Visual Technology

LED technology. Event Horizon.2010.

Posted on January 18th, 2010 by Marcela.
Categories: new, Products, Technology, dlp, l c d, lcos, useful technology, education, corporative, events, media, Home Theatre.

Event horizon

In his annual round-up, Dr Geoff Archenhold looks back at a momentous year of developments in LED technology and suggests that this is the dawn of a new era.

The lighting community finds itself in interesting times lumbered with the challenges of the economic credit crunch on the one hand and the disruptive change that LED technology is forcing upon established lighting manufacturers on the other. Over the last few years I have listened to many statements from all parts of the lighting supply chain stating that LED technology is not yet mature enough to be considered as a mainstream lighting technology. However during 2009 the numbers of LED doubters have dwindled significantly which proves one thing - 2009 was the year that LED technology was adopted as the future lighting technology for the global lighting industry - it was an event horizon!

Figure : The high performance Cool, Neutral and Warm White LED array from Bridgelux

It is clear that 2009 has been a year of significant change for the lighting industry with many of the major lighting brands producing financial results to send shivers down the spine of most analysts.

1 2 3

Figure 1: The Xicato module based on remote phosphor technology

Figure 2: Cree’s online Product Characterization Tool

Figure 3: The Sharp Zenigata 6.7W LED array

However the economic crisis has offered significant opportunities with large numbers of smaller companies focusing specifically on LED technology. These companies have taken advantage of the technology disruption and brought highly innovative solutions to end-users. I believe many of the smaller and more innovative lighting companies will develop the skills and understanding of the new technologies faster than traditional brands and the market will see competition that makes for an exciting time for end-users and the lighting market in general. Competition means both lower prices and higher innovation.

There are several reasons why LED lighting have become more readily accepted:
• Consumers are aware of the climate change issues with significant weather events that were supposed to happen once in a 1000 years happening within decades.
• Energy prices are high and set to go much higher so return on investment is key on customer priorities.
• LED performance has significantly improved in both efficiency and colour quality making them the light source of choice.
• LED fixtures are digital and the integration of controls is straightforward compared to traditional light sources.
• Standards for LEDs are now in place.
• The cost of LED emitters have dropped significantly during 2009 making LED fixtures more affordable.
• There is a greater choice of LED manufacturers and LED component suppliers.

others LED projects:

What to expect in 2010.

Steve Landau, Philips Lumileds suggests the following:

• Power LED products are still not generic and what’s true for one product is not necessarily true for those from other manufacturers. This means that there’s significant due dilligence that must be done by the engineers to understand how each product will perform in an application before making an LED selection. The LED manufacturers must continue to provide more, better information that allows this work to be done as easily and quickly as possible. Without that effort and understanding of the differences, it’s likely that some will make the wrong choice and the impact on their business success and customer perception could be impacted.

• Understanding system reliability will take centre stage. Without truly understanding system reliability, warranty, TCO and payback, assessments cannot be accurately calculated. System reliability does not equal lumen maintenance of the LED. It is actually a calculation that considers the following elements: electrical, connections, LEDs, optical, thermal, and mechanical. Strongly related to this is the notion that LEDs don’t fail. They do, as do all electronic components. In LED solutions, the typical approach is to use an array of LEDs. Understanding the lumen maintenance and catastrophic failure probabilities will become critical. Lastly, a clear understanding of these metrics allows systems to be optimised.

• From a product perspective we expect to see significant expansion of the product offerings available to the illumination markets where light output, CRI, and CCT are more finely defined, binning continues to improve and shrink and colour uniformity and quality get significantly better.

Conclusions
2009 has been a stunning year for Solid-State Lighting that has witnessed LED technology leapfrog CFL lighting in terms of performance and LED driver technology become even more sophisticated and flexible. LEDs have again increased the performance bar with a record 249 lumens per watt efficiency in the Nichia laboratories and CREE achieving over 132 lumens per watt for production LEDs.

2010 will be a significant growth year for LED lighting manufacturers, despite the economy, and we will see a major proportion of traditional lighting companies begin to adopt LED technologies as consumers decide to move to a greener lighting solution.

Next year will see a whole raft of colour tuneable white light products launched on the market enabling users to command the lighting environment. The use of LED technology will also see the incorporation of intelligent controls within fixture designs without significant cost surplus making the energy efficient gap between traditional light sources and LED based products extend significantly.

Of course, LED emitter technology will continue to be enhanced but this is now a secondary concern as focus shifts to high CRI LED products and lower cost systems.

Geoff Archenhold is an adviser to the UK Government on LED technology and helps LED companies raise investment from the finance community. He is an investor in an LED driver company and an LED fixture company, a Lighting Energy Consultancy and euroLEDs Events LLP.

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