And we received one note that suggested we were wrong in our broad-reaching conclusion. Now who would offer that opinion? One of those fly-by-night "LED lightbulb" producers offering their "cluster bombs" to unsuspecting "green" consumers?
Well, the opinion was provided by none other than the distinguished Dr. Daniel Doxsee, General Manager, Nichia America (his title now better reflecting the responsibilities he's had for many years as "senior sales manager" in the lower key Japanese system of titles). It turns out that recognizing that there were plenty of non-capable 3mm and 5mm packaged devices out there, Nichia set out a while ago to build lighting-capable versions, and succeeded with their DS series. I had missed this, Bob had missed this, and it looks like a good chunk of the industry missed this. Since mid-2007 Nichia has offered a line of 3mm and 5mm packaged white and color LEDs that incorporate proprietary resin and other design features that get the heat out, stand up to the heat that's left, and last 40,000 hours at rated drive currents (or longer if you drive them more gently). Oh my. Soooo.... once again, we can't judge the book by its cover so to speak. Just as all LED luminaires or conventional power-LEDs are not created equal, neither are those proliferate dome-shaped small packaged chips. An illustratory slide is here, a lifetime curve is here and the specs for the product families are here and here (the first two PDFs may spur your Acrobat reader to install Japanese fonts... it's quick and easy). If a luminaire you're considering has 3mm or 5mm chips in it, approach with caution, but don't rule it out. If they selected Nichia devices, the manufacturer should be happy to share reassuring data with you.
Now back to the Luminus-Nichia story... It's actually not a very complicated story, but it may be one of the bigger developments in the LED and solid state lighting industries we'll see for this year. We already know that Nichia is one of the LED companies that knows what it's doing, most notably with its strong reputation for very consistent and efficient white LEDs. If you've followed the news here, or on LIGHTimes, our more supply-chain oriented news site, you will have seen news and commentary on Luminus Devices, mostly regarding their Phlatlight large photonic lattice vertical LEDs being applied as the light engines in DLP projection TVs, and most recently in the new generation of "pocket projectors". Up until recently, their story hasn't been about efficiency as much as it has been about putting out more, better or longer lasting light on the same or lower energy budget. Besides the better color and seemingly infinite lifetime of the projection TV product, they found other niches such as medical applications, where there was a benefit to great color rendering without heat in the beam (think "colonoscopy" and you can imagine the benefit).
On Feb. 2 Luminus and Nichia announced they had entered a cross licensing and manufacturing partnership (ref. coverage), as well as marketing agreements that taken all together, appear to define a very comprehensive relationship. What we would expect to see resulting from that would be some new products for both companies that reflect the obvious synergies. As Udi Meirav, Luminus CEO, commented to us, "Nichia is a fully accomplished partner that is good at every part of the LED equation. This partnership opens new ground as it enables both companies to pursue high-efficiency white LED applications with large monolithic chips." We didn't need to wait long to see an example of this synergy. On Feb. 17, Luminus announced its SST-90 packaged white LED (ref coverage), which delivers 1000 lumens while consuming only 10 watts at its nominal drive current. 100 lm/watt for a cool white LED is state-of-the-art from a handful of high quality LED producers. 1000 lumens from a single chip, while being driven at nominal levels, is new ground. And if the application calls for more brightness at the expense of some efficiency, a single SST-90 can deliver up to 2250 lumens at its maximum rated drive current. That's a unique capability that comes from a truly large chip (and at 9 square-millimeters, it really is large) that has lots of surface area from which to dissipate that normally component-killing heat.
A big, bright, reliable packaged LED opens up some very interesting applications spaces, most notably the high-bay lighting which is currently served by HID lamps putting out 20,000 lumens. Throwing 200 100-lumen LEDs at the application creates a significant packaging, price and engineering challenge. Throwing 10-20 of this kind of large chip at it creates a substantially more viable product scenario. Will the big chip solution be reliable? Based on Luminus' experience in the projection TV environment, the answer is yes. In those arenas, the original Luminus designs have been running for 2+ years at something around 2.5A/sq-mm with no LED failures. (2.5A/sq-mm is a bit over twice the nominal drive current of this new chip, and there is a very direct relationship in LEDs that extends the lifetime the more gently you drive them). While we haven't heard any announcements regarding new products from Nichia yet, keep an eye out later this year for the first new products based on the large chip platforms. The "tens-of-kilo-lumen" applications are now available!
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