 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||
MCLR Commissions Russian-based Production Facility of Substrates for LEDs |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
Lumoinit Introduces New Hybrid Glass Light Shaping Diffusers
LIGHTimes News Staff
February 23, 2012...Luminit LLC, a producer of products for applications including LED lighting, architectural lighting, bio-medical, semiconductor metrology, aerospace, automotive and display applications, announced the availability of Hybrid Glass Light Shaping Diffusers. According to the company, the diffusers offer transmission (up to 92%) from 350nm to the visible light range. The optics can reportedly withstand temperatures of 150°C. They are available in numerous angles and sizes up to 20”x20” on optical glass or fused silica substrates. They can be made with AR coating on one or both sides. Hybrid Glass Light Shaping Diffusers are particularly valuable in applications that require higher temperature tolerance or higher scratch resistance than polymer based diffusers.
Engin Arik, PhD, President & CEO of Luminit commented “These new Hybrid Glass diffusers complement our existing line of high and ultra-high temperature/power Glasson-Glass Light Shaping Diffusers for customers that do not require those very high specifications of temperature, laser power and high UV transmission. As we broaden our customer base, we encounter requirements for additional or improved
products. We are continually working on improving and expanding our product lines.”
SemiLEDs Achieves 40% External Quantum Efficiency with
Ultraviolet (UV) LED Chips
LIGHTimes News Staff
February 21, 2012...SemiLEDs Corporation based in Hsinchu, Taiwan announced that its UV LED chips can achieved up to 40 percent external quantum efficiency emitting radiation at a wavelength of 390-420 nm. This efficiency was achieved at 350 mA with an output up to 500 mW using a typical 3.3V forward voltage.
“Our patented structure and metal alloy substrate allow us to produce and supply to the industrial curing market UV LEDs that are capable of operating at high current with high output power density,” says Dr. Chuong Tran, COO and President of SemiLEDs. “We are proud to be able to advance the UV LED technology for the curing industry and to provide cost-effective solutions to our customers thanks to our proprietary MvpLED technology.”
SemiLEDs UV LED products are available in wavelengths ranging from 365nm-420nm, in chip sizes of 1.07mm x 1.07mm and 0.3mm x 0.3mm, and are immediately available for sampling and order.
Visilink Announces New Visible Light Communications Platform That Uses LEDs for Near-Ubiquitous Wireless Networking
LIGHTimes News Staff
February 21, 2012...Visilink of Cary, North Carolina USA, a producer of a visible light communications (VLC) solution, announced the availability of a new communications platform that uses LED lights instead of wires or radio signals to provide wireless network connectivity.
According to the company, the technology can transmit data at very long distances and has the ability to provide network access anywhere LEDs are used, including buildings, consumer electronics, outdoor lighting, vehicles, traffic lights and even underwater. The new platform consists of a transmitter module, receiver module, and an ultrasensitive photo detector that can be embedded in a variety of end user devices.
The company says that its solution uses light photons to transmit signals over the open air to receivers. The signals are modulated upon transmission and then demodulated at the receiver for use by an end user device, such as a laptop computer, smart phone or networking server. The Visilink technology uses the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This portion of the spectrum has the high relative output power even in quasi-white LEDs and therefore makes the best medium for data transmission in VLC-based systems.
LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Shin-Etsu Chemical Develops Low Refractive Index Silicone Encapsulating Material that Improves the Reliability of HBLEDs
LIGHTimes News Staff
February 21, 2012...Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. based in Tokyo, Japan has developed a new silicone encapsulating material product for applications in packaging materials for HBLEDs. The comapny says that the "KER-7000 Series,", which is a low refractive index (RI)-type that greatly reduces gas permeability. The company is beginning sample shipments, mainly for applications in LED lighting. The company claims that LED packaging materials that apply this product will achieve dramatically improved reliability of LED lighting because of its effectiveness in preventing the degradation of light intensify caused by the corrosion of the peripheral materials.
Shin-Etsu Chemical notes that low gas permeability important in LED encapsulating material along with superb photo-thermal stability in withstanding high temperatures and excellent retention of its initial optical transparency throughout the lifetime of the device. The company says that with an encapsulating material that has high gas permeability, it is well known that gases such as oxygen can easily permeate and cause oxidation and sulfuration to occur, and lead to possibile degradation in light intensity.
LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
(Updated) Bridgelux Lands $25 Million Funding from Kaistar Lighting
LIGHTimes News Staff
February 16, 2012...Bridgelux Inc. based in Livermore, California USA, announced that Kaistar Lighting (Xiamen) Co., Ltd. has agreed to invest $25 million in the company. Bridgelux says it plans to primarily use the equity investment to further accelerate research, development, and production of its "GaN on Silicon"-based LED chip and packaging technology for general illumination applications. New Bridgelux investor Kaistar Lighting is a joint venture of Epistar Corp. and Shenzhen Kaifa Technology Co. Craton Equity Partners announced a $60 million investment in the company in August, and then existing investors added $15 million in funding in October. None of the existing investors divested their positions coincident with this investment.
In a recent interview, Bridgelux' Chief Executive Officer Bill Watkins, commented that,"Along with the investment, Kaistar becomes a strategic partner that brings volume manufacturing expertise. Having worked with the company since the 1990's, I have personal experience that highlights them as a smart and trustworthy team to bring to the table." Watkins also pointed out that all of Bridgelux' key partners are invested in the company, including those that bring manufacturing capacity and capabilities to the relationship.
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 Lighting will Change Everything
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
February 23, 2012...Every technological revolution encompasses two distinct phases, and LED lighting is no exception. In the first phase, inventors work to adapt a new technology as some form of direct replacement for the incumbents while the second phase involves new applications that likely have never existed. LED lighting has started with standard street lights, ceiling troffers and replacement lamps (PARs and A-lamps), which is comparable to the first horseless carriages in the automobile evolution, or for the PC, networked systems in the accounting and materials departments. In that second phase, though, entirely new applications emerge, both for the technology itself, as well as in those areas it "suddenly" enables. When cars and trucks became capable of reliable travel at speeds above 50 MPH, highways came into being and the car was now a long distance travel tool. Some related 'apps' that followed were in-dash car radios (and the resulting music industry explosion), motels and fast-food. In the case of the 'networked PC and optical communications revolution', once we had arrived at high-speed networking and the thing called 'the internet', the E-commerce (and search engine) bonanza began, along with the whole mobile device and 'apps' revolution. In much the same way, LED lighting will revolutionize more in our lives than most people can imagine (and it shouldn't come as a big surprise that this will be a big focus at the SSL Summit, April 3-4 in Long Beach).
One key area will be related to better lighting for our interior and exterior environments. The word "better", in this case, is intended to be broadly encompassing, including such things current talking points as better color rendering, better quality, better efficiency. Perhaps more important, though, what I'll call the "future betters", which would be such things as better for you (healthier), better utilized, more responsive to each of us as individuals, better for our overall productivity. LEDs, by their nature, are "designed" to produce light narrow wavelength ranges. Blue, red or green are produced at specific sets of blue, red or green wavelengths, depending upon the material properties of the semiconductors doing the work. What that implies is the we can "tune" the mix of wavelengths involved in doing whatever jobs is asked of them. In some cases, such as theatrical or movie stage lighting, it may be to enhance different tones to create a better balance or specific emotional effect. In other cases, we want to use those narrow LEDs wavelengths to "pump" the light out of a phosphor blend, which gives off a fairly broad spectrum of light. Whether tuned at the manufacturing or system level, the end result is that we're able to pretty much specify what mix of wavelengths we want to produce, which also means choosing wavelengths we want to experiment with.
The folks at RPI's Lighting Research Center (LRC) have done some interesting work recently in determining what appears as "white light" to people, and not unsurprisingly, they've discovered that it doesn't appear to precisely match the white-light curve that we've defined relative to incandescent light sources. RPI has also done work in uncovering how light affects our bodies, most notably in conjunction with melatonin, which affects circadian rhythm, seasonal affective disorders and jet lag. They're able to conduct this testing, large part, because LEDs have provided a tool to allow them to deliver specific frequencies and blends of light. I just recently heard about a new Alzheimer's care facility that is being built from the ground up specifically as an Alzheimer's facility. Attention will be paid to creating an environment that contributes to the patient's well being, including anything that is known to arrest the progress of that terrible disease. You know lighting is going to be a big part of the puzzle, and as we learn more and more about it, why shouldn't we expect that the correct ambient and "treatment" lighting will be able to add years to the "lucid time" that those afflicted have available to them. This just scratches the surface of what we're about to learn about light, and how to harness it to improve people's quality of life.
The second key area will be in "smarter" lighting. Again, it's an encompassing term that not only describes the amount of on-board intelligence, but speaks into how the photons are applied, and how they interact with the occupants of the space. In simplest terms, light will go from passive to "active". One big way will be to adjust the amount of lighting required based upon the combination of daylight, occupancy, productivity and availability. Sometimes that will be a balancing act, such as in the midst of a California heat wave when availability is poor, demand is high and brownouts are imminent. While we might like that outside wall conference room a little brighter, our actual productivity won't be affected in the meeting if the lights are low or even off. A meeting only illuminated by what's coming in the window is a lot more tolerable than having to recover work lost on our desktop PCs when the grid came crashing down... we'd 'get it' and wouldn't even grumble.
A big part of that will smarts will be enabled by a whole new generation of sensors. Companies like Redwood Systems are fully focused on a sensor in every luminaire (fixture) to provide motion/occupancy as well as ambient light feedback. All that ties into the software (and more software, and more software) that assimilates the data and manages it according to the users' and facility operators' desires. Those lighting management systems will have all the hooks in them to tie into other aspects of the environment, including HVAC and security, so ultimately, the building will be one tightly managed system. And since the one "have to" that will operate with the finest granularity is lighting, it can be expected that those sensors in every luminaire will serve as the backbone for virtually all the sensing that needs to take place. In a recent visit to Redwood, as they provided a few live examples of the monitoring and response, it was easy to visualize that the response to a late-night intrusion alarm being the arriving police officers finding their path from the front door to the hiding "perp" being carefully illuminated, with the bad-guys' position being lit in a bright red (or black and white stripes, if you prefer). That's a lot better than walking into a dark building, trying to guess where the bad-guy may be, while hoping you can illuminate him (or her) with your Maglite before they manage to target you... Down come the insurance rates and we're all economically happier as well!
The goals for the LED lighting industry should be pretty straight forward. To help everyone the world over to live happier, healthier and more productive lives. That will combine the elements of optimizing energy use, lowering the cost per lumen, and increasing the usefulness of the lumens that are delivered, both relative to how they are delivered now, and towards the idea of nearly-perfect light every where we need it, and not where we don't. As folks like Derry Berrigan, Jeff Miller and Chip Israel have worked to teach us, working with something as elemental as light really is important to us all.
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