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May 23, 2012 — Researchers from A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) in Singapore and their commercial partners developed a plastic that reflects 0.09-0.20% of the visible light hitting its surface, thanks to a nanostructuring that mimics the folds in a moth’s eye.

Existing anti-reflective and anti-glare plastics in the market typically have reported reflectivity of around 1% of visible light. The new plastic could improve TV displays, solar cells, and other surfaces.

The plastic maintains low reflectivity (<0.7%) at angles up to 45°, enabling wider viewing angles with less glare on televisions, and larger light-absorption areas on organic solar cells.

Figure. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image showing the engineered anti-reflective nanostructures (left) that mimic structures found in a moth’s eye (moth close-up right, ©iStockphoto.com/Roman Nikolenko).

IMRE developed a nanoimprint process to fabricate the plastic. Nanoimprinting forms the plastic by engineering its physical aspects rather than using chemicals to change material properties. The process evolved from a lithography technology for the semiconductor industry and now suits a range of applications. This plastic is engineered into complex hierarchical “moth-eye” anti-reflective structures by placing nanoscale structures on top of other microstructures.

Now, the researchers are “developing complementary research that allows the technology to be easily ramped-up to an industrial scale,” said Dr Low Hong Yee, IMRE senior scientist leading the research.

Several companies are in the process of licensing the anti-reflective nanostructure technology from Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd, the technology transfer arm of A*STAR. This plastic material is the first successful result of the IMRE-led Industrial Consortium On Nanoimprint (ICON), which partners local and overseas companies to promote the manufacturing of nanoimprint technology. “The…consortium work will benefit our company’s expansion into new markets such as in the touchscreen panel and solar business sectors," said Wilson Kim Woo Yong, director, global marketing from Young Chang Chemical Co. Ltd. ICON promotes versatile, industry-ready nanoimprinting technology that can bring products to the market through sustainable manufacturing. Members of ICON work on joint projects to develop new products and applications that can potentially have huge savings in R&D. ICON began working on anti-reflective materials in August 2010.

The  Institute  of  Materials  Research  and  Engineering  (IMRE) is a research  institute  of  the  Agency  for  Science,  Technology  and Research  (A*STAR) in Singapore. The Institute has capabilities in materials analysis & characterization, design & growth, patterning & fabrication, and synthesis & integration for organic solar cells, photovoltaics, printed electronics, catalysis, bio-mimetics, microfluidics, quantum dots, heterostructures, sustainable materials, atom technology, and other research. For more information about IMRE, visit www.imre.a-star.edu.sg. For more information about A*STAR, please visit www.a-star.edu.sg.

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May 22, 2012 — The 58th annual IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) is seeking original presentations on microelectronics research and development. This year’s IEEE IEDM will focus on silicon and non-silicon device and process technology, circuit/device interactions; energy-harvesting, biomedical, and power electronics; magnetics and spintronics; and other topics.

The IEEE IEDM will take place December 10-12 in San Francisco, preceded by 90-minute afternoon tutorial sessions on December 8 and a full day of short courses on December 9. IEDM 2012 will host more than 200 presentations, as well as panel discussions and special events for microelectronics scientists and engineers from industry, academia and government.

Submit an abstract on:

  • Circuit and Device Interaction
  • Characterization, Reliability and Yield
  • Displays, Sensors and MEMS
  • Memory Technology
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Nano Device Technology
  • Power and Compound Semiconductor Devices
  • Process technology
  • Other topics

The submission deadline is June 25, 2012. Learn more and submit your presentation today at http://www.his.com/~iedm/call/.

To register for the event, visit www.ieee-iedm.org.

IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional association, is dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Learn more at http://www.ieee.org.

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May 22, 2012 — Invensas Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tessera Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:TSRA) and provider of semiconductor technologies, debuted bond via array (BVA) technology, an ultra-high-I/O semiconductor packaging alternative to wide-I/O through silicon via (TSV) packaging.

BVA offers package performance for mobile electronics in the established package-on-package (PoP) architecture with copper wire bonds for stack interconnects. PoP designs package die and stack packages, instead of stacking die within a package with TSVs or other technologies. BVA PoP enables reduced pitch and a higher number of interconnects in the PoP perimeter stacking arrangement. It has demonstrated scalability to a 0.2mm pitch. It takes PoP from 240 pins to 1200 pins.

BVA PoP suits applications processor + memory device stacks, increasing processor-to-memory bandwidth. Simon McElrea, president of Invensas, says the PoP structure could enable higher resolution, faster frame rate video streaming, faster search, higher-resolution multi-screen, multi-application operation, more life-like gaming and high-resolution 3D applications — all requirements of mobile devices.

McElrea noted that the PoP structure of BVA is a cost-effective semiconductor assembly method to achieve these high performance requirements in a small form factor. The ultra-high I/O offered by BVA exceeds what is possible with solder ball stacking and solder-filled laser via approaches, Invensas says.

Invensas will present its BVA PoP solution at the Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC) at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina in San Diego, CA. Titled "Fine Pitch Copper PoP for Mobile Applications" the paper will be part of Session 31, "Applications With 3D Technology," at 4:45 PM on Friday, June 1, 2012. Invensas will also exhibit at ECTC in booth 107 on May 30 and 31, 2012.

Invensas Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tessera Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:TSRA), acquires, develops, and monetizes strategic intellectual property (IP) in areas such as circuitry design, memory modules, 3-D systems, and advanced interconnect technologies, to serve the dynamic mobile, storage and consumer electronics sectors. Internet: www.invensas.com.

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This article was originally published in the April/May 2012 issue of our sister publication LEDs Magazine and is republished here with permission.

May 21, 2012 — LED manufacturers must choose the appropriate materials and processes to fight low yields. This is especially true in wafer bonding for vertical LEDs.

LED manufacturers in different regions of the world are confronting similar challenges concerning wafer bonding, particularly in the processing of vertical light-emitting diode (VLED) chip architectures. VLEDs offer certain key advantages over their lateral LED counterparts, though the lateral approach is a simpler manufacturing. This article covers the differences — in terms of processing and the optimization of light output — between vertical and lateral LEDs.

Both LED designs begin with the epitaxial growth of gallium nitride (GaN) on a sapphire substrate, but that is the end of their similarities. In a lateral LED design, the sapphire remains a part of the GaN LED stack. Since sapphire is an insulator, both contacts to the LED diode structure must be formed at the topside of the LED die, taking up valuable device real estate.

A simple back-of-the-envelope calculation of surface loss for a 4” LED wafer, assuming 300 x 300µm die and 100 x 100µm wire-bonding pads, reveals that each diode contact, to p-doped and n-doped GaN, consumes about 10% of the wafer surface.

In contrast, VLEDs are formed by full-wafer deposition of a metal-film stack, followed by wafer bonding with a carrier substrate. Since one electrical contact is the bonding layer itself and hence buried inside the LED stack, VLEDs immediately save the aforementioned 10% of real estate. In addition, electrical injection is more efficient for VLEDs, where lateral LED have difficulties, especially with higher current density.

Optimizing light output

Optimizing the LED’s real estate and electrical efficiency is only one aspect of the process: getting the light output from the LED remains a challenge. In GaN-based LEDs, the crystal planes of the GaN lead to a concentrated light emission normal to the sapphire’s c-plane, i.e., normal to the LED surface. In lateral LED designs, photons also couple into the transparent sapphire wafer, so that light is also emitted from the LED’s sidewalls. Since losses are higher, efficiency is decreased.

To increase light output in VLEDs, a metallic mirror is deposited prior to the metal bonding layers. The mirror will redirect emitted light to the LED surface. Light extraction is further optimized by creating a resonant cavity, and with surface roughening. Light extraction efficiency improves and the light is well directed to the user.

Added complexity with wafer bonding

If the benefits are so profound, why don’t all manufacturers produce VLEDs? One reason is a complex patent situation. In addition, LED makers must thoroughly understand the wafer bonding step to achieve high process yield. In VLEDs, the bonding layer is multifunctional. As electrical contact to the p-GaN, the bonding layer needs high conductivity to reduce ohmic losses. As the heat transfer layer between the LED and the heat sink, the bonding layer needs to have high thermal conductivity.

From a material standpoint, many eutectic metal systems (e.g. gold/tin, Au/Sn) or diffusion solders (e.g. gold/indium, Au/In) fulfill these requirements. However, each presents different processing requirements. The metal system determines the bonding temperature. Because the sapphire substrate and the carrier substrates have quite different coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE), a metal system with low bonding temperature will keep strain at a more manageable level. The selection of these layers is beyond the scope of this article, but typically metal layers such as platinum, aluminum, and gold, or combinations of these materials, are used.

Next, adhesion and diffusion barriers have to be chosen to contain the diffusive metals from the injection contacts or mirror layer of the LED structure. The correct choices will result in a high-yield layer transfer process.

GaN-on-silicon: the rookie

The potential use of GaN-on-silicon in LED manufacturing is an exciting prospect that seems likely to come to fruition in the next several years. Announcements by Osram Opto Semiconductors, Samsung LED (now Samsung Electronics), and Bridgelux have indicated that companies are 2-3 years from entering mass production, with laboratory LED efficiencies comparable to LEDs on sapphire. With a silicon substrate, wafer bonding provides one of the enabling steps of transferring the LEDs after growth.

Conclusion

Wafer bonding is a sophisticated process that requires extensive knowledge of material science. However, given the right material selection and process expertise, it can prove enabling when bringing up stable, next-generation LED manufacturing processes.

Thomas Uhrmann, Ph.D., is Business Development Manager, EV Group (EVG). Learn more about the company at http://www.evgroup.com/en.

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May 18, 2012 — Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) components’ percentage of the cost of a smartphone is decreasing, even as DRAM usage in smartphones is on the rise. Lowering average selling prices (ASPs) for DRAM components caused DRAM costs in smartphones to fall by more than half in the course of a year, according to an IHS iSuppli DRAM Market Brief.

Also read: DRAM partially recovers thanks to Elpida bankruptcy

In a sample of 19 smartphone dissections, IHS found that DRAM’s share of the cost of the total bill of materials (BOM) of a smartphone declined to 6.3% — about $11.81 — in Q1 2012, down 7.1 percentage points from 13.4% of total BOM in Q1 2011 — $19.48. This did not happen overnight — in Q2 2011 the share of DRAM in the total BOM fell to 8.5%, and the cost percentage never exceeded 7% since.

Figure. DRAM percentage share of smartphone BOM cost. SOURCE: IHS iSuppli Research, May 2012.

 

Q1 ’11

Q2 ’11

Q3 ’11

Q4 ’11

Q1 ’12

Percentage Share of BOM Cost

13.4%

8.5%

6.8%

6.2%

6.3%

 

Only smartphones that included discrete DRAMs were considered, for the sake of consistency phone to phone.

Smartphones “blur the line between a phone and a computing device,” said Dee Nguyen, memory analyst for IHS. As more processing power is added, DRAM has gained importance in smartphone designs — from 256 megabytes in Q1 2010 to 800 megabytes in Q1 2012. This, however, has not led to higher DRAM spending.

Many players have entered the DRAM market as chipmakers shift from PC-oriented designs to mobility components. With the available DRAM supply bolstered, ASPs fell 48% in 2011, bringing 1-gigabit units from $2.59 to $1.34. The contract price of a 2-gigabit low-power double data rate 2 (LPDDR2) DRAM declined 17% in Q4 2011.

In future smartphones, with “extensive application processing requirements, DRAM’s share of the BOM cost might rebound. “Handset manufacturers can throttle DRAM loading by only so much before risking lower performance,” Nguyen said. Phone designers are specifying more leading-edge and higher density DRAM, which comes at a higher cost. Once higher-cost LPDDR3 begins to take over from previous-generation LPDDR2, it will quickly outpace the adoption rate of LPDDR2. A small portion of smartphones will ship with LPDDR3 this year, but increased implementation is slated for 2013.

The migration to LPDDR3 will combine with higher DRAM requirements in smartphones to stem the tide of lower DRAM BOM costs.

IHS (NYSE: IHS) is the leading source of information, insight and analytics in critical areas that shape today’s business landscape. For more information, visit www.ihs.com.

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May 16, 2012 — After a surge in 2010 and oversupply in 2011 that suppressed 2012 fab, light-emitting diode (LED) makers will see a leveling out of supply and demand into better equilibrium, according to the NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly LED Supply/Demand Market Forecast Report. Demand will shift from liquid crystal display (LCD)-backlit LEDs to LEDs for lighting.

LED makers faced challenges in 2011, after skyrocketing demand in 2010. In 2011, growth in demand from LCD TV backlights reversed course, due to a combination of slower growth in LED-backlit LCD TV sales and slower growth in chips-per-backlight, due to efficiency increases. The demand for LEDs in LCD backlights did grow slightly, as use in tablet PCs and strong penetration growth in LCD monitors made up for the drop in demand from TV. Growth was also modest in lighting, as the market penetration of LEDs only grew from 1.4% in 2010 to 1.9% in 2011.

At the same time, many new LED suppliers had entered the industry, and were rapidly ramping up production. Measured in standard units of 500µm2 chip size, supply grew by 41% in 2011, compared to only 10% growth in demand. This resulted in a significant oversupply.

“LEDs have been in surplus since the end of 2010, setting the stage for a decrease in LED prices and margins,” said Steven Sher, analyst, NPD DisplaySearch. “As a result of this surplus situation, there has been almost no investment in LED applications, nor any significant capacity increases in 2012. This is resulting in a halving of the supply/demand glut from 2011 to 2012.”

Figure. LED supply/demand for backlight and lighting applications. SOURCE: NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly LED Supply/Demand Market Forecast Report.

Demand from LCD backlights will continue to dominate LED demand until 2013, when it will reach its peak. Due to the growing popularity of new, low-cost direct-LED backlight designs for LCD TVs, the demand for LEDs in backlights will continue to increase through 2013. While the number of LED packages per LCD backlight unit will peak in 2012, continued growth in penetration of LED backlights will lead to slight increase in LED demand in 2013.

By 2014, lighting will become the dominant source of demand for LEDs as price reductions and efficacy improvements drive increased adoption. The penetration of LEDs in lighting will reach 16.8% in 2015, according to the Quarterly LED Supply/Demand Market Forecast Report.

Spotlights and LED street lights will gain higher penetration in lighting due to government incentive programs, such as the 12th Five-Year Plan in China and the LED subsidy policy in Taiwan, as well as continued growth in commercial applications. LED bulbs and fluorescent tubes are growing in Japan due to government incentive programs and energy-saving consciousness, especially following the March 2011 earthquake.

The NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly LED Supply/Demand Market Forecast Report analyzes supply and demand on a quarterly basis for the entire LED industry. From chip prices to LED maker roadmaps, this report gives a clear outlook and reliable forecast of LED supply/demand, along with an analysis of the impacts on pricing. DisplaySearch provides market research and consulting on the display supply chain, as well as the emerging photovoltaic/solar cell industries. For more information on DisplaySearch analysts, reports and industry events, visit http://www.displaysearch.com/.

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May 14, 2012 — Barclays Capital analysts attended Lightfair International, a large, US-based general lighting tradeshow, and gleaned several trends in light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic LEDs (OLEDs) for lighting. Data presented at the show points to strong and steady LED lighting demand growth in 2012, though the LED lighting “inflection year” is still in the future.

While utilization rates are still relatively low in LED fabs, many chipmakers are reluctant to convert all of their backlighting-specific (BLU LEDs for display applications) LED tools to lighting-specific production, because they value yields honed for a specific design. Chipmakers told Barclays that they do not want to reconfigure metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) tools unless they are confident that this backlighting-specific production will no longer be needed. This suggests that anticipated LED lighting demand in H2 2012 and beyond will require more MOCVD tool orders, even without higher capacity utilization rates in LED fabs. Gradually improved MOCVD capex, in Q3 2012 and beyond, will be supported by a steady stabilization in LED supply/demand as 2013 approaches.

Barclays observed that LED chips still compete based on price, even among the Tier 1 LED makers, and further cost reductions are needed if margins are to survive. LED component price declines did moderate to an extent relative to last year’s price cuts, but the aggressive pricing trend continues, driven in part by end customers leveraging Tier 3 quality price points in China against Tier 1 and 2 LED makers. Until LED makers reach 80%+ effective yields in the fabs, the distribution of LEDs per run is fairly wide. Chips that do not meet their application’s specs are dumped on the market at a much lower price. Indeed, even in lighting-grade LEDs, there is “no rationality for price points,” according to 1 Tier-1 supplier. The good news for LED revenues is that unit volume growth is offsetting the price cuts.

The quality barrier between Tier 1 and Tier 2/3 LED suppliers continues to hold, with only ~10 LED makers that can reach 100lm/W efficacy levels in mass production, and meet Energy Star, UL, etc., specifications. In step with the luminous efficacy improvements at the chip level, system-level efficacy also continues to increase, with various troffers and luminaries already approaching 100lm/W. Korean LED makers are considering leveraging BLU LEDs for some lighting applications, like linear lighting and troffers, because specifications are similar. As a result, Samsung is becoming a major threat to Tier-1 LED suppliers, longer term, as it focuses on quality.

Also read: As LED patents run out, supply chain value will shift downstream

With LED lifetimes approaching 50K hours, LEDs are no longer the predictors of the lifetime of the full system, and the lifetime of the other components is becoming more prominent. Despite various certifications available, data on the lifetime and reliability at the total system level is still fairly limited.

While still in the early stages of development, OLED lighting was also being exhibited by several suppliers, with Philips and OSRAM appearing to be at the lead from an efficacy and product quality standpoint. Philips’ OLED lighting panels reached 25lm/W this year, with the company aiming for 60lm/W next year, driven by new developments in OLED materials (Philips using RGB stack with combination of phosphorescent and fluorescent materials); new developments in the glass substrate (adding reflective element to the glass composition); and advances in the deposition and processing technology. However, while reaching 60lm/W efficacy would be a big breakthrough, the key from there would be lumen maintenance, which is still very low for the OLED lighting panels currently available on the market. And while some companies suggested that OLED lighting is now moving from a designer/architectural application to a high-end lighting application, based on the product specs and the pricing, Barclays puts OLED lighting ~5-7 years behind LED lighting.

This year’s Lightfair was “almost entirely focused on LEDs,” said Barclays analysts. While LED dominance in new products at the booths is not yet indicative of end market penetration, it highlights the inevitability of LED lighting adoption in the coming years. Most lighting manufacturers and suppliers and LED makers alike see 2012 as a year of steady, strong LED lighting demand growth, though not yet an inflection. The biggest ramp in demand remains in segments where lighting is on for longer than 8 hours per day (streetlights, gas station canopies, retail, hospitality, warehouses). This is aided by the Federal Recovery Act spending on retrofitting public fixtures. Membership in the Solid State Street Lighting Consortium — a Department of Energy (DOE)-sponsored consortium of cities and municipalities looking to upgrade their lighting systems to energy-efficient solutions — has expanded to ~350 members from less than 100 last year. Payback periods for LED installs are compressing — for outdoor lights, LED systems have gone from 50-60% more expensive than non-LED lights last year to ~30-50% more. The payback for replacing non-LED luminaires in many applications is currently 2-5 years, sufficient to ensure funding for many commercial and industrial users. Utility rebates and government subsidies offered in various regions enhance paybacks further.

Many companies at Lightfair indicated that advances in LED chips and components, especially with regard to high efficacy, have lowered the cost of other components in a lighting system, driving down costs.

Learn more about Lightfair at http://www.lightfair.com.

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May 10, 2012 — Global TV shipments will remain flat in 2012, for the second year in a row. Shipments to developed markets, especially Western Europe and Japan, will fall 11% year to year (Y/Y), offset by 8% growth Y/Y in emerging markets, according to the NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Advanced Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report.

The liquid crystal display (LCD) TV market will continue to grow, capturing market share from declining cathode ray tube (CRT) and plasma technologies. Consumers in saturated markets are cautious, making them sensitive to price differences. “LCD is expected to continue narrowing the price gap with plasma,” noted Paul Gagnon, director of North America TV Research for NPD DisplaySearch. Many TV brands are “focusing on profits over volume,” Gagnon added, suppressing the rate of price erosion compared to recent years. This too could impact demand.

Larger panels sizes continue to increase share, lifting the average size of TVs shipped to almost 35” in 2012, up from less than 30” four years ago. The growing number of larger display factories used to produce LCD TV panels has helped the average area price to fall rapidly. In developed markets, this encourages existing flat panel TV households to trade up to a larger size, driving a new replacement wave. It also lowers barriers to first-time adoption in emerging markets converting from CRT TVs.

LCD TVs are expected to account for more than 88.5% of total TV shipments worldwide in 2012, up from 82.5% in 2011. LCD TV shipments will grow 7% to 220M in 2012, and rise to 241M in 2013. Expect LCD TVs to hold >90% market share in 2013.

Plasma TVs will account for just 5.3% of shipment volume in 2012, down from its peak at about 7.4% in 2010. Plasma TV shipments will fall 24% in 2012 to 13.1M, dropping to less than 3M by 2015.

The newest flat panel TV technology, organic light-emitting diode (OLED), will debut in large sizes in 2012, but volume will be very small, starting with 50,000 or fewer units.

Figure. Worldwide TV forecast by technology. SOURCE: DisplaySearch Quarterly Advanced Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report.

The share of LED-backlight LCD TVs will increase to 70.1% in 2012, up from 45.3% in 2011, thanks to new low-cost direct-LED backlight models challenging CCFL-backlit models. http://www.electroiq.com/articles/sst/2012/05/lower-cost-led-backlights-darken-ccfl-future.htmlWhile bulkier than LED-edge-lit models, lower-cost direct-LED LCD TVs will attract the most price-sensitive consumers. Even so, 5 times as many edge-lit LED backlight LCD TV will be shipped than direct-lit models, and the premiums for edge-lit LED LCD TVs are expected to start falling faster later in the year.

3D TV had a soft start in North America, but is experiencing a surge in popularity elsewhere, with shipments of more than 24M units in 2011 and an anticipated 90% increase in 2012 to 46M units. Shipment penetration is expected to exceed 25% in both Western Europe and China and 20% in Eastern Europe. While North America is still expected to lag with 19% penetration in 2012, it should be the leading 3D shipment region by 2014, when most large screen sizes will include 3D capability as a standard feature; North America will be the top region for 40”+ TV shipments.

China became the largest overall TV market in 2009 and the largest LCD TV market in 2011. However, with household flat panel TV penetration reaching high levels in urban areas, growth is expected to slow until rural cities start seeing increased adoption. LCD TV shipments are forecast to grow 11% Y/Y in China during 2012, down from 17% Y/Y growth in 2011. Some of the first evidence of this slowdown was seen in recent May Day holiday sales results in China. According to Bing Zhang, Research Director in the China Market for NPD DisplaySearch, “Analysis of sales during the recent May Day holidays in China indicates that sell-through was below expectations with low- to mid-single-digit growth and slightly elevated inventories after the end of the holiday.”

The DisplaySearch Q1’12 Quarterly Advanced Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report, available now, includes panel and TV shipments by region and by size for nearly 60 brands, and also includes rolling 16-quarter forecasts, TV cost/price forecasts, and design wins.

NPD DisplaySearch provides global market research and consulting in the display supply chain, as well as the emerging photovoltaic/solar cell industries. Learn more at http://www.displaysearch.com/.Visit our new Displays Manufacturing Channel on Solid State Technology and subscribe to our Displays Digest e-newsletter!

May 9, 2012 – BUSINESS WIRE — GE Lighting (NYSE: GE) is introducing a 100W-equivalent light-emitting diode (LED) bulb, developed in East Cleveland, OH LED lab with Nuventix, LED cooling technology developer and the winner of GE’s ecomagination Challenge. GE invested in Nuventix, and licensed its patent portfolio, in 2011.

GE’s 27-watt Energy Smart LED bulb is in a standard “A-19” bulb shape, with 1600 lumens (60 lumens/watt), uniform omnidirectional light distribution, 3000K color temperature, and 25,000-hour life rating (22.8 years at 3 hours per day).

The bulb is manufactured with a proprietary synthetic jet technology enabled by Nuventix’ collaboration. Nuventix’ oscillating membrane, called a synthetic jet (an alternative to a fan), cools the LED chips and fits within the form factor of the A-19 bulb shape. Each subsystem — optics, electronics, thermals — must be “designed for miniaturization and cooperative performance,” says Steve Briggs, general manager of LED systems, GE Lighting. This technology provides a “clear path” to higher light levels and more energy efficiency.

The bulb will be in stores in 2013, and is debuting at LIGHTFAIR International in Las Vegas this week. GE’s existing portfolio of LED bulbs includes a 13-watt LED (60-watt incandescent replacement) and a 9-watt LED (40-watt incandescent replacement), as well as others in various shapes, wattages, and colors.

Nuventix provides thermal management for electronics. Visit www.nuventix.com.

GE Lighting develops energy-efficient solutions to light commercial, industrial, municipal and residential settings. For more information, visit www.gelighting.com.

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