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iSuppli Predicts Use of LED-Backlit TVs to Explode
LIGHTimes News Staff
June 18, 2009...iSuppli predicts that as prices of LCD TV panels using LED backlights fall in the coming years, their use in TVs is set to explode.
iSuppli forecasts that the shipments of LCD TV panels with LED backlighting will rise to 90 million units in 2013, up from just 438,000 LED TV panels in 2008.
This is roughly a 20 fold increase in just five years. Likewise, the company estimates that the proportion of LED backlight technology in LCD TV panels will increase to 39 percent in 2013, up from 3 percent in 2009, or about a 13 fold increase.
"The price gap between LEDs and the CCFLs traditionally used for LCD backlighting has narrowed due to the higher yield rate of LEDs, as well as the oversupply that resulted in a drastic price reduction for LEDs in the second half of 2008," said Sweta Dash, senior director, LCD research at iSuppli. "And with the advent of green technology, power savings and thinner form factors, more branded manufacturers are looking at LED-backlit LCD TVs in 2009. These factors are spurring brand-name television manufacturers to adopt LED backlighting."
iSuppli points to the renewed interest in LED backlighting with white LEDs. The company says that LED-backlit LCD TV manufacturers are now focusing on thinner form factors and lower power consumption with edge-type LED backlight solutions. According to the company, this has replaced the previous focus of the industry on color gamut, picture quality, and high-end RGB solutions.
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Cree Introduces Water Resistant Tri-Color LED for Full-Color Displays
LIGHTimes News Staff
June 18, 2009...Cree of Durham, North Carolina USA, has announced what it claims is the first water-resistant, surface-mount, high-brightness LEDs for outdoor video screens. This RGB (red-green-blue) LED has an IPx5 rating, indicating that the LED is protected against low-pressure jets of water from all directions.
“We’ve developed a water-resistant, red-green-blue LED that can be used in indoor and outdoor video screen applications,” said Paul Thieken, Cree director of marketing, LED components. “Previously, LEDs had to be encapsulated to protect them from water. By incorporating encapsulation at the LED level, we can help our customers save time and money.”
“Displ’aire, working with Cree, is changing the rules for LED displays,” said Leo Stearns, Displ’aire’s CEO. “Cree’s involvement started with us early in our development cycle, and they provided the support we needed to rapidly deploy our new technologies. Displ’aire portable, daylight-visible displays and the new water-resistant Cree LEDs are a perfect technology match for creating brighter, more efficient displays that can better stand up to the elements.”
The ScreenMaster CLV6A-FKB has a black face for improved contrast in full-color video screens, decorative lighting, and amusement applications. It features what the company says is a unique encapsulation resin with UV-inhibitors that minimize the effects of long-term exposure to direct sunlight thereby improving the stability of the light-output over the life of the LED. It also offers a matched horizontal radiation pattern that enhances color mixing and pixel-to-pixel color consistency.
The CLV6A-FKB is commercially available now, and samples can be requested through a Cree representative. Cree News Release
Luminus' PhlatLight LEDs in Pocket Projector from BenQ and DLP Data Projector from Coretronic
LIGHTimes News Staff
June 18, 2009...The new Joybee Pocket Projector from BenQ features PhlatLight LEDs from Luminus Devices.
Also, Coretronic has come out with a DLP data projector powered by PhlatLight LEDs and Texas Instruments' DLP technology.
Luminus' PT-39 PhlatLight LED chipset powers the Joybee Pocket Projector. Luminus contends that the brightness and performance of its PhlatLight LEDs make Joybee an ideal mobile entertainment companion for instant projection anywhere. Luminus is reportedly demonstrating the new BenQ Joybee mini projector, June 17-19 at the InfoComm Conference 2009 in Orlando, Florida. Luminus Devices News Release,
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Traxon Technologies/e:cue Joins OSRAM-Philips Cross License Program
LIGHTimes News Staff
June 16, 2009...Traxon Techonologies, an Osram subsidiary has joined the Osram/Philips Cross License Program.
Traxon Technologies via e:cue, its controls company, offers a full turnkey suite of DMX hardware and software solutions, programming, and project management.
The cross licensing program is an agreement recently concluded between Osram GmBh and Philips (Royal Philips Electronics), which mutually licenses all of the patents for inorganic and organic LEDs and system components.
Traxon says that all of its fixtures include key components that are individually designed by Traxon/e:cue or Osram Group companies, and therefore are protected under the the cross-license agreement. Traxon News Release,
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Luminus Devices Reports Changes in Management
LIGHTimes News Staff
June 16, 2009...Luminus Devices Inc., the manufacturer of award-winning PhlatLight LEDs based in Woburn, Massachusetts USA, reports that that Peter Weller has joined the company as general manager of the Lighting Business. Additionally, the company named Doug Lawson, general manager of its Ultraviolet Business.
Luminus says that Weller, a lighting industry veteran, will lead and manage the strategic business unit in applications, engineering, product development, operations, finance, marketing, and sales.
“Peter brings a strong track record of success in the general lighting industry in both domestic and global markets,” said Keith T. S. Ward, president and CEO, Luminus Devices. “He will play a critical role as Luminus continues to broaden its reach in the general lighting space with our big chip, high-performance PhlatLight LEDs."
Weller joins Luminus from TCP, Inc. where he was Division and General Manager of the ecoVation brand of compact fluorescent products. Before that Weller held a variety of senior management positions at H.E. Williams, Inc., Venture Lighting International and OSRAM Sylvania, Inc.
“Luminus is changing the way the general lighting market thinks about solid state lighting through PhlatLight LEDs,” said Weller. “I look forward to expanding Luminus’ reach into general lighting with our OEMs and distributors, customers, partners and the Luminus team as we deliver long life, high-brightness LEDs to the market and enable new fixture designs for new and existing lighting applications.”
Company News Release.
Luminus reports that as manager of the UV Business, Lawson will be responsible for for developing new products to bring PhlatLight LEDs to the ultraviolet (UV) curing market for applications such as hardening paints, adhesives, varnishes, printing inks, and a wide variety of polymer systems.
“I am delighted to welcome Doug to the Luminus team,” said Ward. “This is an exciting time for Luminus to penetrate the UV equipment market with PhlatLight LEDs. I am excited about Doug’s unique and diverse background and he will be an invaluable asset to drive our diversified overall growth strategy and vision in this effort,” added Ward.
Prior to joining Luminus Devices, Lawson was Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at BTU International, where he was responsible for the development and growth of the solar energy business. Before this, Lawson headed up SD Lawson and Associates, a strategic consulting firm focused on product, market and business development strategies for technology companies.
“This is an exciting time to join Luminus Devices as the company enters its next stage of growth and I look forward to building momentum in the UV curing market,” said Lawson. “The UV lighting market will contribute greatly to the company’s overall growth strategy.” Company News Release
New Mexico Department of Transportation to Replace Incandescent Lighting with LEDs through Stimulus Funding
LIGHTimes News Staff
June 16, 2009...The New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) signed a contract with the state's Department of Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources (DOEMNR) to retrofit the traffic signals at 350 intersections throughout the state with LEDs. The DOEMNR reportedly received a $5 million grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The traffic signals will be retrofitted around the state, but the project does not include: Albuquerque and the cities of Las Vegas, Alamogordo, and Gallup, which responsible for their own installation from previous grant funding. The NMDOT maintains some 460 signalized intersections throughout the state. To date, the Department has assisted in 160 retrofits including state and local signalized intersections. LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
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When it comes to LEDs, Korea wants it and Taiwan gets it
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
June 18, 2009...After a whirlwind 6 weeks that included Light Fair in New York, and trips to both Korea for their annual LED Expo, and Taiwan for our own Blue 2009, it's fair to say that the solid state lighting revolution is underway, but in different ways in different places. We'll all grant that the "brass ring" that everyone on the LED merry-go-round is grabbing for is the general lighting market, but the volume is being driven by other applications, and in visibly different ways in the US, Korea and Taiwan.
In Korea, the LED expo is held concurrently with the flat panel display expo, and that pretty much tells the story of what's driving things there. The big guys in FPDs, LG and Samsung, have taken the downturn as a market-share buying opportunity, both to move their product lines rapidly towards LED-based backlighting as well as to build out LED manufacturing capacity of their own. Backlighting has been a consistent winner in market performance the last few years, driven by marked increases in sales of LED-enabled mobile appliances, notebook computers and displays. According to Bob Steele of Strategies Unlimited, who provided a mid-year update at Blue 2009 in Taiwan, mobile appliances and signage/displays accounted for 60% of the US$5.1 billion packaged LED worldwide market numbers. While standard handsets remained the volume king despite a slight decline, the "other" category, which included smart phones/PDAs, media players and notebook displays turned in an astounding 93% growth from 2007 to 2008. Korea sees that as an opportunity to leverage up their domestic LED production and has reportedly been heavily investing in the fabrication equipment, including MOCVD reactors, which they need to make it come true. One speaker, from the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, stated that it was Korea's goal to place itself in the top 3 of LED producing countries in the world. "The competition" in his view, was not a series of companies, but a series of countries, and I suspect that neither the US, Japanese, or Taiwanese LED manufacturers plan to step aside and let it happen. (China wouldn't seem to be sitting on the sidelines either, based on the continuing series of news releases from epi-reactor maker Aixtron, regarding their China wins, including their largest single order ever coming out of that country from a company just entering the HB-LED market). As one element of that "grand plan", in April of this year, Samsung formed a dedicated LED company, equally capitalized by both Samsung Electronics and Samsung Electro-Mechanics (SEMCO).
The ministry speaker also made it clear that he felt that the recent resolution of several major pieces of IP litigation involving Seoul Semiconductor effectively cleared the path for the continuing growth plan, as well as shaped the Korean government's resolve to involve itself in future litigation that other of the country's producers may encounter. In one curt exchange, the ministry official made it clear that he felt that smaller companies should look towards sharing IP to keep from diffusing the country's efforts, and that anyone who felt differently was "carrying forward a myopic view of the future". As we heard from Prof. Moo-Whan Shin of Myong Ji University in his "Korea country report" at Blue, the government is putting its money where its mouth is in other areas, including a big push for LED lighting in government facilities. The plan is to begin by moving Korea's post offices to all LED lighting starting immediately, and ban any incandescent lights in government offices starting this year (fluorescents are still allowed... for now). Another 300,000 "projects" are ready to be undertaken at the state and local level, and the goal is that 30% of the government's indoor lighting is generated by LEDs by 2012. They are serious, but LEDs manufacturing isn't new to either LG or Samsung, and as one senior exec at Blue noted, "They haven't managed to consistently use internal sources for LEDs in the majority of their products so far, so do we need to worry?"
Taiwan is providing a contrast of "quiet action" in some respects. Having typically been limited to Taipei and the LED heartland of Hsinchu, we decided to undertake a bit of a broader "eyeball survey" of where LEDs are showing up in Taiwan. To that end, after completing Blue in Taiwan, we rented a car to tour around the eastern side of the island, with a return trip through the mountains, and up one or two major expressways that connect the north and central parts of the country. And yes, for those familiar with the driving style in Taiwan, we really did drive it ourselves, making use of every bit of "shoot for the hole" snap that our rental VW Passat Turbo had to offer. Decoding street signs was a small challenge (Jhung, Chung and Joung are just some of the different English spellings for just one Chinese character), not clipping the scooters in Hualien and Hsinchu were a bigger challenge, and shooting through a few hundred kilometers of winding, wet, tunnel-laden, landsliding 1 or 2-lane roads in a path from sea level to 3300m (11,000 feet) pretty much defined insanity. The car didn't get returned clean, but it was undamaged and passed more cars and trucks than passed it (although we were memorably humbled by one amazing truck driver who navigated his rig down a mountainside with the skill of a Formula One driver, leaving the Passat in the dust... well, actually in the mud spray, since the road was wet and I will stick with that as my excuse).
Of note in the trip from the LED standpoint? Well, Taiwan "gets it". There was not a city strip that wasn't featuring a substantial number of LEDs beckoning you to stop in to buy something. The department stores almost exclusively used LEDs in the jewelry display cases, and notably for a portion of the overhead lighting in the more difficult to maintain or high liability areas, including the escalators. Outdoor LED signs and displays were prevalent (I think we have something like 10 here in Austin), and interestingly, LEDs were used for direct illumination of a number of advisory, caution and exit-type signs on the main expressways. What a good idea. Why use fairly expensive lighting-quality LEDs to shine at a road sign, when you can use multiple colors of lower lumen devices to make up the outline and information on the road sign? And the LED presence wasn't limited to the expressways and big towns. Once we came down off the mountain, we were greeted by LEDs in front of shops and in road signs in the surrounding smaller resort towns. LED heaven itself appeared when we needed to grab some fuel at one of the freeway service centers. It seems you don't need to just expect gas and some fast food, but 24-hour mechanic services, and a shopping megaplex, including entertainment and restaurants. All without ever touching a side street.
We haven't been to Japan yet, but clearly Taiwan and Korea (as well as mainland China) are ready and willing to adopt LED technology everywhere it can fit, whether that is in a fancy jewelry display case, or to replace the oversized CFLs that filled the portable generator-powered "night markets". With a manufacturing ramp-up benefiting from the big backlight producers, both in Korea and Taiwan, who will likely produce LEDs for both internal use and external sale, the pricing curve will continue its move in the right direction to support that adoption. If there is a missing link in those markets, we expect that it will be in understanding how to address the quality issues in general lighting, both in terms of design reliabilty as well as in the quality of the light produced. There is no lack of ability to produce quality when its the need is understood, such as in backlighting (how many loyal customers do you develop if you are Samsung and customers start to report the need to replace their 60-inch TV because the LEDs start dying in a year?). Understanding what quality is, and then designing it in to a general lighting product, is a substantial challenge those regions will face, which is one reason we're making that a principal goal for the 2009 SSLdesign Summit Taiwan this November. (For the September NY Summit, as well as October's LA Summit, the spotlight will only be shining on the manufacturers and enabling technology providers that are demonstrating quality in their products, but that is more to indicate where and how quality can be found, and less on what defines quality in the worldwide lighting market). From what we see, things remain bright and will continue to get brighter.
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