Trends

Trends

White Paper | Technology | Jul 31, 2012
Cree Announces 170 Lumen-Per-Watt LED Light Bulb Demonstrator
Less than one year after showcasing the 152 lumens-per-watt concept LED bulb, Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE) delivers a new performance benchmark with the 170 lumens-per-watt (LPW) prototype LED light bulb. The innovations behind the high-performance 170 LPW LED bulb are enabling significantly higher efficacy and lower cost for Cree’s luminaire portfolio and demonstrate Cree’s continued commitment to accelerate the adoption of LED lighting by addressing initial cost and payback – key barriers to widespread LED lighting adoption. Read more »
Technology | Jul 07, 2012
LED System Design with Cititzen LEDs (by A. Lohrer, Endrich)
LED System Design with Cititzen LEDs (by A. Lohrer, Endrich) Rapid improvements in high-power LEDs are opening up more and more application possibilities. These go beyond the simple replacement of the light bulb: thanks to fast technology advancements creative lighting solutions such as object illumination that were unthinkable a few years ago are now possible (see Figure - Illuminated Bridge). Recent price trends have resulted in many large lighting companies now exclusively using LEDs as light sources for new developments. Read more »
Technology | Jul 05, 2012
New Thermal Management Product Manufacturing Process Brightens Future of LED Lighting
New Thermal Management Product Manufacturing Process Brightens Future of LED Lighting A new technique for making brighter, longer-lasting LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) has taken the first leap from research laboratory towards the three-billion-US-dollar global market in high-powered lighting. The new manufacturing system, called liquid forging, dramatically improves the way tiny electronic devices keep cool and looks set to revolutionize production of next generation LEDs. Read more »
Technology | May 11, 2012
Bridgelux and Toshiba Achieve World Class Performance for 8″ GaN-On-Silicon LEDs
Bridgelux and Toshiba Achieve World Class Performance for 8″ GaN-On-Silicon LEDs Bridgelux, a leading developer and promoter of LED lighting technologies and solutions, and Toshiba Corporation, a world-leading semiconductor manufacturer, today announced that Bridgelux and Toshiba have achieved the industry’s top class 8” GaN on Silicon LED chip emitting 614mW, <3.1V@350mA with 1.1mm square chip, just months after they have engaged in a joint collaborative agreement this year. Bridgelux and Toshiba will further accelerate their development efforts for LED chips, which have seen increasing demand for LCD panels and lightening systems world wide. Read more »
Technology | May 09, 2012
NGK Developed GaN Wafer for Ultra High Brightness LEDs
NGK Developed GaN Wafer for Ultra High Brightness LEDs NGK Insulators has announced it has developed gallium nitride (GaN) wafers that double luminous efficiency of a LED light source compared to conventional materials. Created with original liquid phase epitaxial growth technology, NGK's GaN wafer has low defect density and colorless transparency over the whole wafer surface. Read more »
Technology | May 08, 2012
GT Advanced Technologies Releases Findings of Latest Case Study on Impact of Sapphire Material on HB LED Manufacturing
GT Advanced Technologies Releases Findings of Latest Case Study on Impact of Sapphire Material on HB LED Manufacturing GT Advanced Technologies will host a LED manufacturing symposium in Shanghai, China, May 9-10, 2012. The event will bring together a wide range of manufacturers from the LED value chain throughout Asia, from sapphire crystal growers to epi-wafer and LED device producers, to discuss the metrics that matter most in producing high yielding and high quality LEDs. Particular focus will be on the role that high quality sapphire material plays in driving downstream yield improvements and costs reductions. Presenters include representatives from Philips Lumileds, Arima Optoelectronics, Yole Developpement, KLA Tencor, Meyer Berger and GT. Read more »
Technology | May 03, 2012
Strategy Analytics Study Predicts that LED Manufacturers are Considering Gallium Nitride on Silicon
As the LED market faces the challenges of softening demand, reduced government subsidies and rapidly declining pricing, manufacturers must investigate new techniques to improve cost structure. Most of the LEDs currently produced use a Gallium Nitride (GaN)-on-sapphire manufacturing process. The Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service (GaAs) viewpoint, “Compound Semiconductor Industry Review February 2012: Optoelectronics, Materials and Equipment,” provides details of two companies that have purchased equipment from Veeco Instruments to develop less costly GaN-on-silicon fabrication processes, SemiLEDS and Epistar. The report also captures announcements for companies such as Soitec, AIXTRON, AXT, Hitachi Cable, JDSU, Sharp, Furukawa, Finisar, Oclaro, Emcore, GigOptix, IQE and Avago Technologies. Read more »
Technology | May 02, 2012
Low Efficiency Droop LED - Overcoming the Mysterious Phenomenon Could Lead to Affordable LED Lighting
Low Efficiency Droop LED - Overcoming the Mysterious Phenomenon Could Lead to Affordable LED Lighting Like a coffee enthusiast who struggles to get a buzz from that third cup of morning joe, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) seem to reach a point where more electricity no longer imparts the same kick and productivity levels-off. Now a team of researchers from California and Japan has devised a new design for green and blue LEDs that avoids much of this vexing efficiency droop. The findings will be presented at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO: 2012), taking place May 6-11 in San Jose, Calif. Read more »
News-Spot | Technology | Apr 25, 2012
Philips Develops Technology to Reduce Dependence on Rare Earths for LEDs
Philips Develops Technology to Reduce Dependence on Rare Earths for LEDs Rare earths are one of the basic elements of modern electronics. They are indispensable for producing LEDs. Since there is a growing demand and restricted quotas, the urgently needed decline of LED prices could be slowed down. Hence Philips has kicked off working on a technology that will significantly reduce its dependence on rare earth minerals for its LED lighting products. Read more »
White Paper | Technology | Mar 13, 2012
Diamond Brightens the Performance of Electronic Devices and LEDs
Diamond Brightens the Performance of Electronic Devices and LEDs Two new studies performed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have revealed a new pathway for materials scientists to use previously unexplored properties of nanocrystalline-diamond thin films. While the properties of diamond thin films are relatively well-understood, the new discovery could dramatically improve the performance of certain types of integrated circuits by reducing their "thermal budget." Read more »
White Paper | Technology | Mar 07, 2012
Flexible Organic LED (OLED) Lighting Reaches High Energy Efficiency
Flexible Organic LED (OLED) Lighting Reaches High Energy Efficiency Chemical group Solvay and Holst Centre have demonstrated high efficiency flexible Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLED) lighting tiles with a surface area of 69cm². These large-area demonstrators contain several layers deposited by solution processing at Holst Centre and additional layers applied by conventional vacuum deposition at Solvay. Read more »
White Paper | Technology | Mar 06, 2012
At High Environmental Temperatures and at Very Low Power LED's Wall Plug Efficiency Exceeds 100%
At High Environmental Temperatures and at Very Low Power LED's Wall Plug Efficiency Exceeds 100% For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that an LED can emit more optical power than the electrical power it consumes. Although scientifically intriguing, the results won’t immediately result in ultra-efficient commercial LEDs since the demonstration works only for LEDs with very low input power that produce very small amounts of light and emits primarily in the invisible IR range of 2.4 µm. Read more »
Technology | Feb 10, 2012
IM³OLED Project to Develop Multiscale OLED Modeling Tool
IM³OLED Project to Develop Multiscale OLED Modeling Tool The EU-funded IM³OLED (Integrated Multidisciplinary & Multiscale Modeling for Organic Light-Emitting Diodes) project - coordinated by Holst Centre and the Russian National Research Nuclear University MEPhI - has officially been launched. An international collaboration with the Russian Federation, the project aims to develop a software tool for multiscale OLED modeling. Such a tool would help the OLED industry escape today’s “trial-and-error” development and accelerate towards the goal of 150 lumens per Watt devices. Read more »
Technology | Jan 31, 2012
Removing Impurities from QDs Made by Cation-Exchange Techniques May Lead to Affordable QD-Products
Removing Impurities from QDs Made by Cation-Exchange Techniques May Lead to Affordable QD-Products To the lengthy list of serendipitous discoveries – gravity, penicillin, the New World – add this: Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered why a promising technique for making quantum dots and nanorods has so far been a disappointment. Better still, they’ve also discovered how to correct the problem. Read more »
White Paper | Technology | Jan 13, 2012
Success in Research: First Gallium-Nitride LED Chips on Silicon in Pilot Stage
Success in Research: First Gallium-Nitride LED Chips on Silicon in Pilot Stage Researchers at Osram Opto Semiconductors have succeeded in manufacturing highperformance prototypes of blue and white LEDs, in which the light-emitting gallium-nitride layers are grown on silicon wafers with a diameter of 150 millimeters. The silicon replaces the sapphire commonly used until now without a loss in quality. Already in the pilot stage, the new LED chips are to be tested under practical conditions, meaning that the first LEDs on silicon from Osram Opto Semiconductors could hit the market in just two years. Read more »
Technology | Dec 23, 2011
New Developed Technique Makes it Easier To Etch Semiconductors - Especially III-V Semiconductors
New Developed Technique Makes it Easier To Etch Semiconductors - Especially III-V Semiconductors Creating semiconductor structures for high-end optoelectronic devices just got easier, thanks to University of Illinois researchers. The team developed a method to chemically etch patterned arrays in the semiconductor gallium arsenide, used in solar cells, lasers, light emitting diodes (LEDs), field effect transistors (FETs), capacitors and sensors. Led by electrical and computer engineering professor Xiuling Li, the researchers describe their technique in the journal Nano Letters. Read more »
White Paper | Technology | Dec 15, 2011
Independent Study Demonstrating that Pink Sapphire Produces Highest Transmission Colorless Epi-Wafers
Independent Study Demonstrating that Pink Sapphire Produces Highest Transmission Colorless Epi-Wafers GT Advanced Technologies Inc. announced the release of a case study that details the findings of a series of blind material studies conducted to evaluate the impact of sapphire color on the LED manufacturing process. The studies demonstrated that all sapphire, regardless of source, exhibits color at the core level, that the pink hue of GT Advanced Sapphire Furnace (ASF™) material is not indicative of impurities, and that pink ASF sapphire does not have an adverse affect on the LED manufacturing process nor does it require extra steps or incremental costs to remove the pink hue. In addition, it was demonstrated that GT ASF pink sapphire material makes the lowest absorption, highest transmission epi-wafers of the samples examined. Read more »
White Paper | Technology | Dec 01, 2011
New LED Driver Design from Power Integrations Maximizes Efficiency of Compact B10, GU10, E17 and A19 Bulbs
New LED Driver Design from Power Integrations Maximizes Efficiency of Compact B10, GU10, E17 and A19 Bulbs Power Integrations, maker of the world's most efficient, longest-lasting off-line LED driver ICs, today published a reference design (DER-297) describing a high-efficiency, ultra-compact driver for a B10-style LED light bulb. Based on Power Integrations' LinkSwitch-PL non-isolated, single-stage LED driver IC, the power supply is specifically tailored for use with high-voltage LEDs such as the recently announced XLamp XM-L and XLamp XT-E ranges from Cree. DER-297 provides the high-voltage output required by the LEDs, optimizing overall system efficiency by reducing power lost due to current flow in the driver inductor and output diode. Read more »
Technology | Nov 30, 2011
The Maastricht University Medical Center+ and Philips Investigated the Effect of Light on the Sleep-Wake Rhythm of Cardiac Patients
The research shows that after seven days in a patient room fitted with HealWell ? a new lighting system developed by Philips which mimics the natural day/night cycle outdoors ? patients sleep on average 8% longer. After one week in a patient room fitted with standard lighting, on the other hand, patients' sleep duration was in fact slightly shorter than on the first night. Read more »
Technology | Nov 10, 2011
Los Alamos Researchers Unravel the Mystery of Quantum Dot Blinking
Los Alamos Researchers Unravel the Mystery of Quantum Dot Blinking Research by Los Alamos scientists published today in the journal Nature documents significant progress in understanding the phenomenon of quantum-dot blinking. Their findings should enhance the ability of biologists to track single particles, enable technologists to create novel light-emitting diodes and single-photon sources, and boost efforts of energy researchers to develop new types of highly efficient solar cells. Read more »
Technology | Nov 04, 2011
EU Project IMOLA Starts R&D on Large-Area, Intelligent OLED Lighting
EU Project IMOLA Starts R&D on Large-Area, Intelligent OLED Lighting Imec and its project partners announce the launch of IMOLA (Intelligent light Management for OLED on foil Applications), a project under the EU’s 7th framework program for ICT (FP7). The project’s goal is to make large-area OLED-based lighting modules with built-in intelligent light management. These systems will be used in future energy-efficient wall, ceiling and car dome lighting, where the light intensity can be adjusted intelligently, e.g. according to the time of the day or weather conditions. Read more »
Technology | Oct 27, 2011
Competing LEDs: High-quality White Light Produced by Four-Color Laser Source
Competing LEDs: High-quality White Light Produced by Four-Color Laser Source The human eye is as comfortable with white light generated by diode lasers as with that produced by increasingly popular light-emitting diodes (LEDs), according to tests conceived at Sandia National Laboratories. Both technologies pass electrical current through material to generate light, but the simpler LED emits lights only through spontaneous emission. Diode lasers bounce light back and forth internally before releasing it. Read more »
Technology | Oct 18, 2011
The True Knowledge About White LEDs and Our Biological Clocks
The True Knowledge About White LEDs and Our Biological Clocks You come into contact every day with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) - they illuminate alarm clocks, new televisions, traffic lights, and smartphone displays. Increasingly, you will see white-light versions of LEDs becoming available for energy-efficient home lighting, car headlights, and streetlamps. But how does that affect our organism? Read more »
Technology | Oct 17, 2011
609 nm Red LED Prototype from OSRAM Opto Semiconductors Achieves Record Efficiency
609 nm Red LED Prototype from OSRAM Opto Semiconductors Achieves Record Efficiency A red high-power LED has set a new efficiency record in an OSRAM Opto Semiconductors R&D lab with an electro-optical efficiency of 61%. The 1 mm2 chip housed on a laboratory package emits at a wavelength of 609 nm (λ-dom) and has achieved a record value of 201 lm/W at an operating current of 40 mA. At a typical operating current of 350 mA its luminous efficacy is still an impressive 168 lm/W, which means that even at this high wattage more than half of the electrical energy is converted into light. Read more »
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