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Cree and Philips Sign Comprehensive LED Patent Cross-License Agreement
LIGHTimes News Staff
July 8, 2010...Cree of Durham, North Carolina USA and Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (Philips) have signed a comprehensive, worldwide patent cross-license agreement designed to further accelerate the growth of the LED lighting market.
Cree and Philips both hold broad and substantial optoelectronic patent portfolios.
Many consider some of their patents to be among the most valuable patents in the solid state lighting industry. Both companies gained the patents through a combination of their own innovation and acquisitions of other companies' technologies.
The cross licensing agreement covers patents from both parties in the fields of blue LED chip technology, white LEDs and phosphors (including remote phosphors), control systems, LED luminaires and lamps as well as LED backlighting of liquid crystal displays (LCDs).
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September SSL Summit driving LED lighting quality message
Staff
July 9, 2010...Bringing together property/facility decision makers, designers, luminaire manufacturers and enabling technology providers, the 2010-2011 SSL Summit series, hosted by Solid State Lighting Design, has taken a strong stance in its approach to help boost a "quality only" message inside the LED lighting industry. The East coast edition is slated for September 14-15 in New York City, with the West coast follow-on happening January 19-20, 2011 in the Los Angeles area. For 2010-2011, the SSL Summit is sticking firm to a commitment to require participating companies that would receive product-level visibility, to meet some basic quality vetting criteria. According to conference co-chair, Chris Brown, CEO of the national lighting solutions provider Wiedenbach Brown, "Whether a company is considering involvement as a speaker, sponsor or Summit showcase participant, we're looking for them to meet some very basic criteria for their participation. While the Summit is not requiring the highest efficacy or perfect product, it's clear that the players are substantially narrowed when you put basic hurdles in place, such as being able to show that independent LM-79 test data matches what they put out on their data sheet, that they are appropriately representing certifications, and that they bring a decent reputation with them."
The SSL Summit puts forward a solid agenda designed to engage to the participants in the key issues and successful approaches visible in the LED lighting industry today. Avraham Mor, IALD, LEED AP, MIES and Partner with Lightswitch Architectural added, "Beyond the strong networking I've seen from my previous SSL Summit experience, one of the reasons I was willing to participate as a co-chair for this year's Summit is the 'quality required' message that it carries. When considering what LED lighting has to offer, lighting decision makers quickly run head-on into a bewildering array of offerings. The Summit doesn't claim that a participating company's product is perfect, but it does stand behind the vetting to assure that engaging with that manufacturer to understand their offering is worth the decision maker's time." The Summit is receiving industry backing from a host of recognized companies, with the list so far including diamond sponsors Lithonia Lighting and LEDnovation. Platinum sponsors include GrafTech, Toshiba, Greenlight Initiative and Wiedenbach Brown, and are joined by CRS Electronics and NYECC at supporting levels. Highlighted speakers for New York include Margaret Newman, Chief of Staff of the NY City Department of Transportation, and David Bomke, Executive Director of the NY Energy Consumers Council. Visit www.SSLsummit.com from series information, or here to see the current New York SSL Summit line-up.
Future Lighting Solutions to Offer Nuventix LED Cooling
LIGHTimes News Staff
July 9, 2010...Nuventix, Inc., developer of SynJet® thermal management solutions for LED luminaires based in Austin, Texas, announced a distribution agreement in which Future Lighting Solutions would distribute its LED cooling products. Nuventix boasts that its solutions help increase the brightness and LED lifetime of solid state luminaires by actively displacing heat, even in small spaces such as recessed downlights and spotlights. Nuventix's SynJet solution reportedly creates turbulent air jets for active cooling. Nuventix says SynJet is ideal for applications in which high output LEDs are in a limited space, such as in LED downlights.
Nuventix notes that the agreement extends the reach of its products to 169 locations in 41 countries in North and South America, Europe and Asia through Future Lighting Solutions and its parent company Future Electronics, the third largest electronic component distributor in the world. Nuventix points out that the agreement also gives its customers access to proprietary online tools and engineering resources from Future Lighting Solutions that help simplify LED lighting application development.
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Silan Orders six Aixtron Crius II Systems for Increased GaN UHB-LED Production
LIGHTimes News Staff
July 8, 2010...Aixtron reports that Silan Microelectronics Co., Ltd (Silan) of Hangzhou, PR China placed an order for six new Aixtron Crius II Systems for GaN ultra high brightness blue/green LED production. Aixtron says that the new order is for six CRIUS II systems in the 55x2-inch configuration. Silan reportedly placed the order in the second quarter of 2010. The company will take delivery of the systems during the period of the fourth Aixtron indicated that its local support team will commission the new reactors at the Silan’s facility in Hangzhou, China.
Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics Co., Ltd. is primarily engaged in the development, manufacture and sale of integrated circuits, LED products and other electronic components.
Mr. Jiang Zhongyong, General Manager Silan Azure, commented, “We are looking to carry out a major capacity increase for our nitride LED wafers so naturally we turned to Aixtron. Their new generation Crius II systems have demonstrated major improvements such as higher growth rates, high pressure growth and the more than doubling of productivity. Therefore, I am convinced that the Crius II will meet our need for process flexibility, uniformity in thickness, doping, and composition.”
Tony Pearce, Managing Director Aixtron said, “The CRIUS II will be delivered with the ARGUS multi-channel pyrometer allowing real-time surface temperature measurement and analysis that enables to monitor the thermometric distribution across the whole of the MOCVD growth surface in the CCS system.”
University of Strathclyde Researchers to Form Spin-Out Specializing in Micro LEDs
LIGHTimes News Staff
July 6, 2010...The University of Strathclyde reports that it has secured a spin-out deal to form a company working in the field of novel next-generation light source technology. The University says that the spin-out could open up a range of opportunities in applications including neuroscience, microscopy and communications. mLED Ltd specialises in micro LEDs, devices made up of thousands of tiny emitters producing light in a compact, integrated package. The new company says that unlike other micro-display technologies, microLEDs are dense arrays of miniature light sources which are pattern programmable and do not require a plethora of external components, such as optics and switching matrices, to modulate the light pattern. They can therefore be more compact and efficient. LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
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How many lights in an airport?
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
July 13, 2010...Airports have begun making the news recently. Fortunately this time around, it's not for security challenges or full-body scan pictorials, but because they are picking up on the fact that LED lighting is a good idea that can reduce operating expenses and improve the user experience. Some of the more recent wins include Boston, Miami and Pittsburgh, where parking structures have been the first target of opportunity to "see the light".
In
the case of Boston's Logan Airport, with 30 year old lighting ("before"
picture at left) in the Terminal B parking facility, a lighting upgrade revamp
was going to happen either way. Dan Hallahan is the LEED accredited engineer
with engineering firm Fay, Spofford and Thorndike. Dan was responsible
for the overall lighting design, product recommendations and on-site evaluations for
the project, including a pilot installation to compare several different manufacturers LED fixtures. This was their firm's first LED lighting implementation, and they
were pleasantly surprised by the smoothness of the process, and the quality
of the result. "The main considerations included the payback period and efficiency. So prior to selecting the source, we reviewed options to reduce the lighting when it's not necessary. The options include using natural daylight along the parameter of the garage and using occupancy sensors to control the lighting. We designed an occupancy sensor network in the garage to switch large sections of lighting at a time rather than individual lights. If occupancy is detected within 80' of a neighboring section, that triggers the neighboring section to power 'on' allowing drivers ample time to react. With the LED solution, we were able to completely turn off all non-emergency lighting when the lighting isn't needed. We couldn't do that with metal-halide because they require a long warm up period," commented Dan.
The
fact that the Terminal B facility needed the update was key to solid state lighting
being able to take the win ("after" picture at left). Essentially,
Massport was able to consider the acquisition-cost uplift as a delta, compared
to the energy savings that would result. The payback was less than 5 years,
which Hallahan considered "a slam dunk" in terms of acceptable business
cases. Makes sense, considering the last installation had a 30 year life span,
so they didn't need to see 1-2 years to visualize the advantage. With about
8800 hours in a year, 5 years represents about 44000 hours, which would be well
within the product lifetime, given the dimming strategy that the design employs.
Interestingly, when I asked about the other main parking structure at Logan, while there could be an energy saving opportunity, the lighting installed there was "only" 10 years old, is running pretty efficiently, and wasn't likely to be replaced anytime soon. Make no mistake in assuming the incumbents are going to be easily knocked aside. LED lighting can bring a lot to the table, but it faces more than just simply economic decision criteria.. Even when the payback might be clear, whether it is 2, 5 or 10 years, a lighting retrofit is a big task, takes a lot of resources, and is a distraction to the day-to-day business that goes on in a facility. Plus it takes money. Lots of it, and whether it is accomplished with good quality metal halide fixtures (at $300+ a crack) or LED luminaires (not bad, but still more than that), it's not complicated math to figure out that anything over a few thousand fixtures makes it over a million dollar deal. That's not money that's spent lightly, and if it's not handy, it won't be spent at all, regardless of the payback. Municipalities and port authorities are running on tight budgets, and if the capital appropriations aren't there, they have to pursue a nontrivial approval process which may include submitting a bond issue to the voters. But if you need to replace the installation anyway, the delta in those capital budgets becomes substantially lower, and the door opens much wider to the LED lighting alternatives.
Why are we seeing this high-profile upswing? In a word, it's belief, according to BetaLED East Coast Regional Sales Manager, Michael Winegard. Michael oversaw the Terminal B win in Boston, and has reportedly just gotten the nod to equip Logan's new economy parking structure as well as an existing parking structure at Portland Maine's airport. He tells us it's a very different world from two years ago. As the ground was being plowed "back then", it really was a process of enticing the potential users to simply open their minds to the possibility that these new LED lights could be a good idea. While the semiconductor industry had its own track record, LEDs were generally considered to simply not be ready to produce the amount, quality and reliability of light that the incumbents had been delivering for decades. But the industry did well to promote installations and learn from their missteps, and a positive track record began to emerge. "Now, the industry has high profile installations and large scale wins that it can point to, including the I-35 bridge in Minnesota, the city of Anchorage, Alaska and very notably, the City of Los Angeles that is moving ahead with its wide-scale streetlight retrofit plans. Municipalities and facility managers are willing to listen to the full business case simply because there is enough success that indicates the technology works and can be relied on."
So progress continues and airports are on the radar scope. With 3000 or so publicly operated airports, as we move from the parking structures to the ramps, taxiways, runways and eventually on inside the buildings, there is still a bit of room in the opportunity...
Don't miss the 2010-2011 SSL Summit Series, kicking off in New York City, September 14-15. One of this year's highlighted speakers is Margaret Newman, Chief of Staff for the NYC Department of Transportation. Margaret, who is also quite influential in New York City's overall lighting initiatives, will be able to share the methodology and status of their outdoor LED lighting retrofit programs. Installations include the US DOE cooperative evaluation program on the FDR Expressway, as well as some walking path and sidewalk installations around the city. How big is the NYC opportunity? Only a 10 states have a larger population then New York City does on it's own, so it would seem worthwhile to find out the details... www.SSLsummit.com
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