 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||
Marl International Gets Contract to Supply LED Downlights to Amtrak |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
We're
giving away a Sony Video MP3 player... Sign up for, or renew,
a LIGHTimes SecondPage membership here in January and you will be
automatically entered!
|
||
Epistar Added to List of LED Makers to Settle with Rothschild
LiGHTimes Staff
May 8, 2008...Sidley Austin LLP, the law firm representing Professor Gertrude Neumark Rothschild in her case against numerous companies for patent infringement, announced Rothschild has settled her patent infringement claims against Epistar Corporation of Taiwan. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Professor Neumark had previously settled patent infringement claims against Toyoda Gosei, a Japanese entity, Osram, a German corporation, and against Philips Lumileds this past May for an undisclosed terms. LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Future Lighting Solutions and NEC Electronics America Introduce Intelligent Constant High-Current Driver with Microcontroller
LIGHTimes Staff
May 8, 2008...Future Lighting Solutions (FLS), a division of Future Electronics and a Philips Lumileds Certified Partner based in Santa Clara, California USA, introduced what it claims is the first intelligent constant High-Current Driver (HCD) with microcontroller (MCU). The company says that its new HCD/LED MCU can be used to drive multiple LEDs. Additionally, the company notes that the device can be utilized in applications such as stepping motors, solenoid drives, and switch-mode power supplies. FLS says that the new device combines an NEC Electronics’ 8-bit All Flash microcontroller with a four-channel, economical and small footprint HCD that helps reduce system costs by allowing a smaller number of external components. LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Acuity Brands Enters Strategic Alliance with Lighting Science Group to Accelerate the Development and Marketing of LED Products
SSLDesign News Staff
May 8, 2008...Acuity Brands Lighting, Inc. (ABL) , a holly-owned subsidiary Acuity Brands of Atlanta, Georgia USA has entered into a strategic alliance with Lighting Science Group Corporation (LSG) to develop and launch LED-based lighting products. ABL will add the products to its established portfolio which includes: Lithonia Lighting, Holophane, Hydrel, and Gotham. ABL announced that it will jointly develop the selected new LED-based lighting products with LSG for architectural, commercial, industrial, and public infrastructure use. ABL says that the alliance will leverage its channel strength, product innovation, delivery capabilities, and brand recognition in combination with LSG’s LED technology know-how, speed of innovation, and rapid design capabilities. LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Philips Lumileds Opens Doors to Luxeon Data and Models Online
SSLDesign News Staff
May 8, 2008...While several companies such as Cree, and Osram have made a wide variety of online resources available for customers and potential customers to develop LED products, Philips Lumileds (maker of Luxeon LEDs) has taken it a step further. Philips Lumileds is now offering a wide variety of files that can be downloaded and used by engineers to more easily design LED products using their solutions. The company points out that users can download optical, mechanical and electrical models for LUXEON LEDs that can be used in designers’ software applications to reduce development time, speed time to market, and deliver the best possible solutions and products. LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Avago Introduces Autofocus LED for Cameras and Camera Phones
LIGHTimes Staff
May 6, 2008...Avago Technologies, based in San Jose, California USA, announced a miniature autofocus LED for use in digital still cameras and camera phones. Avago boasts that the ASMT-FJ30 autofocus LED can fit on the head of a pencil eraser. The company says that the device is ideal for auxillary autofocus flash in camera applications requiring long distance illumination and a narrow radiation pattern. LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Global Sources Report Says Greater China's LED Lighting Manufacturers Predict Export Boom
LIGHTimes Staff
May 6, 2008...Global Sources of Hong Kong has published its China Sourcing Report for LED Light Fixtures. According to the report 81 percent of Greater China LED light fixture suppliers surveyed predict strong export growth of 10 percent or more in the next 12 months. The primary reason cited by the companies for the strong growth is a wider range of LED-based general lighting applications. ''The use of LEDs in functional everyday lighting is moving into the mainstream, especially in developed markets. This, in turn, is fueling product development, with Greater China manufacturers seeking to gain an edge through improved performance and application flexibility,'' said the Report's publisher Spenser Au. LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Our news features are reported
by the LIGHTimes staff writers.
For submissions or content suggestions, you can contact us using
editor -at - sslighting.net
For more information and to reserve promotion space contact
Info8 -at - sslighting.net
or call +1 (512) 257-9888
|
LED Lightbulbs: Success at $99, $50, $25 and $15
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
May 1, 2008...One assumes that I'm not the only one in the world to receive the "interesting" LED and solid state lighting spam showing me the latest and greatest "incandescent replacements". We get the company-generated press releases here, as well, and hopefully succeed at getting them vetted, put in a little perspective and reporteed to you in a timely manner. A recent one that was very "eco-oriented" caught my attention as representing an approach to market to the consumers rather than "the lighting industry", and while giving it some thought, I concluded that it represented "a phase" that the solid state lighting industry is currently in.
As we dug into the details, some of the claims are a bit of a stretch when offered without data to back it up. That doesn't mean they weren't true, but in consumer-oriented marketing, the impression is what counts, not the facts or qualifiers . A 50,000 hour lifetime matches the 70% lumen maintenance claim of popular packaged LEDs, but how do you get "the system" to that level? "Light output comparable to a 100-watt incandescent," it says, but are those inferred 1000 lumens distributed with the same spread as a 100W A-19 globe? 13W to get that "comparable output"? 77 lumens/watt would be an amazing luminaire efficiency with this year's technology. Can we assume that the quality of the light is comparable for warmth or color rendering? (Highly doubtful). "Under $6 a year to run". If it's expensive electricity, we could estimate it at $0.15 per kWh. That's a run time of 3077 hours out of the 8760 available each year. Pretty heavy use, and an important part of the economic case since the 13W vs 100W savings is about $.013 (1.3 cents) per running hour. We'd be giving residential lighting the benefit of the doubt to average 5 hours a night every night, which is about 1800 hours, or an annual savings of about $24. $99 bulb, 4 year payback for a heavy usage, all else being equal (meaning that it's truly "comparable" in output and quality and stays that way for at least those 7200 hours). But consumers don't ask those questions, and it will be simply, "Is the light quality as good and bright?" and if it doesn't die in 4 or 5 years, they'll assume that things worked out in their favor.
That led to giving some thought to the "phases" we might expect to see as LED lighting begins its inevitable march to total lighting market domination. The first, which I would contend we're in now, is that of a guilt-driven eco-fad. Eeek, we're "using more energy than we should", producing "CO2 pollution" as a recent press conference announcement phrased it (one assumes that fish, land animals, humans and non-photosynthetic life forms are all "pollution" generators as well). Guilt is a perfectly valid market force, and hopefully one that is directed at issues that have an underlying content concerning good stewardship of resources, whatever they may be. The "Don't Mess With Texas" anti-litter campaign comes to mind and before that, Woodsey Owl chanting, "Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute". In the case of LEDs and hybrid cars, as an illustrating example, the guilt is most effectively marketed to the more affluent because the technology may not yet be cost-effective in the standard economic sense. The earliest hybrid cars were premium priced and not reaching a fuel cost-savings payback quick enough to beat the expense of replacing the battery packs. While improving, I suspect it's still not the case. Low inflation-adjusted energy prices through the 80s and 90s encouraged a trend towards big, comfortable vehicles with only modest efficiency improvements. Higher gas prices will encourage the hybrid and other fuel efficient vehicle technology development. In the same way, rising energy generation and delivery costs will continue to fuel a trend toward efficiency in a lot of sectors, lighting included.
So much as it was with those first hybrid, this early phase of residential LED lighting, with $99 "bulbs" would seem to be about being "eco-friendlier" with less concern given to any economic reality. We also see a bit of "trendy high end" getting into the mix, since LEDs do have the capability to simply make better light. It goes where it's pointed, can fit where traditional sources can't, and you can control the colors (either in the design, or as part of the installed system). That's cool, it looks great, and it's not cheap. If I can afford it, do I need to justify the $50,000 home theatre in my mansion, or is it merely that I could afford it and I enjoy it? (I don't have either the theatre or mansion, but who's sweating those details).
So what happens when we get to the $50 bulb or the analogous corresponding fixture prices at $100 or $150, (numbers chosen somewhat randomly)? My expectation is the we enter the "economic case" phase. That's the point that we'll see the marketing department take pencil to paper and show real light outputs and quality, representative energy costs, realistic replacement price comparisons, and so forth. Note that "real" and "representative" start to come into play. The LED producers have really done a good job over the last year or so of applying that mentality to fully disclose lifetime variances with temperature or lumen efficiency variances with input power because the results are good enough to make an LED the best light source for a number of applications. At $50 for "the bulb" the analytical buyers, including commercial building owners, will "see the light" and it won't just be a trendy, but a trend that makes sense. At $25, my prediction is that we'll see more of the same, but with the sale being "easy". Lots of word of mouth will be kicking in, and phrases like, "the case made sense at $50, but at $25, it's a no-brainer".
Somewhere below $20 is where the real fun will begin. I don't know if it's $19.95, $14.95 or $12.95, but somewhere in there we'll see mainstream, residential adoption kick in big time. We tend to talk about the 25-cent common 60-watt bulb and forget that people are happily paying $3-$5 for an individual CFL, and in some cases like PAR- or R-38 flood or spot lights, that much or more for a good looking or robust incandescent. The apples-to-apples case will be easy to make on the side of a box. "Averaging 3 hours per night for 3 nights a week, this bulb/fixture will pay for itself in just 2 years, but will last 20". "The last bulb you'll ever need" might be a hot tag line for the baby boomers (hope it lasts 30 years, and that you do too!). By that time, the solid state lighting industry will have word of mouth momentum on its side, and enough volume of positive economic case stories from the previous phase to drown out most of the negative experiences that took place in our current trendy phase. Assuming we keep that spam to a minimum...
If you have questions about
the solid state lighting and compound semiconductor industries or
have
news or views to share, we want to hear from you! Feel free to contact
us anytime.
The main office line is +1
(512) 257-9888
Current SecondPage members may access extended content by logging in here
or Sign up for a LIGHTimes SecondPage membership now
Copyright 2001-2008 by CompoundSemi Online Inc.
Some content under license from Veriphos Communications LLC