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Carmanah Thrives on Niche Applications
Scott McMahan
December 14, 2006...Art Aylesworth, Carmanah's president and CEO was recently named Entreprenuer of the Year for the Pacific Region in Canada by the National Post. As an article in the National Post points out, the company, which is over two decades old, has seen a tremendous increase in revenue since Aylesworth took over in 2000. That year the company had revenues of about $1.8 million. As of 2005, the company’s revenues were approximately $38 million. This year the revenues are expected to be even higher. The company grew almost 70 percent per year for each of the five years. The company has thrived on producing and selling LED products not for general lighting, but for niche applications including: solar powered lighting for marine, aviation, roadway, transit, and industrial worksites. Other applications include LED illuminated signs for gaming, point of purchase, identity, and architectural applications. The LED product sales are in addition to the company’s solar power system production and sales which got a big boost in 2005 with the acquisition of Soltec Powersource Limited. The company sells solar powered LED-based airfield beacons, marine buoys, and traffic lights in over 100 countries around the world. The 700-series lights were developed for the US coastguard, becoming the first solar-powered LED-based lights used in the US system. They were later adopted by many other navigation authorities around the world, including the National Ports Authority. Just this month the company announced many new sales and installations world-wide. LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Arrow Electronics to Distribute Color Kinetics’ OEM Products
LIGHTimes Staff
December 13, 2006...Color Kinetics reports that Arrow Electronics will now distribute Color Kinetics products in North America, after it signed a distribution agreement with the electronics distributor. Under the agreement, Arrow Electronics can distribute Color Kinetic’s original equipment manufacturer (OEM) products including, intelligent white and RGB digital light engines (DLEs), lamps, and power and data controllers and modules required for illumination systems. Color Kinetics says that Arrow customers will benefit from its nearly a decade of experience in the field, spanning thermal, optical and binning management, control, power, and networking.
Color Kinetics whose products have been adopted by many lighting fixture manufacturers, has successfully introduced LED technology into vertical markets through OEM partnerships in entertainment and gaming, aerospace, consumer products, automotive aftermarket lighting, and pool and spa products. LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Eight of Nichia’s Korean Design Patents Declared Invalid
Scott McMahan
December 12, 2006...Seoul Semiconductor reported that Baron Tech Co., Ltd., won its “Design Patent Invalidation” trial against Nichia for infringing eight Korean design patents. The Korean patents in question cover essentially the same technology as its US design patents: D 491,538, D 490,784, D 499,385, and D 503,388. The patents primarily refer to a side-view LED design for backlighting LCD handsets. Baron Tech, a little known backlight LED producer, is the first company in some time to stand up to and defeat Nichia in patent litigation.
In January, Nichia brought a patent lawsuit against South Korea-based Seoul Semiconductor, Ltd. and its U.S. subsidiary, California-based Seoul Semiconductor, Inc. The complaint alleged patent infringement of the four US design patents: D 491,538, D 490,784, D 499,385, and D 503,388. (Ref: Coverage).
In a somewhat related patent issue, this time between Nichia and Baron Tech, Korea’s Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) ruled that Nichia’s eight Korean design patents for the side-view LEDs are invalid. LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Cree Expands Patent Litigation Against BridegLux
LIGHTimes Staff
December 12, 2006...Cree Inc. of Durham, North Carolina USA, reported that it has filed more patent complaints against LED product maker, BridgeLux. According to Cree, the latest complaints allege infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,614,056 ("the '056 patent") and 6,885,036 ("the '036 patent"). These claims are in addition to the previously filed claims based on Cree's U.S. Patent No. 6,657,236 as well as U.S. Patent No. 5,686,738. Cree says the patents, 056 and '036, are both entitled "Scalable LED With Improved Current Spreading Structures," and relate to contact structures in LEDs with improved current spreading. Cree says it added these patents in a counterclaim in response to BridgeLux's complaint filed in the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas filed in October. LIGHTimes SecondPage members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
California Micro Devices Releases New Flash LED Drivers for Mobile Handsets
LIGHTimes Staff
December 12, 2006...California Micro Devices has launched its new flash LED drivers for mobile handsets. The company based in Milpitas, California USA, unveiled the CM9410 and CM9412 which can drive up to 1A. The company says it offers multiple operating modes in an efficient device, with a tiny form factor. The CM9412 is in a 3mm x 3mm TDFN (Thin DFN) package. The CM9410 and CM9412 have a voltage input range of 3.0V to 5.5V and feature a typical efficiency of 85 percent. Their modes of operation include: shutdown, torch, and two flash modes that can be selected through a user friendly single wire interface.
The company says that because constraints on power consumption, space, and cost in addition to requirements for long battery life, the company produced the new LED flash drivers with optimized efficiency and minimized footprint. The drivers feature overcurrent and overvoltage protection in addition to undervoltage lockout to limit inrush current. California Micro Devices indicated that volume production of the devices will begin in the first quarter of 2007. Company News Release
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Solid State Lighting Success is Niche to Niche
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
December 11, 2006...Success is correctly defined as, “The progressive realization of a worthwhile dream or goal.” Is the solid state lighting industry succeeding? After investing some time with industry leaders from across the globe at the recent LED Leadership Conference, it’s clear we are progressively realizing those very worthwhile dreams and goals, but not in the way you might consider it if compared to a sporting event or a piano lesson. It’s more like a symphony learning a new performance piece, but without a conductor (or even a semi-conductor…). The title of the symphony is, of course, “Make Solid State Lighting Ubiquitous" (played as quickly as possible), in nothing-flat.
For obvious reasons, “the gang” of leading companies shouldn’t and wouldn’t all get together and carve up parts of this multi-faceted performance. "Here Mike, you take the desk lamps, and Chuck, you can take the stadium lights this year, and BJ…. hmmm, finish up making Taiwan one big LED manufacturing plant and take whatever parts you want, but leave some for Osram, Nicha, and Toyoda Gosei." Although it might appear efficient at the outset, the lack of those free market motivations tend to muck up the works. This orchestra has to figure it out for themselves, by watching the other players, and subtly tuning their tone and pace to meet the demands of the audience for a quality result. Not an easy task, but fortunately, each player has clear incentives to make it “sound right”. Even better, there a number of bright young stars sitting in each section that are putting out good sounds and willing to take over “first seat” in a heartbeat.
One key way we’ll see the symphony “find its sound” will be by moving niche-to-niche. A question raised towards the CEO panel set the stage nicely. “Will there be enough niche applications to continue to sustain the [advanced/high-brightness LED] industry indefinitely?” Lumileds’ CEO Mike Holt summed it up succinctly along the lines of, “It’s worked pretty well for over a decade so far…” That’s because new “niches” continue to rise up as we figure out the next problem that the technology enables us to solve. Desktop computers began as toys for hobbists, then came decent word processing programs and spreadsheets, which made them useful to independent workers and small business owners who couldn’t afford a mini-computer, then BLAM, they were everywhere. Desktop computers are obviously now a big niche.
In a recent chat with industry expert Bob Steele of Strategies Unlimited fame (who you can hear from directly in San Jose at February’s upcoming Strategies in Light conference, or later in Asia at our own Blue 2007 event in mid-April), Bob pointed out that the Wal-Mart “LED strips lighting up the freezer story”, might well be the application story of the year. You need to read the article, but the synopsis is that here we have an entrenched fluorescent application, lighting the inside of refrigerated display cases, which is substantially better served-- at lower operating costs --by LEDs. Enough savings that it represents "the biggest investment to date in LED lighting for interior application [$30 million]. And it is also the single largest installation of white LED lighting replacing fluorescent lighting in a display lighting application." While clearly better than an incandescent solution, (here’s an idea, lets put a bright little heater next to the ice cream!) anyone who has one in their garage knows that fluorescents don’t like cold. They have a hard time getting started, take a good while to get to full brightness, and then run at a decreased efficiency. I’ve heard that it's as low as half their normal 80 lumens/watt, and I’m sure someone will correct me quickly if I got that wrong. LEDs on the other hand love cold… passionately. So much so, that any fun loving LED provider would be thrilled to spec their product at a comfortable 25C down there near the chip, if they could get away with running it in a freezer with a fan and…. Hey wait a minute…
You can add to that with Wal-Mart’s neat trick of placing motion sensors ahead of a shopper’s path so they don’t have to run the freezer light full time. It simply flips on real quickly before the shopper has a chance to get around the corner. How cool is that? The current crop of LEDs are more efficient on a lumen per watt basis. They can flip on and off instantly without a warm-up time, they have three times the lifetime and they even produce a better light to make the product more attractive. It's easy to see the reality in their expectation of a 66% reduction in freezer lighting energy costs.Note also that Wal-Mart is very serious about their “green” initiatives, so much so that they invite their competitors to come see how they’ve done it. With the volume needs of the world’s largest company backing a solid state lighting solution like this, do you think the price of those light strips might be driven down a teensy bit. LEDs take the niche!
Chuck Swoboda, CEO of Cree, said at the conference, that the industry will need to bring its costs and prices into line with what you see from the cost of ownership for fluorescents before the wave will really hit. Lumileds' Mike Holt gave a passionate talk on how we need to look at how a photon is put to use, and sell the benefit of using it differently to get a job done in a way it simply couldn’t be done before. Fortunately, the two competing CEOs don't agree on a single strategy, and next time around you can expect some additional comments on why that's exciting. To my mind, the LEDsicle inside Wal-Mart is a big step in both directions at once, and... that's success.
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