LED general lighting is in the early stages of explosive growth

Although we often see new applications of LEDs from time to time, general LED lighting applications seem to be perfect. Of course, there is still room for improvement in brightness and efficiency, but from a large perspective, in addition to commercial and special effects lighting, LED really has reached the highest level yet? Jordon Papanier, LEDtronics' marketing manager, said there should be no fundamental design breakthrough in the foreseeable future.

“Before we can have a common LED indoor bulb that meets the standard A19 bulb package size, the wattage per lumen still needs further improvement,” he said.

On the other hand, Irene Signorino, marketing director of the lighting and automotive products division of Microsemi, is optimistic. She said: "Overall, the LED lighting market is undoubtedly still in the nurturing stage. Although there are indeed some special LED applications in the eyes of industry analysts have matured, but most of the LED lighting market is still full of many open possibilities Sex market."

“We still have a lot of work to do before the LED reaches its highest level. Most LED bulbs today have been able to provide consumers with an incandescent-light-like experience with much lower power consumption than in terms of luminous flux and color quality. Consumers are interested in LED lighting. However, there is still room for improvement," said Peter DiMaso, director of strategic marketing at TI Lighting Power Products.

"In addition to simple light bulb replacement, the key design breakthroughs that LED light bulbs bring include the addition of communication and intelligent functions in a cost-effective way, such as smart in-situ detection, color adjustment, remote control, and wireless access that can be accessed via the Internet. Wired technology, etc." said DiMaso.

Therefore, we have not reached the highest level of development in the field of LED solid-state lighting (SSL), there is still room for improvement and innovation.

"When people talk about SSL, they always think of LEDs and they are just a single component," said Masarand Chipalkatti, senior director of Solid State Lighting and Emerging Markets at Osram Sylvania.

"In the total LED lighting system, there is still a lot of work to be done, including optics, architecture integration, power distribution, control, and communications. The most critical is the human factor. It is necessary to understand that the light system is not just a light bulb, the key is the light. Output," reminded Chipalkatti.

“We are in the early stages of the explosive growth of LED general lighting,” said Tony Carrella, President of Tranxon Technologies and Lighting Controls. “Continuous improvement in LED consumer products, that is to say, lumens per watt, CRI (color index), cost And direct substitution will likely be the most active area."

SSL development obstacles

LED lighting is more efficient and therefore can reduce electricity bills. Because of the long life of LEDs, it is cheaper to run through long-term operation. SSL can achieve the brightness of traditional incandescent and cold cathode fluorescent (CCF) lighting, even higher, and can dimming.

So what is the biggest obstacle for most consumers to switch to full LED lighting? Almost everyone agrees that cost is the biggest obstacle to the popularity of SSL. LED lighting is not cheap.

“The main obstacle for most consumers is the price,” said Heather Goldsmith, global marketing communications manager at Future Lighting Solutions. “In the case of traditional light bulbs that cost just a few dollars, consumers are reluctant to spend 20 times on LED lights. Up to $30. Even if the electricity bill goes up, most consumers are not willing to make initial investment in LED lighting."

In addition to price, there are other factors that are hindering the development of SSL technology.

“The biggest obstacle for most consumers is undoubtedly the price,” said Mike Kretzmer, manager of new business development at ERG Lighting. “However, there is a lack of standardization and doubts about the quality of early products. Even more terrible is such a Fact: LEDs are electronic products, and lighting has always been in the electrical field, which will create a considerable educational gap between people who design lamps and buy lamps.”

“The main issue is always the fact that any LED bulb replacement is inevitably much more expensive than a replacement bulb,” said Peter B. Green, LED Division Manager at International Rectifier.

“Other obstacles relate to the performance of light sources compared to light bulbs, including dimming capability, color temperature, or whiteness of the LED's emitted light, relative to the amount of light emitted by the light bulb, and whether the light is efficiently and evenly distributed and does not produce Dark areas or strange patterns," he pointed out.

“The often-mentioned obstacle in the popularity of LEDs is price. Consumers also have a discarding mentality. They want to be able to purchase better light sources at the same price as incandescent lamps and CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps).” National Semiconductor’s SSL Division’s application Engineer Matt Reynolds said.

“Consumers have a hard time understanding the merits of SSL's return and long-life, and still don’t understand what LED lighting can provide.” Reynolds added, “Cultivating public awareness to ensure that we don’t fall into the CFL traps (an unreliable and very Poor light sources will be the key, and evidence of reliability and good returns needs to be demonstrated."

In addition to the cost, Optek's visual LED product engineer Daniel Jacobs provided other possible sources of hurdles. "Knowledge can also be said to be a bit of a hurdle because consumers are generally not familiar with SSL technology." He pointed out, "The wrong feeling is also a problem. Cheap and low-performance products have entered the market and have damaged the reputation of LED. For example, LED Traffic lights are one of the most significant LED applications, but reliability is very poor."

Summarizing the views of LED manufacturers, we can see that the biggest obstacles to SSL are price, consumer awareness and education, and reliability evidence. If solutions to these problems are being developed, when can we see that LEDs have gained widespread popularity?

The dawn of LED lighting

LED lighting has been around for a long time. How can we promote SSL into every family? Maybe it needs a little bit of strong support from the government, similar to the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to promote digital television to the public? When can the LED be fully used as the main light source?

"My sense is that without the government's enforcement measures or promotion, the popularity of SSL lighting will be very slow. It may take 10 to 20 years to achieve full replacement," said Brett Shriver, director of sales and marketing at Global Lighting Technologies.

“The government is already influencing the market through energy-saving legislation, which means that replacement has already begun.” said Hans-Otto Schlothauer, global product marketing manager for LED/Lighting at Sabic Innovative Plastics.

"Before there is better standardization or government promotion, the general public is unlikely to fully support this technology." Eker's Mike Kretzmer said.

Turning to the complete switch to SSL, Hernan DeGuzman, vice president of marketing at Supertex, carefully compared it to digital television. "Cost is an overwhelming factor. For consumers, the cost of digital television has dropped to the same level as analog television. Similarly, the cost of LED lights must also be reduced to the same or slightly higher than that of incandescent lamps." think.

International rectifier company Peter B. Green pointed out that due to the relatively high cost of LED light sources, it may be necessary to promote the popularity of SSL by prohibiting incandescent lamps. "I estimate that LED will become the main source of general application in the next 10 years," he said.

In addition to cost and government enforcement measures, Future Lighting's Heather Goldsmith holds a more targeted and optimistic view. “When the lighting solutions for the general lighting market area focus on standards rather than custom solutions, LEDs will play a leading role. Now that the market is ready, the answer is when the answer is finding the right one for each user application. LED solution among them." She pointed out.

LED Lighting Solutions

For consumers and business users, there is no shortage of LED lighting products in the market. For example, ERG Lighting's eDriver series of LED power supplies includes constant voltage and constant current modules, each achieving 90% efficiency. These modules are fully isolated, provide universal inputs (120, 220, 277V), power factor correction greater than 90%, and have a dimming function of 0 to 10V.

Global Lighting Technologies, through the integration of edge-light LED light-guiding technology and high-volume production capabilities, provides slim, lightweight, efficient, and cost-effective recessed downlights that emit bright, even light without hot spots or dark areas. With a size of 23.5 x 23.5 inches, a thickness of 0.35 inches, and a weight of less than 3kg, the device can provide brightness of more than 60 lumens per watt, a color temperature of 4000K/6000K, and a power consumption of 45W.

LEDtronics Inc.'s flame-stick surface-mount LED branch decorative lights use flame-tongue shaped, UV-protected plastic lens housings that allow LEDs to emit three-dimensional light in multiple directions, primarily for home lighting applications. The DEC02SMB11E26 lamp consumes 3W and provides 174 to 202 lumens of illumination. In addition, this lamp can provide a 360° beam of radiation and a viewing angle of 135°.

Microsemi's LXMG221W-0700034-D0 power module supports 5 to 16 LEDs and provides a universal input voltage range of 90 to 305Vac. This product has a total harmonic distortion (THD) of less than 20%, a constant current of 700mA at a single string, and a 14 to 48V DC output voltage up to 34W and a peak efficiency of 90%. At the same time it can be adjusted to 10% with 0 to 10V dimming control and potentiometer.

National Semiconductor Triac Dimmable LED Drivers

Osram's ultra-white Oslon SSL LED is only 3x3mm in size, but it can provide up to 1W output and 100lm/W luminous efficiency. The LED's beam angle of up to 80 °, thermal resistance of 7K / W, operating current of 350mA, ultra-white (5700K and 6500K) can provide a typical brightness of 110 lumens, the maximum luminous flux of 130 lumens.

Supertex's AT9917 and AT9932 LED drivers are used primarily in automotive lighting applications such as headlights, taillights and overhead lights, indicator lights, and dashboard backlights. The AT9917 uses a peak current mode control scheme to drive a single switching converter and integrates a transconductance amplifier and a fault output circuit using an external FET. The AT9932 uses a feedforward current control scheme to achieve low susceptibility to input voltage transients.

TI's TMDSDCDCLEDKIT LED DC-DC Developer Kit is based on the Piccolo MCU and controlCARD development platform, which bundles all the necessary hardware and software to develop a digitally controlled LED system. One MCU can control DC-DC power stage circuits and up to 8 LED strings. It's worth noting that this suite is completely open source, and Gerber files, schematics, and bills of materials (BOMs) are available, and are free.

LED general lighting challenge

Each technology has a process of proposing, developing, developing, and changing. Sometimes they disappear without being accepted by the market. In any given technology, competitive changes and alternative technologies usually keep the market interested. Although people have turned a blind eye to LEDs, what kind of lighting technology can compete with LED in the general lighting market? ERG's Mike Kretzmer thinks CFL is possible.

He said, "Over the past few years, many CFLs have more than doubled their lifetime, and the initial cost is still much lower than in many home applications. However, the CFL dimming function has been significantly improved and is not used for processing purposes. Prior to the advent of mercury and other harmful by-products that made them, it was difficult for CFLs to compete with SSL on cost alone."

“HID (High Brightness Discharge) lighting still maintains a certain market share because of their high lumens per watt and long lifetime compared to fluorescent lamps, although much lower than LEDs. Induction lighting continues to maintain a certain Market share. These light sources may eventually be replaced by LEDs, but not in a few years,” said Peter B. Green of International Rectifier.

“Some researchers are developing high-power OLEDs, ready to use it to create ultra-thin light panels for office and home use, but these light panels are very hot and even hotter than halogen lamps. These light boards are 2 feet or 4 feet in length, or they can be Covering the ceiling or the walls of the room, said Jordon Papanier of LEDtronics.

However, mainstream opinion in the industry believes that LED will dominate the future of SSL technology. "I don't see any big threats at the moment," said Matt Reynolds, a national semiconductor company.