... With the sale of its electronic materials and device division (EMD) to IQE, Emcore Corporation will have officially ended its surprisingly long reign as one of the most powerful vertically integrated companies in the compound semi (CS) and solid state lighting (SSL) industries. Since its inception in 1984 as... Read the editorial...
(if it resists... go here)
The
2010 Summit Series is ready to succeed... are you?
After the successful 2008 launch and 2009 continuation of the
Solid State Lighting Design Summit in
New Jersey, the feedback was consistent: Just what we needed, do it again soon.
The Summit brings together lighting decisin makers with industry thought leaders,
pioneers, and innovators from the across the solid state lighting eco-system.
Read the 2009 conference report...
Following
or changes in 2009, 2010 will continue to be all about quality, quality, quality.Showcase participants and sponsors are vetted to separate
the wheat from the chaff (have your IES LM-79 test reports ready!).
With revised dates for LA, the 2010 Summit has expanded to 3 venues, including
LA/Long Beach lined up for January, Mar/April for Taiwan and October for NY/NJ.
Look into the series information at www.SSLsummit.com
for the details. Sponsorships are available for the full series or just the US
events.
Future Lighting Solutions Launches LED Resource Center for Luxeon-based Product Design LIGHTimes Staff
August 1, 2006...Future Lighting Solutions of Montreal, Canada has officially launched the first
of two LED Lighting Resource Centers (not to be confused with RPI's Lighting Research
Center in the USA, also abbreviated LRC) for developing products based on Philips Lumileds’
Luxeon LEDs. The first of the LRCs in Montreal, will serve North and South America.
The second of the LRCs will be in Shenzhen, China, and it will serve the Asia/Pacific
region and Japan. Each LRC will have two laboratories, a Luxeon Retrofit Lab
and a Light Measurement Lab. Future Lighting says it plans to use the Luxeon
Retrofit lab for proof of concept development and technology validation. The
Light Measurement Lab will be used for product measurement.
LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Research and Markets Pubishes Automotive HB LED Report LIGHTimes Staff
August 1, 2006...The Dublin, Ireland-based company, Research and Markets,
has published a new report analyzing and predicting the market for HB LEDs
in cars. According to the company, gallium nitride (GaN) LEDs will become more
efficient than fluorescents in 2007. At that time the production and sale of
LEDs for automotive applications will take off. The report points out that LEDs
offer numerous advantages for automotive applications including: longer lifetime,
improved reliability, improved design flexibility, and lower power consumption.
Additionally LED lights can be turned on up to 250 milliseconds faster than
bulbs. In the case of LED stop tail lights, this translates to sooner awareness
of other drivers and up to 7 meters more braking distance.
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Avago Releases Line of White Surface Mountable LEDs
August 1, 2006...Avago Technologies, a compound semiconductor company and LED manufacturer,
has introduced a line of miniature surface mount LEDs primarily suited for automotive
and electronic sign applications. According to Avago, the ASMT-SWBM can be used
in automotive interior lighting applications such as backlighting for interior
instrument panels, HVAC and switches. The company says that LEDs are equally
suitable for use in decorative lighting, shelf lighting and messaging signs,
as well as for office and industrial equipment, home appliances and indoor mood
lighting applications.
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LED Surgical Light Comes to USA Scott McMahan
August 1, 2006...Trumpf Medical Systems, Inc. has announced that the United States Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) will allow its iLED surgical light to be marketed
and sold in the USA. According to the company, surgeons and their patients will immediately
begin benefiting from the advantages of the LED surgical light over any other
surgical light system.
The specialized light utilizes 184 white and color LEDs, to provide an impressive
160,000 Lux of low heat illumination. One of the most innovative features of
the light is that it provides virtually shadow free illumination from all angles.
This is especially useful in surgery where see inside the human body is critical.
Each of the 184 LEDs has its own convergent lens. These combine to form a very
homogenous, and shadow-free light. Previous surgical lights (primarily halogen)
could not have lenses like these without making the surgeons and the patients
more uncomfortable from the heat.
LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
August 1, 2006...Radiant Imaging of Duvall, Washington USA, has come out with a new LED test
and measurement device. According to the company, the IS-LI can acquire the
luminous intensity (brightness as a function of angle) data in seconds, or less
over an entire 2 steradian in a single measurement. Another important feature
of the device is its ability to measure color variations as they relate to emission
angles. Previously this had to be done using goniometric tools. The company
says that the IS-LI has no moving parts and is faster and more economical than
conventional measurement methods. It comes in 10-, 12-, 14-, and 16-bit dynamic
range models. Company
News Release
July 29, 2006...A German company, Steuler Design, has introduced a line of LED-illuminated wall
and floor tiles. According to the company, the wall and floor tiles have a centrally
located LED module that is flush to the tile’s surface. This light is
the perfect accessory for those late night trips to the bathroom. The LED tiles
can also be utilized in safety areas for edges of stairs and stumbling points,
and pathways. The wall tiles come in white and are available as matt, shine
or textured tiles in a 30 x 40 cm size. A large format wall tile, 40 x 70 cm,
is available featuring either one or three centrally located light modules. The LED floor tiles are 40 x 40 cm, in white, grey, cement, and espresso colors.
LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
July 28, 2006...H.C. Starck of Newton, Massachusetts USA, has developed a number of thermal
management components for high brightness (HB) LEDs and laser diodes. The thermal
management products include MoCu composites, Cu/Mo/Cu laminates, and plated
Mo-flat products. The company says that the reliability of semiconductor products
can be improved tremendously by maximizing thermal conductivity of the heat
dissipating components. At the same time the heat dissipation components need
to have the same coefficient of thermal expansion as to those of the LED or
laser diode. Starck says that it has devised a range of specialty coatings with
Ni, Au, Ag, Ru, and Pt. These will be available for solder-wetting, etch-resistance,
protective layers, and electrical contacts. The company says it is also developing
products to combat excessive heat dissipation from localized hot spots, and
products to provide additional heat dissipation through the thickness of a material.
H.C. Starck
News Release
Lighting Science Group Helps Finances Merrill Lynch Project; Products on Display in Showroom LIGHTimes Staff
July 28, 2006...Melcher Enterprises of Henderson, Nevada USA, reports entering into an agreement
with Lighting Science Group of Dallas, Texas USA to distribute LSG’s LED
lighting fixtures. Melcher Enterprises has opened a showroom in Las Vegas, Nevada
to display LSG’s products based on Lighting Science’s Optimized
Digital Lighting technology. The showroom also features the new Low Bay lighting
fixture, R-30 floodlight, an MR-16 Fixture, and other LSG LED products.
"There is a huge number of high volume lighting customers in Nevada
that are in great need of these energy saving, long life lighting products.
Hotels, casinos, and many other commercial, entertainment and construction customers
are extremely interested in these solutions and their impact on the bottom line.
We foresee a great alliance with Lighting Science," said Gordon Melcher,
President of Melcher Enterprises. LSG
News Release.
Lighting Science Group also announced that Merrill Lynch is to be the first
company to take advantage of the LSG’s shared savings program to install
Optimized Digital Lighting (ODL) Low Bay lighting fixtures at one of Merrill
Lynch’s garages at its Pennington, New Jersey facility.
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by the LIGHTimes staff writers.
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Commentary & Perspective...
End of One Era; Start of the Next
July 25, 2006...With the sale of its electronic materials and device division (EMD) to IQE,
Emcore Corporation will have officially ended its surprisingly long reign as
one of the most powerful vertically integrated companies in the compound semi
(CS) and solid state lighting (SSL) industries. Since its inception in 1984
as a pioneering manufacturer of MOCVD platforms and spinout of Bell Labs, Emcore
helped strengthen an amazing number of careers for many who now read these pages.
Emcore continues to hold its 49% interest in GELcore with GE and therefore
maintains a vested interest and presence in the SSL industry. Emcore also continues with its GaAs-based
photovoltaic division which will help drive the terrestrial solar market
toward higher efficiency cells such as those used in space applications. The
sale of its epiwafer and device foundry marks the end of an era. After 20 years
of strong sales and power plays, the most exciting product Emcore contributed
to the CS and SSL industries was its people. The ex-Emcore club remains a tight-knit
group. I know. I'm one of them. I spent a small but colorful handful of my 30
years in this field inside Emcore as their director of corporate communications,
a time when many firsts occurred. Those are now being looked at as "the good
old days", primarily because so many good people were able to work together helping
pioneer the CS and SSL industries.
Emcore remains strong and strongly committed to the compounds. As the current
COO, Scott Massie stated,
the company strategy now is focused on broadband infrastructure, solar power
and highly integrated products. As the broadband market revitalizes itself,
and as multijunction solar catches on in terrestrial markets as it has in space,
and as solid state lighting becomes a priority for GE, Emcore will likely be
there. And if any one of those markets really takes off, Emcore has the
others in reserve in case those puppies, like TurboDisc and EMD
(aka "E2M") before them, need to go to new homes.
Like American pioneers, Emcore has gradually moved west. Corporate headquarters
have always been in Somerset, New Jersey in the neighborhood of Bell Labs, but
more and more of its operations have been based in New Mexico and California.
Top management including VP finance Tom Werthan and CTO Rick Stall remain based
in New Jersey, and president/CEO Reuben Richards is based in California, with
strong ties to Jersey. Will corporate headquarters move west? That's often been
speculated. TurboDisc, under Veeco is still housed in its original Somerset
quarters, the spinout GaN power device operation, Velox, under Tom Hierl is
still there (ref: May
6, 2005 news), and now IQE will run EMD out of Somerset as well. So
on the surface, little has changed. But beneath that, a tremendous amount has
changed since those "good old days."
Some key people that came out of Emcore are now the heads of some of the most
important shaker/mover companies in the CS and SSL fields. Bill Kroll, for example,
is now the president/CEO and chairman of Matheson Tri-Gas. As Emcore's executive
VP during the boom time, "Kroll" (who literally knows everybody
in the CS business) was key in creating GELcore, and it was Kroll who created
Emcore's legendary tagline "integrated compound semiconductor solutions".
When we awarded him the proverbial gold watch upon retirement from Emcore in
2000, it was inscribed "Mission Accomplished". That pretty well summed
up Emcore's influential posture.
Robert (Bob) Walker, who was the head of marketing and my designated "boss"
when I began consulting to Emcore in 1996 went on to become a major Asian market
expert in the high brightness LED field. Bob is now president and CEO of BridgeLux
and continues to co-chair our annual Blue/SSL Suppliers Forum in Taiwan. A surprising
number of ex-Emcoreans are at BridgeLux. The list of ex-Emcore people who are now pushing for that next great boom in the CS and SSL industries is long and strong. Steve Smith, who once directed Emcore's
epiwafer foundry is now a patent attorney at SimmonsCooper in East Alton, Illinois.
Larry Wagner and Craig Farley both had good runs putting Emcore's epiwafers
on the map. The ex-Emcorean has many standouts such as
ace CS/SSL market expert Alan Thompson staying in the limelight after retiring
from Emcore. Alan has done an outstanding job as our conference coordinator
for Blue/SSLS event.
When I semi-retired last year and decided that since I was now only a commentator
and no longer a day-to-day trade press news journalist, I started the CS/SSL
experimental stock
portfolio. It's a meager collection (which is all I can afford to gamble)
solely for the purpose of measuring a pulsebeat of the industries we champion
in these pages. It's also fun to see how they're doing (which isn't all that
great right now) but interesting nonetheless. The very first stock I purchased
was Emcore's, which trades as EMKR on the Nasdaq exchange. Emcore went public
the year prior to my going inside Emcore and opened at about $10/share as I
recall. Prior to it going public, Norm Schumaker, the original co-founder of
Emcore, tried to recruit me to go inside. It wasn't until a year later that
I was willing to "rent my soul" and put my journalistic credentials
on the shelf to do so. A year or so later, Bill Kroll tried again, and I said
yes, mainly because the gig meant that I could promote Norm as the guru of the
industry he helped create. Little did I know then that Norm would retire and
that Emcore would grow into a full service company and become as diversified
as it eventually did, under Reuben Richard's command.
Emcore stock soared at one point during the boom to $150/share and now it's
trading below its original entry price. A lot of smart people cashed in when
it reached its peak and with the proceeds and were able to fulfill lifetime dreams on the windfall. Norm Schumaker and his
lovely wife retired from Emcore and moved to Austin, Texas. Norm went on to
found Molecular Imprints, from which he also recently retired. Norm continues
to serve as a catalyst and backer of entrepreneurs and is slated as a speaker
at the University of Texas' 2006
Ready to Commercialize conference October 12th in Dallas.
Life goes on and for many, it's not so much the end of an era as it is the start of another, that may prove eventually to be even more robust than the chapter we're closing. Many, many of us will personally
remember the good old days with warm fuzzy feelings and toast the legions of great people
and who have spun out of Emcore and those still inside who continue the mission
of waking up the world to the prospects of truly tremendous compound semi and
solid state lighting technology.
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
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