UPDATE February 8, 2012 — Chung Hoon Lee, CEO of LED manufacturer Seoul Semiconductor Co. Ltd. keynoted at the Strategies in Light Conference and Exhibition in Santa Clara, CA, today. Lee’s keynote, "A View from Seoul," marks the first time a Korean LED maker has spoken at the conference.
As the CEO of Seoul Semiconductor, Lee has guided the company from $1 million in revenue since the company’s inception, to over $700 million today. Lee holds the first patent technology for white LEDs in Korea and drove the innovation of Acrich, a mass-produced AC LED, for which he was awarded the Silver Tower Order of Industrial Service Merit in South Korea.
Mr. Lee described the "unique technology" of Seoul Semiconductor — UV LEDs, non-polar LEDs, and AC LEDs named Acrich that do not need a converter. "We spend 10-20% of our revenue for R&D. Based on this R&D we now have more than 10,000 IPs," he said.
Also read: Seoul Semiconductor LED patents top 10K mark
"People say Acrich is an Asia technology, but that’s wrong," Lee said. Acrich is the world’s first semiconductor light source that operates directly from AC power without a converter. This makes it suitable for many residential and commercial lighting applications where the main source of available power is AC. A design with Acrich LEDs minimizes component count and board space.
Speaking on the future of lighting systems, Lee showed a chart that compared Acrich to the converter-based technology of other companies (Company A through Company E). Holding up the components of an AC/DC converter system, Lee asked “What is this?” His answer, “This is junk,” was met with applause. Lee explained that the less-than-10K-hours lifetime of convertors sabotages the 50,000 hour lifetime of LEDs. Acrich, by comparison, uses a “tiny IC chip.” He said Acrich provides better power factors, better power efficiency and better THD. “We can reduce the heatsink, protect the environment and provide more design freedom,” Lee said.
Led also described an evolution in white LED chips, saying he believed the 3rd generation will be phosphor-free. How? He showed two approaches: a 3-chip (RGB) solution, and one based on quantum dots (QD). “Which will be successful? We cannot say yet,” he concluded.
Strategies in Light Conference and Exhibition focuses on developments in high brightness light-emitting diode (HB-LED) applications, technology and manufacturing. Stay tuned for daily news and product announcements from the show, such as:
- EVG LED mask aligner offers COO improvement in gen-2
- SemiLEDs, LG Siltron, Epistar install Veeco MOCVD tools
- Strategies in Light: Day 1, LED Lighting Report, New Start-ups
Seoul Semiconductor is an LED supplier and holds more than 10,000 patents. Seoul Semiconductor owns a wide range of LED technology and production capacity in the following areas: high brightness LEDs and mid-power top view LEDs as well as Acrich. The company is pioneering in the productization of deep UV LEDs and non-polar LEDs.