ITRI Unveils Light&Light™ A19 All-Plastic LED Light Bulb Technology
Light&Light™ is the first A19 all-plastic LED light bulb technology with an illumination angle of 330°. It is break-resistant and weighs less then 100 grams, half of the competing LED light bulb. It uses less than 10 watts to produce the same light as other 60-watt incandescent light bulbs. Its price is 10-20 percent the cost of competing LED light bulbs. Light&Light™ can save 85% on light bulb power consumption.
From the consumer perspective, LED home lighting is finally financially acceptable. For LED bulb makers, a prosperous market can be expected because, with its price, Light&Light™ has the potential to open up a sizable LED bulb market.
ITRI’s mission with the Light&Light™ electricity-sipping A19 LED bulb lighting technology is to cut carbon emissions in production and lighting energy consumption. The target was to develop a technology that manufactures quality LED bulbs, that is inexpensive enough to compete not only for market share, but also to encourage voluntary LED bulb use prior to the Energy Independence and Security Act law. The law mandates elimination of incandescent bulbs by 2014.
To develop a quality A19 LED light bulb that costs less to manufacture yet delivers good performance, ITRI decided to increase the overall surface area of the LED chips combined in the bulb structure. Instead of the conventional approach of using a dozen or so “standard” LED chips, ITRI uses multiple chips over a larger portion of the bulb to generate the targeted total lighting capacity (lumens).
To create the first 820-lumen Light&Light™ prototype/demonstrator LED light bulb, ITRI constructed smaller LED chips, each rated at 0.06 watts, with a tiny dimension of 3.0 x 1.4 x 0.8 mm. The rationale behind the principle of smaller but more numerous LED chips is to expose the 160 chips to the largest-possible surface area of a bulb for open air convection cooling. Regardless of size, LED chips are normally made into a rectangular shape with one of the six surfaces soldered to the circuit board. ITRI has designed the light bulb so the chips physically secure to the plastic bulb structure, this way a portion of the heat generated as the chip lights up is transferred and dissipated. The bulb features excellent heat dissipation through ITRI’s heat synch technology, which provides convection airflow for a cooler bulb, operating at 80°C.
The larger number of small chips in a 16-hand starfish-shaped configuration actually cost significantly less to produce than its counterpart of about a dozen larger chips – a cost reduction of some 55% percent. ITRI’s plastic heat-sink replaces its aluminum counterpart and since the heat-sink is part of the physical structural part of the bulb, it can double as the main bulb body. The body/heat-sink dual-role plastic structure makes the bulb much lighter than a conventional bulb with a metallic heat-sink. More importantly, by adopting plastic instead of aluminum, the carbon reduction attributable to this material replacement is almost 70% – one more step toward green lighting.
“Light&Light™ is a ‘purse-friendly’ light bulb for the mainstream, and will help boost the adoption of LED bulbs prior to the ban on incandescent lighting to be in full effect in 2014,” said Mu-Tao Chu, division director, Electronics and Optoelectronics Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). “By using Light&Light™, carbon emissions can be reduced by 62 grains and the plastic body/heat-sink dual-role plastic structure provides higher carbon reduction because the used materials are recyclable.”
ITRI has applied for 14 patents for Light&Light™. ITRI is in the process of licensing these technologies in Taiwan. Interested companies can contact ITRI at 1-408-428-9988 or 0800@itri.org.tw for more information.
Recognition for Outstanding Technology Innovation:
ITRI has received numerous awards for consecutive years since 2008. For example, in 2011, the institute has received six prestigious international awards: The Excellent Organization, Solar Industry Awards in the UK for Solar Radome, two R&D 100 Awards and The Wall Street Journal’s Technology Innovation Awards for i2R e-Paper and HyTAC, and the Silver Award for The Society for Information Display’s (SID) Display of the Year Awards for ITRI’s Flexible Substrate for Displays. In 2010, the institute received five prestigious international awards: The Overall Gold Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award for its FlexUPD technology, runner-up in the Semiconductor category for its MDPS (Micro-Deformable Piezoresistive Sensor Technology) and three R&D 100 Awards for FlexUPD, i2/3DW and Reddex.
About ITRI:
ITRI is an international applied technology research organization, a breakthrough pioneer helping Taiwan’s manufacturing industry to create value and also contributing to Taiwan’s overall economic success. Founded in 1973, ITRI has nurtured more than 70 CEOs, accumulated more than 17,659 patents, and 174 innovative companies, including numerous well-known global semiconductor leaders such as TSMC and UMC.
ITRI focuses on the fields of Information and Communications; Electronics and Optoelectronics; Material Chemical and Nanotechnology; Medical Device and Biomedical; Mechanical and Systems; and Green Energy and Environment. ITRI will move forward together with the industry, heading towards a sustainable future! For more information on ITRI, please visit www.itri.org.tw/eng
