Category Archives: LEDs

Cree, Inc. introduces a game-changing series of LED bulbs, with bulbs starting at a new low price of $9.97 for a 40-watt bulb. The new bulbs shine as brightly as comparable incandescents, while saving 84% of the energy compared to traditional bulbs.

“The Cree LED light bulb was designed to offer consumers a no-compromise lighting experience at a compelling price,” said Chuck Swoboda, Cree chairman and CEO. “Over the last couple of years we recognized that the consumer is instrumental in the adoption of LED lighting, but we needed to give them a reason to switch. We believe this breakthrough LED bulb will, for the first time, give consumers a reason to upgrade the billions of energy-wasting light bulbs. We could not think of a better way to get this bulb into consumers’ hands than through The Home Depot, a visionary partner who embraces innovation.”

The innovative bulb is illuminated by Cree LED Filament Tower Technology and provides a compact optically balanced light source within a real glass bulb to deliver consumers the warm light they love and want. With a shape that looks like a traditional light bulb, Cree LED bulbs can be placed in most lighting fixtures in the home. The new Cree LED bulb is designed to last 25,000 hours or 25 times longer than typical incandescent light bulbs – reducing the need to replace bulbs for years.

With a retail price of $9.97 for the warm white 40-watt replacement, $12.97 for the 60-watt warm white replacement and $13.97 for the 60-watt day light, the Cree LED bulbs save 84% of the energy compared to traditional incandescents.

The new LED bulbs turn on instantly and are free of the mercury that is found in CFL bulbs. Unlike many low-priced LED bulbs, Cree LED bulbs are easily dimmable with most standard incandescent dimmers.

The Cree LED light bulb (60-watt incandescent replacement) delivers 800 lumens and consumes only 9.5 watts and is available in warm white (2700K) and day light (5000K) color temperatures. The Cree LED light bulb (40-watt incandescent replacement) delivers 450 lumens and consumes only 6 watts and is available in 2700K color temperature.

The Cree LED bulbs are backed by a 10-year limited warranty and available exclusively at The Home Depot.

“As the leading retailer of energy-efficient LED lighting products, our customers look to us to provide them with the most advanced and most cost-effective lighting technologies available,” said Jeff Epstein, merchandising vice president, The Home Depot. “We diligently work with our manufacturing partners to offer consumers the most innovative alternatives that also help save money and energy. We are pleased to expand our relationship with Cree. It has enabled us to be the first in the market to offer a technologically advanced and affordable LED light bulb in the market today.”

Recently, as the importance of environmental protection grows, the method of saving energy of products and using eco-friendly materials is on the rise. Of these, since lighting accounts for about 20% of the overall power consumption, the efforts to replace with high-efficiency and eco-friendly products are being made actively. Accordingly, in terms of replacing conventional lightings such as low-efficiency incandescent lamps or fluorescent lamps using an environmentally hazardous substance like mercury with high-efficiency and eco-friendly products such as OLED or LED, the effect is expected to be very large.

In particular, OLED lighting is a surface style and can be manufactured in a transparent or flexible appearance, and has characteristics that realize excellent color rendering and a variety of colors. OLED lighting is drawing attention as a next-generation lighting to bring a new paradigm to the lighting industry since it can change even people’s way of living innovatively in the future through a variety of designs.

Global lighting manufacturers such as Osram or Philips have been prepared for the commercialization of OLED lighting, and began the sales of OLED lighting panels five years ago. After Osram released the world’s first OLED panel in 2008, the sales of the products with improved performance and reduced costs are increasing in recent years.

Based on such trend, IHS Displaybank is to assist in examining the status and the potential for development of the OLED lighting market by publishing a report of Lighting OLED Module Industry Analysis and Market Forecast 2012, which analyzes the general lighting OLED module industry and the market. In addition, the report also helps viewers predict the position of OLED industry in the lighting industry by including the overall light source market forecast for general lighting.

IHS Display forecasted that OLED will penetrate the lighting market gradually by its several optical excellence and the advantage of being transparent and flexible shape, despite the high selling price and limited application market formed in the initial period of the mass production. In particular, the competitiveness of OLED products is analyzed to be strengthened further in the lighting industry from year 2016-2018 when the improvement of efficiency, and the reduction of the cost ratio are significantly achieved.

Recently, considering the speed of the recent OLED lighting development, the efficiency of a 100x100mm2-sized OLED module is expected to exceed 200lm/W, and the net material costs are predicted to be reduced to less than $3.

ams AG (SIX: AMS), a designer and manufacturer of high-performance analog ICs for consumer and communications, industrial and medical and automotive applications, today introduced a new intelligent LED driver for mobile phone cameras that maximizes the brightness of the flash without causing the phone’s battery to fall below its minimum operating voltage.

The AS3649 LED driver uses an innovative “diagnostic pulse” – a burst of controlled high current lasting a few milliseconds – immediately before every flash operation. During this pulse the device measures the momentary voltage across the terminals of the phone’s battery. On the basis of this measurement, it reports a value for the highest flash drive current the battery can sustain, up to a maximum of 2.5A, without dropping below its minimum voltage and triggering the phone to reset itself during the main flash.

Drawing on analog sensing technology developed by ams, the AS3649 measures the battery voltage and current with high accuracy, enabling it to precisely calibrate the optimal LED drive current under any given conditions.

Mobile phones that use the AS3649 can therefore generate the brightest possible flash light, without the need for a bulky auxiliary power source such as a super-capacitor. Users can then benefit from higher image quality and higher resolution. When taking pictures of fast-moving objects, a brighter flash enables the use of faster shutter speeds for sharper, clearer pictures.

The introduction of the LED driver AS3649 also allows mobile phone manufacturers to markedly reduce the engineering and software development effort involved in flash LED implementation. Today, manufacturers exhaustively test the operation of each mobile phone model’s LED flash system under all possible operating conditions, and at all operating voltages. The results of these tests are encoded in a software look-up table stored on the phone. Whenever the camera calls for the flash to be operated, the phone’s processor must read from the look-up table an estimate for a safe drive current value.

The diagnostic pulse technique implemented by the AS3649 eliminates virtually all of this engineering effort, since it is able to measure the actual behavior of the battery at the time of use, instead of estimating it beforehand on the basis of sampled test results.

The AS3649 supplies up to 2.5A to a single LED or up to 1.25A each to two LEDs.  The device’s current-source architecture provides for thermal management, and an on-board NTC (temperature sensor) automatically reduces the current to the LED if it exceeds a programmable temperature threshold.

“Consumers look carefully at camera performance when choosing a mobile phone – it is a key differentiator,” said Ronald Tingl, senior marketing manager at ams. “By using the AS3649, handset manufacturers can achieve the best possible lighting for pictures taken in dark conditions, and at the same time benefit from eliminating the huge effort involved in qualifying all components stressed by high LED flash drive currents.”

After experiencing a slowdown in 2012, the global semiconductor market is set for growth. The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics predicts the global semiconductor market to grow by 4.5% in 2013 after declining 3.2 percent in 2012. The SPDR S&P Semiconductor ETF (XSD) has gained over 7% year-to-date. Five Star Equities examines the outlook for companies in the semiconductor industry and provides equity research on Avago Technologies Ltd. and NVIDIA Corporation.

The global semiconductor industry posted total sales of $291.6 billion in 2012, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. The total was the third highest ever, but a decline of 2.7 from the record $299.5 billion set in 2011. The industry began to show some strength in the fourth quarter as it posted sales of $74.2 billion, which was a year-over-year increase of 3.8%.

"Despite substantial macroeconomic challenges, the global semiconductor industry outperformed forecasts and posted one of its highest yearly sales totals in 2012," said Brian Toohey, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. "Recent momentum, led by strength in the Americas, has the industry well-positioned for a successful 2013."

Avago Technologies serves three primary target markets: wireless communications, wired infrastructure, industrial and automotive electronics.

Five Star Equities provides market research focused on equities that offer growth opportunities, value, and strong potential return and was not compensated by any of the companies listed in its report.

Dramatically falling costs and improvements in efficiency are driving increased sales of light emitting diode (LED) lamps for street lighting. Costs have fallen as much as 50% over the past two years and are expected to continue falling. By 2015, LEDs will become the second-leading type of lamp for street lights in terms of sales, behind only high pressure sodium lamps, according to a new report from Pike Research, a part of Navigant’s Energy Practice. By 2020, the study concludes, LED lamps for street lights will generate more than $2 billion in annual revenue.

“Broader investments in smart city infrastructure by municipal governments will boost smart street lighting projects, as the two go hand in hand,” says research analyst Jesse Foote. “Smart street lighting systems can provide a backbone for other smart city applications, and conversely, a city investing in networking capabilities for smart city applications should also be looking to include better management of street lighting.”

Nearly all smart street lighting projects are still in a pilot phase at the moment, according to the report. The adoption of LED street lights and networked control systems is seriously hindered by the ownership models and tariff structures in place across the United States and in some European and Asian locations as well. If utility companies own street lighting systems and charge a fixed tariff per light to municipalities, then towns have little financial incentive to pay for upgrading their lights. However, the potential for significant energy savings, reduced emissions and improved quality of service, combined with falling LED prices, means that more and more cities will find this an attractive proposition over time.

The report, Smart Street Lighting, analyzes the global market opportunity for lamp upgrades and networked lighting controls across five categories of public outdoor lighting: highways, roads, parking lots, city parks, and sports stadiums. The report provides a comprehensive assessment of the demand drivers, obstacles, policy factors, and technology issues associated with the growing market for street lighting controls. Key industry players are profiled in depth and worldwide revenue and capacity forecasts, segmented by lamp type and region, extend through 2020.

 

New automotive technologies that go beyond touchscreens, satellite radio, and voice-activated GPS commands are being tested and improved, and will soon begin to appear in many more new car models, resulting in solid growth for the automotive IC market through 2016, according to the 2013 edition of IC Insights’ IC Market Drivers—A Study of Emerging and Major End-Use Applications Fueling Demand for Integrated Circuits.

Military-like night-vision systems that quickly identify pedestrians, animals or road hazards in low-light conditions; airbags stowed in shoulder harnesses of seatbelts; and the ability for drivers to customize the look of their dashboard instrument panels are examples of systems that are available in a select number of cars now, but will soon become available in many more vehicles. Along with backup cameras, electronic stability control, active-cruise control, and several other systems covered in the IC Market Drivers report, emerging electronic systems are forecast to help the automotive IC market grow 52% from $18.2 billion in 2012 to $27.7 billion in 2016. This growth translates to an average annual increase of 11% for the automotive IC market.

Analog ICs and MCUs are forecast to benefit most from the increasing electronic content within automobiles.  According to the IC Market Drivers report, analog ICs accounted for 41% of the 2012 automotive IC market (Figure 2).  Analog ICs are used in “traditional” applications such as to gauge input functions like speed measurement and for output functions like opening and closing power windows and adjusting power seats.  One of the newer applications for analog ICs in cars is LED lighting.  Depending on the application, LED drivers and various converters are used to supply constant current despite variations in battery voltage.

Microcontrollers accounted for 36% of the automotive IC market in 2012.  16-bit applications in chassis and safety applications (lane-detection warning, hands-free telematics, etc.) are increasing, but enhanced 8-bit and low-end 32-bit MCUs are competing for many of the same sockets as 16-bit controllers.  Applications like anti-skid braking and airbag systems are solidly 16-bit now, but are transitioning to larger bit widths.  Electronic parking assist could be a new sweet spot for 16-bit MCUs. These systems typically use two to four (but as many as eight) ultrasonic sensors to detect objects near the vehicle.  Processing the additional information drives the requirements into the domain of 16-bit devices.

The 32-bit chips are incorporated into powertrains to handle functions such as electronic throttle control, cylinder deactivation, variable valve timing, and fuel injection, and in next-generation chassis and safety systems including active high-end electronic stability control, complex smart airbag systems, and more.  In addition, 32-bit MCUs are used to process sophisticated, real-time sensor functions within safety and crash-avoidance systems.

Gesture recognition is a growing trend that is being incorporated both inside and outside the car. 32-bit MCUs are at the core of many emerging gesture-recognition systems and in many ways, they are an extension of gesture-recognition technology found onboard in game controllers.

Though the automotive market represents only about 7% of total IC sales, increasing electronic system content in motor vehicles is forecast to result in this segment being one of the fasting-growing end-use categories through 2016.

 

 

The way the world is lit up could be revolutionized by a new European-wide research project being led by the University of Dundee.

The 11.8 million Euros NEWLED project aims to develop a new generation of white light-emitting LED lights, which would be much more efficient than existing light bulbs.

It is estimated that efficient white-light LEDs, if successfully developed and widely implemented, could have a massive effect on reducing global energy consumption and C02 emissions.

"Common lightbulbs have a pretty low efficiency rating and even the best current white LEDs in use only have an overall efficiency of around 25%," said Professor Edik Rafailov, NEWLED project leader based in the School of Engineering, Physics and Mathematics at Dundee. "What we are aiming to develop is a significantly more efficient white LED, which would be around 50-60% efficient. If we can do that and it becomes widely adopted, then the effects on energy consumption would be enormous. It would also produce lighting over which much more control could be exercised in brightness and tone."

NEWLED brings together academic and industrial partners and is funded through the European Union’s FP7 program.

The effort to produce highly efficient white LEDs will see the project examine every stage of the LED fabrication process, from developing new knowledge on the control of semiconductor properties on a near-atomistic level to light mixing and heat management.

By examining the entire process, NEWLED aims to ensure that the new LEDs will be well adjusted to avoid compromising the achievements of the overall process and to ensure significant system and operating cost reduction.

Connecting the (quantum) dots


February 26, 2013

Recent research offers a new spin on using nanoscale semiconductor structures to build faster computers and electronics. Literally.

University of Pittsburgh and Delft University of Technology researchers reveal in the Feb. 17 online issue of Nature Nanotechnology a new method that better preserves the units necessary to power lightning-fast electronics, known as qubits. Hole spins, rather than electron spins, can keep quantum bits in the same physical state up to 10 times longer than before, the report finds.

"Previously, our group and others have used electron spins, but the problem was that they interacted with spins of nuclei, and therefore it was difficult to preserve the alignment and control of electron spins," said Sergey Frolov, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy within Pitt’s Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, who did the work as a postdoctoral fellow at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Whereas normal computing bits hold mathematical values of zero or one, quantum bits live in a hazy superposition of both states. It is this quality, said Frolov, which allows them to perform multiple calculations at once, offering exponential speed over classical computers. However, maintaining the qubit’s state long enough to perform computation remains a long-standing challenge for physicists.

"To create a viable quantum computer, the demonstration of long-lived quantum bits, or qubits, is necessary," said Frolov. "With our work, we have gotten one step closer."

The holes within hole spins, Frolov explained, are literally empty spaces left when electrons are taken out. Using extremely thin filaments called InSb (indium antimonide) nanowires, the researchers created a transistor-like device that could transform the electrons into holes. They then precisely placed one hole in a nanoscale box called "a quantum dot" and controlled the spin of that hole using electric fields. This approach— featuring nanoscale size and a higher density of devices on an electronic chip—is far more advantageous than magnetic control, which has been typically employed until now, said Frolov.

"Our research shows that holes, or empty spaces, can make better spin qubits than electrons for future quantum computers."

"Spins are the smallest magnets in our universe. Our vision for a quantum computer is to connect thousands of spins, and now we know how to control a single spin," said Frolov. "In the future, we’d like to scale up this concept to include multiple qubits."

Production system from AIXTRONAIXTRON SE today announced that, in the third quarter of 2012, long-term customer Formosa Epitaxy Inc. (FOREPI), Taiwan, placed a new order for multiple CRIUS II-L MOCVD production systems in a 69×2-inch configuration. All systems will be used for the manufacturing of ultra-high brightness (UHB) GaN-based blue and white LEDs.

AIXTRON’s local service team has started installing and commissioning the new systems in the fourth quarter of 2012 at FOREPI’s new state-of-the-art factory in the Pin-Jen industrial zone, Taiwan. Delivery will be completed in the second quarter of 2013. In May 2012, FOREPI had already purchased several CRIUS II-XL and AIX G5 HT reactors.

“This new order reflects our on-going satisfaction with AIXTRON’s products,” comments FOREPI’s chairman Dr. Frank Chien. “AIXTRON has proven itself as an excellent partner, providing superior customer care by responding to our requests and delivering the needed solutions. With short time-to-production, and highest performance and throughput, AIXTRON’s latest MOCVD generations meet the specific challenges of larger wafers and maximum chip yields.”

All CRIUS II-L systems will be delivered with AIXTRON’s new ARGUS Topside Temperature Control (TTC) system. The new method eliminates temperature variation within each run and run-to-run, enabling unmatched production yields.

“This latest multiple tool order reflects FOREPI’s growth as a top-tier LED chip manufacturer. We are pleased to support this prized customer with our latest technology. Besides reactor size and design, we believe that successful in-situ measurement and control offer the greatest optimization potential because they provide a direct impact on yields,” said Dr. Christian Geng, general manager of AIXTRON Taiwan.

LEDs are projected to grow more than six-fold to nearly $100 billion and power conversion electronics to $15 billion over the next decade as the desire for energy efficiency drives adoption, says Lux Research. While the market opportunity is clear, the winning positions are still very much up for grabs, so making wise partnership and investment choices is critical.  

“A slew of developers are working on innovative materials and system architectures, targeting the primary challenges of cost reduction and manufacturability,” said Pallavi Madakasira, Lux Research Analyst and the lead author of the report titled, Winning the Jump Ball: Sorting Winners from Losers in LEDs and Power Electronics. “Many leading lights of the electronics industry are strong in these markets, but start-ups with novel technologies are looking to grab a share for themselves.  

Lux Research positioned the key developers of LEDs and power electronics materials, devices, and systems on the Lux Innovation Grid based on their technical Vvalue and business execution – companies that are strong on both axes reach the “dominant” quadrant. They also assessed each company’s maturity, and provided an overall Lux Take. Among their findings:

  • SiC players are dominant in power electronics. The “dominant” power electronics players wager mostly on SiC. Cree is a fully vertically integrated SiC device manufacturer, while other top leaders are experienced players from silicon power electronics like Infineon, Rohm Semiconductor and ST Microelectronics.
  • Cree, II-VI Wide Bandgap lead materials space. Cree is also “dominant” in materials, based on its development of SiC substrates. The only other company with a “dominant” rank is II-VI Wide Bandgap Group, an SiC wafer supplier with established relationships with power electronics and RF device manufacturers.
  • Six vie for dominance in LED. Cree is the leader in LEDs as well, the only firm that has successfully commercialized SiC-substrate-based LEDs at scale. Among other “dominant” firms, Nichia holds the most IP, while Samsung, Philips, and Osram Opto Semiconductors have all demonstrated GaN-on-silicon LEDs. GE Lighting does not have its own chip technology but its integration further down the value chain and its recent acquisition of fixture manufacturer Albeo make it a force to reckon with.

The report, titled Winning the Jump Ball: Sorting Winners from Losers in LEDs and Power Electronics, is part of the Lux Research Energy Electronics Intelligence service.