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Sensor Electronic Technology, Inc. Receives Tibbetts Award at White House Ceremony
LIGHTimes News Staff
May 15, 2012...Sensor Electronic Technology, Inc. (SETi) of Columbia, South Carolina USA, was honored with the Tibbetts Award for its critical role in research and development for the government under the SBIR program. The award was presented by the US Small Business Administrator, Karen Mills, to Dr Remis Gaska and Dr Michael Shur, at a ceremony held at the White House.
Dr Gaska and Dr Shur founded SETi in 1999 to develop III‐Nitride based electronic and optoelectronic devices. Under DARPA and SBIR funded programs SETi developed proprietary technology that led to the development of UV LEDs with peak emission wavelengths ranging from 230nm through 365nm that can disinfect (kill bacteria) water.
The highly esteemed Tibbetts Awards, named after Roland Tibbetts, who was instrumental in developing the SBIR program, are presented to companies and individuals from all over the United States who are models of excellence in high technology.
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Fraunhofer IPMS Makes Available Evaluation Kits of See-through OLED-based Head Mounted Display Eye-glasses
LIGHTimes News Staff
May 15, 2012...Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems (IPMS) has developed see-through, head mounted OLED microdisplays for data eye-glasses, based on IPMS/COMEDD’s patented “bidirectional” OLED microdisplay technology. The device consists of an active OLED matrix and embedded photodetectors. Fraunhofer points out that HMDs are widely used in certain professional and academic markets to combine the user’s view to the real world with additional virtual information.
An interactive see-through HMD provides a human computer interface. Fraunhofer's head mounted display has a head-tracker, data-glove, and eye-tracker to enable the user to interact with the virtually shown content. A big disadvantage of state-of-the-art see-through HMDs are the unhandy dimensions. Due to the accessory elements, at the moment interactive state-of-the-art see-through HMDs have significant dimensions and a restricted mobility.
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Astronics to Supply LED-based Cockpit Lighting Panels for Newest Light Learjet Aircraft
LIGHTimes News Staff
May 15, 2012...Astronics Corporation of East Aurora, New York USA, a provider of technologies for the global aerospace and defense industries, announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Astronics Luminescent Systems, Inc., was selected by Learjet Inc., a subsidiary of Bombardier, to supply the illuminated instrument panels for its newly introduced Learjet 70* and Learjet 75* light business jets. Astronics will provide a complete suite of instruments panels that are illuminated with LEDs which provide increased reliability while reducing power consumption.
Peter J. Gundermann, President and Chief Executive Officer of Astronics, commented, "Being selected as a supplier for the new Learjet 70 and Learjet 75 aircraft speaks to our best-in-class technology and the strong relationship we have built with Learjet over the years. We believe the quality and performance of our cockpit lighting products complements the innovative flight decks Learjet designs into their aircraft.”
Bridgelux and Toshiba Achieve Performance Record for Blue 8″ GaN-On-Silicon-based LEDs
LIGHTimes News Staff
May 14, 2012...Bridgelux Inc. of Livermore, California USA, and Toshiba Corporation, announced they have created a Blue class 8” GaN on Silicon LED chip that emits 614mW. The 1.1 mm square chip operates at 350 mA with a forward voltage <3.1V. Like several other LED companies, Bridgelux is continuing to actively develop GaN on Silicon LED technology. (See
Coverage).
The announcement comes just months after Bridgelux and Toshiba signed a joint collaborative agreement this year. The companies plan to further accelerate their development efforts for LED chips. Toshiba has also reportedly invested in Bridgelux. The goal of the investment is to boost Bridgelux's GaN-on-Silicon LED chip technology development efforts with the help from further development of Toshiba’s silicon process and manufacturing technology. Toshiba is the latest in a string of Bridgelux investors that see the potential for GaN-on-Silicon LEDs.
(See Coverage).
“Toshiba and Bridgelux have already been engaged in the development of the technology, and the equity investment brings both companies one step closer to a more strategic relationship and achieving our shared goal of driving down the cost of Solid State solutions for the general lighting market,” said Bill Watkins, Bridgelux Chief Executive Officer.
“We are pleased to achieve the best-reported 8” GaN-on-Silicon LED performance through our joint development activities with Bridgelux. We will continue to pursue more advanced development targeting commercialization of the technology,” said Makoto Hideshima, Executive Vice President of Semiconductor and Storage Products Company, Corporate Vice President of Toshiba.
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Light Fair (or is that LED-Fair) 2012
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
May 17, 2012...We came away from this year's Light Fair International in Las Vegas with four key impressions: 1) It continues to amaze/amuse that a technology that still only represents 5-15% of the total market commands 95% of what is on display; 2) Niches are still important; 3) Marketing-driven decisions are being made whether to make a luminaire look like LED lighting, or not; 4) If I see yet another LED "light bulb", I think I'm going to puke. Yes, I said it, so obviously some explanation of that is probably the first order of business.
How delusion can a market really be?... The starting point for a quick light bulb rant it is to ask how many brands of light bulbs (replacement lamps) we see in the today's market. In the US and Europe, GE, Philips and Osram-Sylvania make up "big three" with several others providing typically "bargain brand" types of options. Those manufacturers may tend to argue that they aren't bargain-brands, so we'll just not attempt to name them which will save everyone some semantic decode time. Suffice it to say that there are probably not more than 5 brands one an particular retail or distributor shelf, and that 3 are fairly recurrent with the others varying for a variety of regional, market or business reasons. So how many brands of LED A-, MR- and PAR-lamps can we expect to see on retail and distributor shelves in the future? My money would be on five to ten, with the high range allowing for some differing technology leaders to make their mark with one particular type of lamp, such as an MR specialist, or a candelabra solution that is backed by either some IP or a unique approach that makes it "better" enough that the brand can stand on its own.
And maybe I'm wrong. Double that to twenty, and we still end up with a bit of disparity between 100 to 200 or so brands that we saw at Light Fair, and where we know the market is going to end up. So what's the game? More than a few of the manufacturers claim that they are "aimed at the commercial market", as though choosing that over the retail users will somehow re-form the laws of market economics. A quick look at Grainger's website paints the picture pretty clearly, with a grand total of 20 brands of lamps of all kinds, both LED and not, accounting for their total of 3800+ lamp types. 6 of those brands have LED offerings included (with GE counted as two, for some reason...).
Others claim their product is more efficient, more attractive, lighter, brighter, or better quality light. All valid arguments for a wedge to gain some brand traction, but are we seeing brand traction? Little, if any, advertising brainwashing seems to be going on in the replacement lamp space, and I would expect that one to be a primary battleground to win the hearts and minds of customers right now. Later won't work, as it is clear that we can now build a good "LED light bulb" even the challenging and popular A-lamp and MR spaces. And that while they are selling for $25 to $50 now, as with any tech, the price is going to continue to fall pretty quickly. If your innovation is "brighter, better and more efficient" how long is your super-high-quality 100-lumen per watt lamp going to stand in the market when "the big guys" are making use of 150+ lpw warm white LEDs in the not-too-distant affordable future? If you don't have space on the shelf now, when, exactly, do you think you will? Okay, how about approximately? And that all assumes that the manufacturer is telling the truth about their performance. One sharp observation that was made in that regard was, "You can do something much better to distinguish a product, or you can lie to get into the channels... Lying is easier." Personally, I'd be updating the business plan.
Looks and niches... I remember commenting in regard to the last few LFI events that you couldn't really tell what the source was in many luminaires. Where LED luminaires used to look like they had LED sources, they are now mimicking incandescents to such a degree that you simply can't tell. Cree Lighting's new architectural downlight, the SR, was a prime example as it incorporates what they call "reflector unity" or a full-width appearance of the diffuser that simply looks like that perfect fitting BR in the can. It even includes a definition between the diffuser and can edges, so it just looks "right". At the same time we also had the chance to check out the new Ruud/Cree Aeroblades designs, which feature the individual LEDs along the lower edges. No mystery, it's an LED luminaire. Gary Trott, Cree's VP of Market Development, pointed out that it was quite intentional. The luminaire segments are long and narrow, which is something you can only do with LEDs, and as such, making the LEDs a visible feature of the design identify the look with the technology. Having come from the traditional lighting space, he was predisposed to making the look of a luminaire agnostic, and while he still believes that is important in most of what is hanging from interior ceilings, that outdoor markets provide some opportunity to start reshaping how we think about luminaires. Showing that a cool design is "enabled" by LEDs becomes a means to achieve that.
While LFI wasn't about niche-market lighting, a few folks there do address such things and proves to be a good reminder that in a lot of ways, we have just begun to scratch the surface of how lighting can be different because of LEDs. A very practical case was a company we've mentioned before called Everbrite. For interior applications, they've chosen to address the medical market, and specifically, MRI facilities. As we noted in a past commentary, MRI's have some very anti-lighting characteristics. A) Big magnets and filaments in light bulbs don't get along. B) Light bulbs without filaments (fluorescents, HID) throw out enough EMI that they can have a negative effect on what the MRI is receiving on its sensors. The obvious answer is an LED lighting system that incorporates some very low noise drivers. But why stop there? Once you're lighting up a space, wouldn't better, or more interesting, lighting make sense? Especially in an environment that is probably one of the creepiest on earth ("No rings on, right, because when we send you through the whirring popping tube, any metal in or on your body would come flying out, taking body parts with it..."). Everbrite responded to customer suggestions to architect color changing solutions that could be controlled by the patient and/or operator. Pick a color that makes you feel better, or that hides the left-behind finger on the machine from the last person that didn't heed the warnings. So once the hospitals trust your brand for use in their specialized MRI areas, the door opens to downlights or controllable lighting for other rooms, and no reason not to at least be welcoming to putting them on your parking lot. The specialized "niche" started for a technical reason, but expands to a larger niche called "the hospital".
New wins versus old... Wrapping up on the first impression offered of so little LED lighting in the field, comparatively speaking, but so much of it at the US lighting industry's big show. We all like to talk about what's new compared to what's old, and perhaps more importantly, we all want to lead with what the buyer thinks they want. "I'm looking for new lighting - probably that LED stuff." If the answer coming back is, "You don't want that yet, it's too expensive," you likely set the buyer off on the quest to find the affordable version from someone else. But answering with, "You bet we've got it," with the prospect figuring out for themselves that it may not yet provide payback for their specific need might give a company the shot at one more round of incumbent technology installs. Ultimately, we know what's going to happen, but there is still a short time window when the incumbent technologies still are more appropriate for a number of uses, and economically troubling that manufacturers really can't highlight some of those good answers for fear of being branded a dinosaur. Then again, we are so close to LED lighting being able to better serve every application that maybe the 10% getting 90% of the attention just seemed perplexing because it's the last time we'll see that at Light Fair. Next time around, it's not unlikely that any new install that involves an ROI calculation will be LED-based, end of story.
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