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Friday 29 August 2008
Components
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|NewsletterDisplays and Opto
Solid state lighting fires up chip firms
Monday 4 June 2007
The technology of solid state lighting has its roots in the development of advanced LEDs. As a result it offers designers low voltage drive requirements, cool running, long lifetime reliability, small form-factor and energy saving potential.
Unlike the incandescent and fluorescent lamps it is beginning to replace, solid state lighting offers new levels of design flexibility in both the colour and intensity of the emitted light, simply by adjusting the current through the LEDs.
Colour control is achieved by varying the current ratios in an RGB LED module – a single package that contains red, green and blue LEDs in close proximity to one another.
The key to solid state lighting design is the application of intelligent drive electronics. The semiconductor industry is convinced that solid state lighting is the future for lighting and that efficient integrated intelligent drive electronics will be critical to its development and eventual commoditisation.
There are sound business reasons why semiconductor companies will take the lead in emerging solid state lighting markets. Solid state lighting is a disruptive technology that will enable innovation in the way lighting is used. As such, it will introduce new players and new partnerships into the market. This will result in an industry that is today dominated by large lighting companies being challenged by more horizontally structured market players through which the semiconductor industry will find myriad new opportunities.
The same innovation that will drive this restructuring of the lighting industry will also drive the need for much more intelligence to be integrated into solid state lighting designs
This processing power will be required to compensate time and temperature drift in the luminous intensity and colour of LEDs, as well as to provide highly dynamic user control.
Although semiconductor companies will be major players in the solid state lighting business, it will not be every semiconductor company. For solid state lighting applications in consumer electronics, such as in camera-phone flashes, LCD TV backlighting or portable display backlighting, intimate knowledge of the system environment in which the solid state lighting application is being embedded is required, together with a thorough understanding of specific customer requirements.
Also the currents and voltages needed to drive LEDs in some applications can amount to several amps and tens of volts, constituting drive power levels that are beyond the scope of some parts of the semiconductor industry. To be successful players in the solid state lighting business, semiconductor companies will therefore need a range of technology capabilities fulfil the different requirements of solid state lighting systems.
Whatever the application, customers will require semiconductor suppliers to provide total systems that include the LEDs, driver circuitry, discrete components and optics in a single-package (SiP) design that integrates easily into end-products without the need for a high level of electronics competency on the part of equipment designers.
Edgar Langen is general manager for solid state lighting at NXP Semiconductors
Unlike the incandescent and fluorescent lamps it is beginning to replace, solid state lighting offers new levels of design flexibility in both the colour and intensity of the emitted light, simply by adjusting the current through the LEDs.
Colour control is achieved by varying the current ratios in an RGB LED module – a single package that contains red, green and blue LEDs in close proximity to one another.
The key to solid state lighting design is the application of intelligent drive electronics. The semiconductor industry is convinced that solid state lighting is the future for lighting and that efficient integrated intelligent drive electronics will be critical to its development and eventual commoditisation.
There are sound business reasons why semiconductor companies will take the lead in emerging solid state lighting markets. Solid state lighting is a disruptive technology that will enable innovation in the way lighting is used. As such, it will introduce new players and new partnerships into the market. This will result in an industry that is today dominated by large lighting companies being challenged by more horizontally structured market players through which the semiconductor industry will find myriad new opportunities.
The same innovation that will drive this restructuring of the lighting industry will also drive the need for much more intelligence to be integrated into solid state lighting designs
This processing power will be required to compensate time and temperature drift in the luminous intensity and colour of LEDs, as well as to provide highly dynamic user control.
Although semiconductor companies will be major players in the solid state lighting business, it will not be every semiconductor company. For solid state lighting applications in consumer electronics, such as in camera-phone flashes, LCD TV backlighting or portable display backlighting, intimate knowledge of the system environment in which the solid state lighting application is being embedded is required, together with a thorough understanding of specific customer requirements.
Also the currents and voltages needed to drive LEDs in some applications can amount to several amps and tens of volts, constituting drive power levels that are beyond the scope of some parts of the semiconductor industry. To be successful players in the solid state lighting business, semiconductor companies will therefore need a range of technology capabilities fulfil the different requirements of solid state lighting systems.
Whatever the application, customers will require semiconductor suppliers to provide total systems that include the LEDs, driver circuitry, discrete components and optics in a single-package (SiP) design that integrates easily into end-products without the need for a high level of electronics competency on the part of equipment designers.
Edgar Langen is general manager for solid state lighting at NXP Semiconductors
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