LED: A tiny light source with a bright future

Both market research companies; iSuppli and Strategies Unlimited not too long ago, have reported that LED market is poised to reach $9 billion in 2011. The major growth or over 83 percent will come from the High Brightness LED segment driven by emerging applications such as signage and display, automotive interior and exterior lightings and general illuminations. Along with this LED market forecast, Strategies Unlimited further predicts strong growth in the companion HB LED driver IC market with forecast over $1.9 billion in 2011. This is an opportunity for semiconductor industry to participate in the market transformation of illumination technologies to more energy efficient HB LEDs.

Such an outstanding growth can only be made possible by the dramatic improvements in the performance of HB LEDs propelled by breakthrough in material, process and packaging technology from the LED suppliers. The novel merits of LED itself are also the major appeal factors to its mass market adoption. LED is going to revolutionize the whole lighting business similar to how solid-state transistors has transformed the electronics industry with dramatic new applications or how the Egyptian ‘wheel’ invention has impacted mankind at large.The exceptionally long lifetime of LEDs (typ. 50,000hrs or 11yrs) is unbeatable by any other lighting technologies available in the market today. This lifetime figure basically dwarfs the conventional incandescent and compact fluorescent lamps which only offer 2,000 and 8,000 hours of usage time, respectively.

The efficacy derived out of LED lamps is 5 to 10 times better than traditional incandescent lamps. At 1 Watt of electrical power, a white LED lamp today could emit around 100 lumen, whereas incandescent bulb could only deliver 10 lumen. Translating this to fuel saving, an LED lamp can easily consume less than 10 times the amount of fossil fuel burned by a bulb. This is certainly a more environmental friendly lamp.

The quality of light is measured by the right color gamut or color rendering index (CRI). The best CRI could be achieved is 100, which is what our faithful sun could deliver. CRI measures how accurately the color of an object looks under the illumination as compared to under daylight. This parameter plays a very important role when come to general illumination. With the right mixed of design, LED lamp can achieve a CRI close to 90.

The instantaneous switching capability of LED allows fancy color changing or mixing effects of varying intensity. Such attribute has never been matched by currently available lighting technologies – not even the neon lights known to many of us. Couple with its tiny size, LED will open a new horizon of applications that have never been thought of.

To cater for the needs on developing emerging applications for the potential LED market, Avnet Design Service & Segment Marketing team has developed reference solutions ranging from general illuminations such as street lamps and downlight to lifestyle color changing architectural and signage lightings. These matured and proven solutions shortened end customers time to market for their lightings product.

“The LED segment, especially the HB LED market; is important to Avnet in Asia and very much in-line with Avnet’s LightSpeed LED initiative in the US and also the General Lighting Competence Team effort at our other sister company, EBV Electronik in Europ,” claimed Mr. Andy Wong, Avnet’s Senior Director of ADS and Segment Marketing.

Andy further adds, “At Avnet, we practice a system approach when designing a customer lighting project or installation. The design must consider factors such as thermal, power efficacy, optics and color quality so that maximum performance and expected attributes of the LED lighting can be achieved.”