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Illumitex Reveals Aduro Series of High Power LEDs
SSLighting Design News Staff
April 1, 2010...Illumitex, an a maker of packaged LEDs based in Austin, Texas USA, has unveiled its Aduro series of packaged LEDs. Illumitex boasts that its Aduro series of LEDs emits uniform, narrow-beam white light without the need for expensive, inefficient secondary optics. Illumitex points out that traditional packaged LEDs use a dome optic to control light output.
The LEDs apparently use some structural features including reflective sidewalls to shape the light output without lenses.
The Aduro Series of White LEDs is a four-die array that has a typical output of 125 lumens at 250mA and 6.5 volts of reverse current.
The Aduro ITX-500 is a 16-die array reportedly puts out a typical 500 lumens at 500mA and 13 volts of reverse current.
Both Aduro LED arrays come in cool, warm and neutral white light with radiation patterns of 10, 20 and 30 degree beam half-angles.
“What Illumitex has achieved is a fundamental breakthrough in delivering the most usable lumens to the task surface, thus providing unrivaled overall lighting system efficiency," said Matt Thomas, CEO of Illumitex. "We have reinvented the basic die and package structure to create the industry’s most optically advanced LED. Our technology allows us to deliver perfectly uniform light exactly where the customer wants it.”
Illumitex points out that LEDworks, an Illumitex customer headquartered in Singapore, is currently leading a major lighting upgrade using Aduro-enabled lighting fixtures. “Illumitex has developed the most efficient and cost-effective LED lighting solution on the market,” said Philip Mak, CEO of LEDworks. “We are using Illumitex LEDs to create the industry’s highest performing lighting fixtures. The Aduro product line represents a huge leap forward in light quality. We view this installation as the first of many collaborations.”
Illumitex News Release
Intematix Introduces Energy Star Certified LED-based Retrofit Downlight
SSLighting Design News Staff
March 29, 2010...Intematix Corp., a Fremont, California company known for its phosphors,
has introduced a DL6 solid state retrofit downlight, designed for installation in standard 6-inch recessed can fixtures. The announcement of the light's introduction was accompanied by the news that the new DL6 has been awarded Energy Star® certification, and is in compliance with California's Title 24 energy efficiency code.
The DL6 downlight produces more than 600 nominal total lumens and delivers a 3000K warm white output and color rendering index (CRI) greater than 80. It consumes less than 14 watts at normal operating temperatures. Intematix says it can replace inefficient halogen reflector lamps or unattractive compact fluorescents in recessed fixtures that are typical in hotel and office lobbies, restaurants and retail environments worldwide.
The DL6 retrofit LED light is designed for placement in existing 6-inch recessed downlight housings, and features a 60-degree beam angle, CCT of 3000K and CRI in the mid-80s. Intematix News Release
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Dialight’s DuroSite LED High-bay Lighting Installed at Frontline Facility
SSLighting Design News Staff
March 29, 2010...Frontline, a company in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio USA, which specializes in cooking oil recycling solutions, is rapidly growing a “green” business. Frontline looked to Dialight’s highly energy efficient DuroSite Series LED High Bay lighting fixtures to help meet customer expectations for environmentally responsible sustainable practices.
As the company expanded, many of their eco-conscious customers began asking about the sustainability and environmental impact of Frontline’s own operations.
According to company president John Palazzo, Frontline felt compelled to explore ways to make their operations more environmentally friendly. “Sixty percent of our operation is assembly work, manufacturing the equipment. So as part of our initial sustainability initiative, one of the first places we looked to improve our practices was in our manufacturing facilities."
Frontline was in the early stages of designing a new plant facility. In their other facility, they had been using fluorescent and incandescent lighting for the assembly areas. The company required a large number of fixtures to get the bright light needed for assembly operations. The energy consumption at the other facilities was enormous. Palazzo and his team began investigating alternative lighting options. They evaluated high pressure sodium lights, newer fluorescent technologies, and LED lighting solutions. They decided that LED lighting was the optimum eco-friendly solution.
After comparing several LED lighting solutions, Frontline reportedly chose Dialight’s High Bay LED lighting fixtures for several key reasons: their robust design and construction, their high energy efficiency, hands-free minimal maintenance, and low total cost of ownership over time. Frontline felt they would be ideally suited for their high-ceiling manufacturing and warehouse facilities.
Dialight News Release
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Novaled and Partners Showcase Next Generation of OLED Luminaires
LIGHTimes News Staff
March 29, 2010...Novaled AG is set to introduce its latest OLED luminaires for lighting and display applications at Light + Building in Frankfurt, Germany.
These new area light sources deliver unique design possibilities and allow completely new lighting applications because they are very thin and emit light from a surface.
Novaled points out that OLED light is perceived as being very natural due to the broad emission spectra of the organic materials. The company says that its OLEDs provide a very high quality light with a CRI of up to 95. A range of OLED lighting from warm white to clear cold white will be exhibited. In addition to white OLEDs, Novaled also produces colored OLEDs such as deep orange, rich red and intense blue that will be shown. Also, Color tunable OLEDs which cover a broad span of colors from light blue through clear white and all the way to orange will be introduced.
Novaled News Release
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Neo-Neon Introduces LED Street Light Series
SSLighting Design News Staff
March 29, 2010...Neo-Neon, a company known for its flexible LED-based Neon-like light replacement product, has jumped into the LED streetlight market with the release of its LED High Power Street Light series.
The fixture casings are constructed of die-cast aluminum, which is coated with a specialized powder coating treatment that the company says results in a durable long lasting finish that is self-cleaning in nature.
The company indicated that the street lights are easily adaptable to existing street lamp poles and existing electrical systems, and they the LED High Power Streetlight Series can be implemented on any scale. Neo-Neon says that solar powered systems are also available for areas where there is ample sunshine to harness, store, and use. Intelligent systems reportedly enable automatic self-switching between stored solar energy use and direct electrical connection depending on the battery level.
Neo-Neon says that it has developed a new optical enhancement technique to boost the luminosity of the LED Streetlight Series by a gain factor of 50% on average.
The company calls this new patent pending technology Lux Boosting Optical Technology and displayed as the acronym, L-BOT(tm).
L-BOT technology is an optical reflector design and technique that shapes and directs the divergence of the fast axis of the LED to achieve the net effect of what the company calls Lux Boosting, which enables the directing of light specifically to the intended surface to be illuminated in a direct manner.
Company News Release
Bridgelux and Molex roll out Helieon modules to streamline LED lighting integration
SSLighting Design News Staff
March 25, 2010... Initial product offerings include light modules with nominal 1050mA driven outputs of 800 and 1200 lumens in 3000K warm white or 4100K neutral white, combined with precision optics to deliver narrow, medium or wide flood beam angles. The 800 nominal-lumen module is available for less than $20 in volume, while the 1200 lumen implementation is priced less than $25. Both boast a lifespan of more than 10 years, based on 12hr/day usage, and offer a 3 year warranty, which is atypical for a product that sits so close to the component end of the LED supply chain.
“Helieon will quickly debunk the myth that solid state lighting isn’t ready for mass adoption,” said William Watkins, CEO of Bridgelux. “Providing high quality light and an easy and familiar installation experience at a price point to enable mass adoption, Helieon delivers on the promise of solid state lighting. With Helieon, solid state lighting is poised to displace conventional incandescent, fluorescent and other technologies in many high-volume general lighting applications, creating a $100 billion market opportunity. Together, Bridgelux and Molex are creating a new, massive market segment for solid state lighting.”
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In what may be an emerging trend, Bridgelux, a maker of LEDs and LED products, along with interconnect specialist Molex, jointly introduced an interchangeable light module they call the Helieon lighting system. The system uses LED array products from Bridgelux mated to interconnect technology from Molex that allows LED luminaire manufacturers to design a single platform that accepts snap-in modules in a variety of beam angles, color temperatures, and light output. While not the first to implement a "puck" style module, Bridgelux and Molex feel that the Helieon design offers some several innovations over similar looking approaches that have been announced, including GE Lumination's module technology purchased from from Journée Lighting last November (Ref: Article). The companies cite several key advantages for the Helieon, including the fact that the heat spreader and power connections are not subjected to twisting stresses during installation, and that they define new price points in the market.
Shuji Nakamura to be Seoul Semiconductor Consultant
LIGHTimes News Staff
March 25, 2010...Seoul Semiconductor has reportedly enlisted one of the main contributors to the invention of the blue LED, Shuji Nakamura, to be the company's scientific advisor.
Nakamura is a professor at the Materials Department of the College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
Nakamura is widely known for helping develop the high-brightness blue LED based on gallium nitride in 1993 while working for Nichia Corporation in Japan. At the time, developing a blue LED was considered impossible, and only red and green LEDs had been available for the prior 20 years.
In 2006, Nakamura won the Millennium Technology Prize of Finland, known as “the Nobel Prize in the technology field.”
In 2004, he received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in the engineering segment, previously conferred upon Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein. In addition, he won The Economist's Innovation Award, given to only six scientists who have made an outstanding contribution to innovation of technology. In 2009, he received the Harvey Prize from the Technion in Israel.
“Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. is proud to be one of the industrial sponsors of the SSLEC. Prof. Nakamura’s consulting will lead Seoul Semiconductor's bright future,” Senior Vice President S.M. Lee of Seoul Semiconductor said.
Doug Hardman, North American Marketing Director for Seoul Semiconductor, said, “The legendary Professor Shuji Nakamura’s consultancy with Seoul Semiconductor is sure to accelerate our leadership position in LED technology for North America and all the world.”
Seoul Semiconductor News Release
Cree Gets Visit from Vice President Biden; Introduces XLamp XP-C Color LEDs
SSLighting Design News Staff
March 25, 2010...The United States Vice President, Joe Biden, met with Cree's CEO, Chuck Swoboda and the company's employees.
Vice President Biden toured Cree’s facilities with Chuck Swoboda, chairman and chief executive officer of Cree, and he spoke with employees about the benefits of working for a green technology company and their concerns about the economy.
“The ongoing support from the Obama administration is important as we promote the value of energy efficiency and sustainability in today’s economy,” said Swoboda. “Cree is creating American clean-tech jobs right now, as we continue to lead the LED lighting revolution.”
Cree News Release.
Cree has also introduced the color versions of its XLamp XP-C LEDs. The XP-C color LEDs come in royal blue, blue, green, amber, red-orange and red.
Cree News Release
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Commentary & Perspectives...
Modular approaches to LED lighting
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
March 31, 2010...One of the consistent concerns that users express about the move to solid state lighting is what happens if 'the bulb' burns out. Some solutions to that concern have been around for a bit, and new approaches are making themselves visible, so to speak. It may seem a little remedial to some, but the first place we need to start is what the heck a "bulb" might be here in the LED lighting arena.
In lighting parlance, a 'lamp' is the thing that screws or plugs into 'the fixture' to make a complete luminaire. When we point at the thing on the ceiling, consumers call it the 'light fixture', and commercial operators often do as well. The difference comes when someone like a lighting designer calls it a luminaire, the commercial client understands what they mean as well. There hasn't been much consistency in practical terminology, simply because 'the lamp' has always been replaceable. Every luminaire has always been a fixture as well, since you could take out the lamp and swap in a new one, usually controlling the default amount and characteristics of the light (warm, cool, etc) by the choice of lamp that went in there.
Then along comes LED lighting, and suddenly, the terminology makes a difference because some LED-lunatics bolted the darn lamps in, claiming they would last 50,000 hours or more. With 8760 hours a year, that's 5.7 years for 24x7 use, 16 years for a 12 hour per weekday office, or 35 years for our 4 hour per night kitchen lights... (and I couldn't even keep track of the reciept for the first 10 years of the 20 year warranty on my Tempur-Pedic matress!). Semiconductor history suggests that most quality-designed LED lights should indeed last as long as the manufacturers say they can, but that doesn't rule out some failures along the way, or more likely, since LEDs almost always fade rather than fail, failures elsewhere in the system. We'll circle back to that part in a moment.
For an LED luminaire, when we talk about the 'the lamp' for the most part, we'll be talking about the power conversion, control, optics and LEDs. "Integral replacement lamp" was the term chosen by the US Department of Energy when they developed the specs for Energy Star qualification of the thing that replaces an incandescent, HID or fluorescent bulb or tube. Basically the thing you screw or plug into that existing fixture. But some companies in the SSL industry have realized that while they may believe in their products' ability to reach the predicted lifetime, the purchasers may not. And while it may seem to new-to-lighting manufacturers that once someone is up on the cherry-picker, it's not much difference whether they are swapping "the bulb" or "the luminaire" it does make a huge difference to the owners because it may not be allowable for it to be the same person. Maintenance people can swap bulbs, but often it will be an electrician who needs to be the one swapping a luminaire, and those labor rates are at a bit different level and can definitely effect those important payback calculations. The solution to the buyers' concerns can often be found in taking a more modular approach.
We can imagine a number of different ways to carve up the modules in an LED lighting system. We'll ignore the integral replacement lamp, since it is pretty much self contained and thinking in terms of replaceable components inside there is pretty much moot. Recycle it when it dies. For integrated luminaires, you'll have a set of basic components -- a streetlight, for instance, would have a housing, maybe an external lens, a power supply to convert line voltage to something more LED-friendly, drivers to control the current that determines the light output of the LEDs, optics on or around the LED, and of course, the LEDs themselves. Some companies mix the replaceability of the modules between field level and factory level. Philips Lightolier, for instance, uses a phosphor panel in their Calculite recessed downlight. At the factory level, they can easily swap LED boards that sit behind the lens, so if the LEDs or their circuit board connections tank up, the unit can be easily repaired and returned to someone's stock. That also lets them take advantage of technology advances, so their 1500 to 2000 lumens that requires say 20 LEDs today may only need 10, and then later maybe just a few out in the distant future. New circuit board, same everything else. Happy factory. The power supply is also a separate module, and is designed for easy service. Not sure if it can be swapped in and out while installed, but it's easy to envision a design that takes such an approach. Elumen has done so for its streetlights. Basically, their design looks like a book that has been opened in the middle and set face-down on a table. The pages are the arrays of LEDs which can be spread wider or narrower to adjust the beam pattern, and the "spine" is a tube-like housing into which the modular power supply and control electronics can be plugged in and out as a unit. Got a dark unit or half-lit array? Take a power module up on the cherry-picker with you, and swap it out just like you did the lamp in the past.
Others have taken the approach of assigning replaceability to the 'LED module'. In a somewhat recent example, in March 2009, Journée Lighting announced that its Azara track-style light that used a replaceable "puck" they called the "Sprocket" was a winner in the 2008 Next Generation Lighting awards. The puck consisted of the LED array, optics, and power/control section compatible with a 24V rail system (making it a lot simpler than having to deal with higher AC line voltages). A November 2009 announcement (ref SSL Design article), provided the news that GE Lumination had purchased the module technology from Journée, targetting product availability here in the early part of 2010. It is described as being offered in a variety of beam angles, and has a switch on it to choose different power/brightness levels, before it is twisted into the housing. We haven't heard more about availability yet, and assuming they have worked out the thermal transfer issues, it should provide a modular approach that buyers will be able to relate to.
In a related thought process, last week Bridgelux and Molex announced that they had teamed to create a simpler push and twist system that concentrates on the LED array, mount and thermal transfer, leaving the power and electronics to the fixture it will be installed into (ref SSL Design article). It's a clever approach, and it has a definite advantage in that it moves the heat-sensitive electronics out of the module, suggesting a simpler and more reliable design. Simple enough that they are offering a 3 year warranty, which is fairly unprecedented for something this close to the LED level of the supply chain. If the LED does die a premature death, open the luminaire (or is it now a fixture?), twist and lift the bad one out, then push and twist the new one in. The luminaire designer leverage off that 'LED mechanical and thermal interconnect module' (can't very well call it a lamp or we'll all be confused... maybe we can call it a bulb), and offer a variety of models and light outputs that are configured at the end of the production line based on what module gets installed. The same can apply to users changing a beam angle, color temp or potential brightness, along with migrating to future brighter and/or lower power consuming models. Add a user-replaceable power section and there might be some very reassured customers.
Jason Posselt, Bridgelux' VP of Marketing, and Mike Picini, VP of Solid State Lighting for Molex, tell us that they see the potential of a de facto standard being driven by their planned commercial success. Jason pointed out that from his days at HP/Agilent/Lumileds, he had first-hand experience with an analgous process when they settled on 350mA as the "reference point" for characterizing higher output LEDs. 350mA multiplied by the typical 3-ish volt input comes out to about 1 watt. Now most LED companies name their devices 1-, 2- and 3-watt LEDs based on 350mA, 700mA and 1050mA drive currents. Molex certainly isn't unfamiliar with the process either, since the "Molex connector" has been the de facto standard of how you provide power to your computer's disk drives for several decades. They designed it, it worked well, they pitched it to the disk drive and power supply manufacturers who all saw a clear benefit in the interoperability, and it became the standard. We'll see how the different modular approaches to LED lighting do as they walk their path towards interoperability as well. We know the story will play well with buyers when it comes to supporting the wide scale adoption of solid state lighting.
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