April 18, 2005...The 16th annual Lightfair International was held last week in New York City in the USA. Heavily attended by over 20,000 people, this is the largest USA show for lighting designers, no matter what medium of light they're into. According to our reporters, LEDs were all the buzz. Really. The vast majority of attendees didn't have a clue what they were talking about, but none the less, they were talking LEDs. If all of them were routine readers of Solid State Lighting Net and read LIGHTimes, they'd have even more to talk about, in a more knowledgeable manner. But at least they're talking about what our world is making possible.

Whereas in the late 1990s, Color Kinetics was the only company to show LED product, approximately 10% of exhibitors featured LEDs in their booths last year. This year that took an admirable leap and approximately 30% of the exhibitors featured at least some LEDs this year. That's impressive. Too bad more of them didn't know what they were showing. It's reminiscent of the first time I attended a Semicon expo (that huge silicon show put on annually in California by SEMI) just after gallium arsenide (GaAs) appeared on the semiconductor radar scope. I'd visit a booth and ask "Do you know anything about or produce any products made for the GaAs sector?" pronouncing it in its full name, gallium arsenide. They'd answer "Yeah. We know all about 'galcium arsenace'." They were clueless.

Unfortunately, too many exhibitors at Lightfair were clueless about LED-based lighting products. The pity of that is, that lighting designers are truly enthusiastic about using this new medium for their designs. They desperately want and need expert advice and top quality product. The most rude display was when an exhibit would shine an LED right in the eyes of the booth visitors in a lame attempt to show how bright their product was. The trick to good lighting is never to shine it right in the eye of the beholder... unless you're a policeman making a bust, I guess... but rather, to show what the light can do. Like provide the spectacular backdrop to a stage presentation, or subtly illuminate something noteworthy. If I were showing white LEDs at a trade show, and was proud of the soft, pleasing light they could produce, I'd stage a mock dressing room or makeup mirror type setup and invite all the females to view themselves in my utopia ambiance. Nothing like seeing yourself in perfect light (one that covers the wrinkles and smooths the crows feet or last night's partying at the hospitality suits) to score a convert.

So LEDs were "in your face" at Lightfair. Literally. And everyone was talking about LEDs in, out, and around the Jacob Javits Convention Center, named after a political hero of mine. Jacob Javits was was a rational moderate Senator from New York who would have liked the notion of solid state lighting. One of the LED-astute attendees reported to me that he heard two guys talking on the shuttle bus from the hotels to the Javits Center. One guy was a manufacturers rep and the other a lighting designer. The gist of the conversation was typical. The lighting designer wanted to do something with LEDs, but didn't really know how to use them in their work and the rep had heard similar complaints and didn't have any answers.

There simply aren't enough LED-savy people working with the designers yet and that's a serious obstacle to overcome. Making the mission more difficult is the fact that many lighting designers don't trust suppliers. The problem seems to be that in the first round of dealing with LED providers, the products didn't live up to the initial promises so the lighting designers are justifiably skeptical based on previous negative experiences. How can that perception be changed? If you're an LED manufacturer or systems integrator, don't promise things you can't deliver. Don't confuse lighting designers with nonsense nomenclature and meaningless metrics. Make your product work correctly. Explain what it is and what it can do. Solve challenges like thermal management and reliability upfront, and if you can't, work with an expert. Tell your customers what they can expect, show them how and when and where to use it, and then follow through with your claims. Continuously improve your product and update your reps and distributors, honestly, and in a timely manner. Consider putting on workshops and seminars for the sellers and users of your product, and answer questions and solve problems for them honestly and promptly.

No wonder some very large and very important potential systems integrators are holding back before entering this business. They want to see how many arrows get shot in which backs, who falls and who stands tall before they decide which LED die suppliers and packagers to deal with. The key players in the field are quickly becoming the systems integrators who buy the bare LED die and/or packaged LEDs. Some are good companies who play by the rules, don't infringe illegally on others IP, and back up their product lines with educated tutoring of how to properly use those products. The idea of converting to solid state solutions, i.e. LEDs, is that you won't have to replace the tiny little lamps for a long, long time. This makes the total cost of the LED solution over its lifetime significantly less than the cost of all of the replacement bulbs and maintainence costs with tradition lighting. If the end product is garbage, and not living up to expectations, of course the lighting designer is going to have a negative or skeptical attitude. The responsibility of our industry is to make good product that meets their expectations.

One of the biggest issues that continues to be a major problem is respect for the a competitors legitimate patent rights. IP. Intellectual property. It's an issue of critical importance, which is why we're featuring IP issues at BLUE 2005 in Taiwan May 6-8th. There were exhibitors at Lightfair whose products still blatantly infringe on other company's IP. They're getting wealthy off someone else's work. That's simply not right. When the holder of known good IP comes into a competitor's booth and sees the infringing product being pushed to an unsuspecting buyer and the technical and sales people that work for the infringing company cringe in obvious embarrassment, that's more than a clue! While they might not be involved in a lawsuit, they know they're guilty. If we can instill a little more honesty in this field the skepticism will go away naturally and the excitement will continue to build. It's easy to be successful when everyone's already talking about what you do. That invaluable groundwork has clearly been laid. Now the challenge is to deliver on the promises while not promising things you have no right to.

If you want to be one of the leaders in the field and a key player, but you're not yet sure you're in business with the right people, I highly suggest you get yourself over to the Ambassador Hotel in Hsinchu, Taiwan for BLUE 2005 May 16-18th and get properly connected!