guessing:
Gate width, so they could make a etched Trench around in circles or lines or about anything.
if you ask me they could (someday) spell your name out with the gate, coat it with phosphors and have hundreds of new markets.
of course it will probably say Taco-bell or Microsoft instead
but sombody has to pay for it.
i think the restriction is probably due to all the machinery and clean room and stuff required to make silicoln components, after all where is the bunny shaped transister? or the Dog shaped mosfet?
a closeup of the luxeon componets shows how un-even and imperfect (manufactured by the millions) things already are, even with the work they already do. from what i have seen some of the processes are "organic" so to speak, acids etching away a area, layers of etchings, and coverings, and all kindsa stuff that is totally unlike Machining out some precision metalic art.
really tiny stuff, trying to be produced by machines specifically designed for the ONE task, within a micron of the specs, but still producing varying results.
i want them to put the gate in more of a Filiment style, with 3 gates say suspended.
seems there is thousands of WAYS they could apply the technology, if they werent thinking back in the days of indicator lights, and jumbotrons.
untill they do something, a bunch of osrams or cheap china leds, or cheap luxes, could easily be assembled from what they do manufacture, and put in a plastic casement that resembles what we think a bulb should look like.
what about the Digital Number displays
_|
|-|
Those ^ kind, they used leds of odd shapes, had a huge market, are still around. probably just a single simple similar gate, under a translucent plastic, like the LED light screen on a PDA.
the florescent is at LEAST as efficient, but not as good for point source lighting, competing with it, at 1$ apiece would be hard at 50$ apiece.
my led kitchen, which sits behind the same florescent fixture, has a lot less flicker noise, is much better than florescent, but it aint cheap.
