Just attended 2 day conference on HB (High Brightness) LED industries last week. Was in San Mateo, CA, and this is an annual event. Many subjects were covered, but I will try to summarize what CPFers might be interested.
All of the major players were present. LED mfrs, equipment mfrs, lighting design firms, research institutes, fixture mfrs, and the list goes on. Even several people from Boeing were there, gaging possibilities for their 7E7 program.
1. Efficacy prediction. Most LED mfrs, including Lumileds, Nichia, Cree, Toyota Gosei, presented somewhat less optimistic figures. Most of them saying 70-100 lumens per watt by 2008 to 2010. Couple of them claimed that they have a prototype in their lab running at that. About 2 years ago, they were predicting that they would reach this goal by 2005-2006, looks like they will miss that. However, this is still very exciting, just imagine SF M6 output (500 lumens) from L4 size package (5W) and less heat too. Most of your LED flashlight collections will be just that by then, collections. There were a lot more details about how to get there, but that will be too much.
2. True White LED. Instead of using yellow phosphor over blue LEDs, several companies were working on near UV LED (they call it Purple for ??? reasons) covered with RGB phosphors. Resulting light is full spectrum true white light similar to Sun light. They can tailor the color temperature to fit the applications, and color rendering is just incredible. Better than ANY artificial light sources that we know. Small sample they had was very promising. Main problem at the moment is (besides the cost and other mfg issues) that these are not as bright as blue-yellow LEDs. They seem to be managing about half the brightness compared to the best blue-yellow LEDs. They were projecting that by 2007 or so, the brightness will be on par with others.
3. Kilo-Lumen LED. This was a big buzz word by many. Nichia actually demonstrated a 1000 lumen LED light in small handheld package without much introduction, and it was Bright. Later when I had a chance to talk to them, they admitted that it was not a single LED, but matrix grid of many LEDs. Somewhat disappointed (that was my guess anyway), but still a milestone achievement to pack that much light into such a small package. Just wait a few more years...
4. Cell phones. I never knew that about the half of all HB LEDs produced in the world goes into cell phones. And we are talking billions of LEDs per year. Some new model cell phones have as many as 30 LEDs in them. Keypads lights are the biggest chunk, followed by LCD back lighting, and flash for digital cameras built into cell phones these days. Some cell phones have built-in flashlight too, any CPFer got one?
5. LED headlights. Not exactly, but new AUDI A8 some model features the world first production LED daytime running lights. There were several concept cars that are equiped with LED headlights, but none of them are production ready or even street legal. But they are coming, just a matter of when, not if.
I'm not good at this reporting business, so that's it folks.
Thanks.
All of the major players were present. LED mfrs, equipment mfrs, lighting design firms, research institutes, fixture mfrs, and the list goes on. Even several people from Boeing were there, gaging possibilities for their 7E7 program.
1. Efficacy prediction. Most LED mfrs, including Lumileds, Nichia, Cree, Toyota Gosei, presented somewhat less optimistic figures. Most of them saying 70-100 lumens per watt by 2008 to 2010. Couple of them claimed that they have a prototype in their lab running at that. About 2 years ago, they were predicting that they would reach this goal by 2005-2006, looks like they will miss that. However, this is still very exciting, just imagine SF M6 output (500 lumens) from L4 size package (5W) and less heat too. Most of your LED flashlight collections will be just that by then, collections. There were a lot more details about how to get there, but that will be too much.
2. True White LED. Instead of using yellow phosphor over blue LEDs, several companies were working on near UV LED (they call it Purple for ??? reasons) covered with RGB phosphors. Resulting light is full spectrum true white light similar to Sun light. They can tailor the color temperature to fit the applications, and color rendering is just incredible. Better than ANY artificial light sources that we know. Small sample they had was very promising. Main problem at the moment is (besides the cost and other mfg issues) that these are not as bright as blue-yellow LEDs. They seem to be managing about half the brightness compared to the best blue-yellow LEDs. They were projecting that by 2007 or so, the brightness will be on par with others.
3. Kilo-Lumen LED. This was a big buzz word by many. Nichia actually demonstrated a 1000 lumen LED light in small handheld package without much introduction, and it was Bright. Later when I had a chance to talk to them, they admitted that it was not a single LED, but matrix grid of many LEDs. Somewhat disappointed (that was my guess anyway), but still a milestone achievement to pack that much light into such a small package. Just wait a few more years...
4. Cell phones. I never knew that about the half of all HB LEDs produced in the world goes into cell phones. And we are talking billions of LEDs per year. Some new model cell phones have as many as 30 LEDs in them. Keypads lights are the biggest chunk, followed by LCD back lighting, and flash for digital cameras built into cell phones these days. Some cell phones have built-in flashlight too, any CPFer got one?
5. LED headlights. Not exactly, but new AUDI A8 some model features the world first production LED daytime running lights. There were several concept cars that are equiped with LED headlights, but none of them are production ready or even street legal. But they are coming, just a matter of when, not if.
I'm not good at this reporting business, so that's it folks.
Thanks.
