APRIL/MAY 2014

+
LEDsmagazine.com

SIL 2014
Conference report and
market projections
P. 35 and P. 47

Failure modes
Reliable SSL
design P. 61
TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS OF LIGHT EMITTING DIODES
Drivers
Specification and
design P. 71 and P. 85

Tough stylish
headlamps
LEDs pervade
mainstream vehicles,
deliver better beam P. 9
LED BRIGHTNESS THATS

TOO GOOD
TO BE TRUE
Introducing the Acrich MJT 4040
High-Voltage LED
Using our patented Multi-Junction
Technology, the MJT 4040 offers
increased brightness and light density
perfectly suited for your next
outdoor LED application.

www.seoulsemicon.com
Visit us at LIGHTFAIR Booth #5830
 ISSUE 69

2014
April/May Cover Story
New LED headlamps designed to deliver
63% energy savings and improved optical
performance for Ford light-duty trucks go
through heavy-duty testing before they
are deemed up to the task. (See p. 9;
courtesy of Ford Motor Company)

features
31 DESIGNERS CORNER NEW!
Land of context confusion Derry Berrigan

35 MARKETS
Research projects five years of growth for
columns/departments
packaged LEDs and SSL Maury Wright
4 COMMENTARY Maury Wright

47 CONFERENCES
SIL program spans LED technology to the breadth
Is saving energy through SSL
an empty promise?

of emerging SSL applications Maury Wright

9 NEWS +ANALYSIS

55 CONTROLS
Smart solid-state lighting depends on advanced
Light duty trucks get tough
LED headlamps
Packaged LEDs: Samsung, Philips
controls Pekka Hakkarainen, Lutron Electronics
Lumileds, Seoul Semiconductor, Cree

61 ANALYSIS
Four ways to die: Overcoming common challenges
Business & IP: Lutron and
Crestron, Revolution Lighting,
Lighting Science Group
in SSL design Nat Cannon, Cree, Inc.
LED Modules: Cree, Xicato, Bridgelux

67 STANDARDS
IES updates LED Lumen Maintenance documents
Networks & Control: Philips and
Ericsson, Daintree and LG Electronics
Outdoor Lighting: Transport
Jianzhong Jiao, Osram Opto Semiconductors for London, Cree and Ewo

71 SPECIFICATION
Simplifying the sophisticated: LED driver selection 25 FUNDING + PROGRAMS
EEPCA and LightingEurope announce
made easy Scott Barney, ERG Lighting
performance mark for LED lighting

79 TECHNOLOGY
LED advancements drive quality of light gains
LightingEuropes SSL-erate initiative
debuts lighting education resource
UL launches enhanced Type TL
Aurelien David, Frank Shum, and Mike Krames, Soraa LED driver certification program

85 DEVELOPER FORUM
Proper driver design eliminates LED light
Zhaga Consortium appoints new
Secretary General, expands
scope to electrical
strobe flicker Zhaoqi Mao, Lane Ge, and Gary Hua,
Inventronics (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd.
LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 3
commentary
Is saving energy through
SSL an empty promise?
W
e write about LED-based lighting
constantly, and a recurring theme is
the energy savings that can be had in appli-
cations from residential to institutional to
commercial through the broader deploy-
ment of solid-state lighting (SSL). But there
may be a gremlin lurking in that optimis-
tic outlook, according to Norman Bardsley
of Bardsley Consulting. History would indi-
cate that we may just use more light as the
energy required to power lighting is reduced
in terms of kWh.
Bardsley presented The global challenge
More and better light from less energy
at the 15th-anniversary Strategies in Light
conference held in February. Bardsley is very
much an SSL proponent, but also tends to
have a critical eye on subtleties in all of his
work. Among others, his clients include the
US Department of Energy (DOE).
Bardsley said 300 years of data tells us
that nations spend a fixed percentage of the
gross domestic product (GDP) value on light
over history. He suggested that the number
might be in the 1% range. And taking in the
total cost of lighting sources, systems,
and energy costs Bardsley said we could
be in for a $600 billion annual productivity
hit if we dont change the historical pattern.
There are many reasons that people
may increase their use of lighting. Tech-
nologies such as human-centric lighting,
for instance, might lead to additional SSL
products installed in homes and offices.
Other areas of potential increase include
use in food production, more outdoor light-
ing for safety and security, and of course the
global population increase heavily centered
in urban areas.
Bardsleys talk leads to the idea that we
really need to educate the global population
base on the best use of light as a resource. He
cited a Fraunhofer study that revealed a 47%
4 APRIL/MAY 2014
increase in residential light usage in house-
holds that had replaced incandescent lamps
with LED lamps. He said other research indi-
cates that up to 50% of US households will
simply leave lighting turned on once they
have adopted SSL.
In addition with the long lifetime of LED-
based lighting, manufacturers will seek
more avenues to market for new lighting
products because the replacement cycle
cant support lighting businesses. Bard-
sley said we will see vigorous sales tech-
niques that encourage the use of new light-
ing products.
Hopefully, society can break the 300-
year trend and get on a path to lower energy
usage. In a keynote speech at Lightfair Inter-
national 2010, Jim Brodrick of the DOE said,
This is one of the few technologies that Ive
seen for 20 years at the department that can
actually turn the consumption curve down.
And there is some positive data in certain
regions. Bardsley said the UK has witnessed
a 30% reduction in energy use for residential
lighting starting with the uptake of compact
fluorescent lighting in 2005 and now again
being impacted by SSL.
Adaptive controls could help cure the
casual overuse of lighting. In some cases,
however, we have to consider increased light-
ing good utilization. If more-efficient LEDs
can help feed the world through better plant
production or enrich our lives with tunable
lighting, then I would call that proper utili-
zation. But we all must do our part to avoid
overlighting spaces indoors and out.
Bardsley closed by saying, The people
that think we are going to save energy are
probably going to be disappointed.
Maury Wright, EDITOR
mauryw@pennwell.com
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT Christine Shaw
& PUBLISHING DIRECTOR cshaw@pennwell.com
EDITOR Maury Wright
mauryw@pennwell.com
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Carrie Meadows
carriem@pennwell.com
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Caroline Hayes
caroline.hayes@ruivamedia.com
MARKETING MANAGER Kimberly Ayer
ART DIRECTOR Kelli Mylchreest
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Mari Rodriguez
SENIOR ILLUSTRATOR Christopher Hipp
AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Debbie Bouley
EDITORIAL OFFICES PennWell Corporation,
LEDs Magazine
98 Spit Brook Road, LL-1
Nashua, NH 03062-5737
Tel: +1 603 891-0123
Fax: +1 603 891-0574
www.ledsmagazine.com
SALES OFFICES
SALES MANAGER Kelly Barker
(US EAST COAST) kellybarker@Pennwell.com
Tel. +1 603 891 9186
SALES MANAGER Allison OConnor
(US WEST COAST) allison@jagmediasales.com
Tel. +1 480 991 9109
SALES MANAGER Virginia Willis
(EUROPE) virginiaw@pennwell.com
Tel. +44 (0)7534 294 950
SALES MANAGER Masaki Mori
(JAPAN) mori-masaki@ex-press.jp
Tel: +81 3 3219 3641
SALES MANAGER Mark Mak
(CHINA & HONG KONG) markm@actintl.com.hk
Tel: +852 2838 6298
SALES MANAGER Monica Liu
(TAIWAN) monica@arco.com.tw
Tel: +886 2 2396 5128 ext: 270
SALES MANAGER Young Baek
(KOREA) ymedia@chol.com
Tel: +82 2 2273 4818
SALES MANAGER Dan Aronovic
(ISRAEL) aronovic@actcom.co.il
Tel: +39 972 9899 5813
CORPORATE OFFICERS
CHAIRMAN Frank T. Lauinger
PRESIDENT AND CEO Robert F. Biolchini
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Mark C. Wilmoth
TECHNOLOGY GROUP
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT Christine A. Shaw
& PUBLISHING DIRECTOR
SUBSCRIPTIONS: For subscription inquiries:
Tel: +1 847 763-9540;
Fax: +1 847 763-9607;
e-mail: LED@halldata.com;
ledsmagazine.com/subscribe
We make portions of our subscriber list available to carefully screened
companies that offer products and services that may be important for
your work. If you do not want to receive those offers and/or information
via direct mail, please let us know by contacting us at List Services
LEDs, 98 Spit Brook Road LL-1, Nashua, NH 03062.
Copyright 2014 PennWell Corp (ISSN 2156-633X). All rights
reserved. Contents of this publication may not be reproduced in any
form without prior written consent of Publishers.
LEDsmagazine.com
 Thomas Research Products
SSL Solutions Faster Than The Speed Of Light

NEW!
Drop-in DC LED Light Engines
For OEM & Retroft Applications

Simplify solid-state luminaire development with these high-performing
DC-based LED light engines from the authority on LED power, TRP.
Designed to be standard, these boards are easy to seamlessly drop
into a wide variety of existing luminaire form factors. A complete
product line gives you options for a variety of
applications. Get high lumen output and long life.
These models are optimized for use with TRPs
comprehensive line of high performance LED drivers.
Capitalizing on our experience in the
lighting industry, we combine our LED driver
expertise with Norluxs LED engineering strength
to create products for a wide variety of SSL applications.
Simplicity and complete solutions.
We help you overcome cost and time
barriers to LED system development.
Call us, and discover your options.

1215 Bowes Rd. Elgin, IL 60142 T 847-515-3057 F 847-515-3047 www.trpssl.com info@trpssl.com

2014
 FEATURED events
| online DOE SSL Manufacturing Workshop
May 78, 2014
San Diego, CA

Editorial Digests LED Lighting Institute

May 1315, 2014
Robust SSL requires systematic Troy, NY

thermal approach DisplayWeek

June 16, 2014
http://bit.ly/QLGabI San Diego, CA

Lightfair International 2014

LED modules advance SSL June 35, 2014
developments and light quality Las Vegas, NV

http://bit.ly/1k9nm2e SEMICON West 2014

July 810, 2014
San Francisco, CA
Webcast The LED Show
September 1618, 2014
SSL 2014: LED technology Los Angeles, CA
advancements accelerate the
Boston Lights Exposition
lighting revolution September 18, 2014
http://bit.ly/1ptNplg Boston, MA

MORE: www.ledsmagazine.com/events

White Paper
Correction
How to Better Manage the In the March 2014 issue of LEDs
Complexity of LED Binning Magazine, Fig. 2 on p. 53 should have
been identified as A typical LED-based
http://bit.ly/1hovtRh recessed downlight from MaxLite. Visit
http://ow.ly/vibox for the full article.

ADVERTISERS index
A.A.G Stucchi S.R.L U.S ..............................69
Aamsco Lighting .........................................28
American Bright Optoelectronics .................81
Bayer Material Science, LLC ........................26
Chroma Systems Solutions .........................19
Citizen Electronics Co., Ltd. .........................13
Cooledge Lighting .......................................17
Cree Inc. ...................................................CV4
E-Lite Semidonductor Inc. ...........................41
Edison Opto Corporation .............................46
Elemental LED ............................................43
Ellsworth Adhesives ....................................63
Epistar ..........................................................1
Eptronics ....................................................82
ERG ............................................................68
Everlast Lighting..........................................52
Future Lighting Solutions......................... 7, 65
G-S Plastic Optics .......................................69
Gooch & Housego PLC ................................75
Hangzhou Everfine
Photo-E-Info Co., Ltd. ................................54
Heatron ......................................................51
Helio Optoelectronics Corp. .........................76
Henkel ........................................................23
Indium Corporation .....................................15
Instrument Systems GmbH .........................11
Inventronics (Hangzhou), Inc........................60
Iota Engineering ..........................................53
KMW.............................................................8
Ledlink Optics Inc........................................33
Lextar Electronics Corp. ..............................34
LIGHTFAIR International...............................70
Linear Technology .....................................CV3
Lumens Co., Ltd.................................... 44-45
Luminus Devices.........................................18
Maruwa Co., Ltd. .........................................14
Matrix Lighting Limited, Hong Kong ...........CV2
MBN GmbH.................................................83
Mean Well USA Inc ......................................37
Nichifu America Inc. ....................................63
Orb Optronix................................................20
Otsuka Electronics Co., Ltd. ........................16
Plessey Semiconductors, Ltd. .....................24
Proto Labs, Inc. ...........................................29
Radiant Zemax LLC .....................................21
Sapa Industrial ...........................................39
Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. ......................2
Shanxi Guangyu LED Lighting Co. Ltd. .........49
Shenzhen OKT Lighting Co., Ltd...................22
Shenzhen Refond
Optoelectronics Co., Ltd. ..........................66
Shin-Etsu Silicones of America Inc...............58
Shrewdd Marketing .....................................87
Signcomplex Limited ...................................73
TE Connectivity ...........................................32
The Korean Consulate General ....................12
Thomas Research Products ..........................5
Underwriters Laboratories .....................30, 87
USHIO America ...........................................82
Verbatim Americas LLC ...............................27
Verde Designs.............................................57
Zhejiang Baikang Technological Co., Ltd. .....59
Zhejiang LEDCOM Electronics Co., Ltd .........40

6 APRIL/MAY 2014 LEDsmagazine.com

 The average person will typically
spend two to three years
of their life waiting.

With the Future Lighting Solutions Philips Lighting

Zero Lead-Time Initiative,
parts ship right away, without any wait*.

www.FutureLightingSolutions.com
Visit
Future Lighting Solutions at:
LightFair International 2014
June 3 - 5, 2014
Booth #7008
Las Vegas Convention Center

*Offer is based on certain marketplace assumptions and, as such, changes in the marketplace may invalidate this offer. Offer may end at Future Lighting Solutions discretion at any time.
Offer is valid in North America only. Please contact your local Future Lighting Solutions representative or visit www.FutureLightingSolutions.com/ZeroLT for details on this offer and its terms
and conditions.
 +
news views
AUTOMOTIVE LIGHTING

Light duty trucks get

tough LED headlamps
Ford has announced that the light-duty
F-150 truck line will now have LED head-
lamps that are designed to last longer
than headlamps based on legacy sources
while also delivering superior reliability.
Osram and automotive OEM Flex-N-Gate
worked with Ford developing the head-
lamp unit that the three companies
assert will deliver superior lighting on
the road while using less energy.
LED headlamps have become com-
monplace on luxury autos, but the tech-
nology is just entering the mainstream
market; Ford is the first to make LED
lighting a factory-supplied feature on a
truck. The company said the previously-
used halogen and high-intensity
discharge (HID) headlamps could
require replacement at 40,000-
mile intervals, especially in harsh
workplace environments. The
company expects the LED head-
lamp unit to last five times longer.
Stand on it, said Ford light-
ing specialist John Teodecki
as indeed he did on top of the
11-pound F-150 headlamp unit. This the LED-based design will outperform
lens just wont break. We fire stones at it, traditional headlamps optically. Fords
expose it to extreme sun, soak it in salt- engineers took advantage of the small
water, shoot rocks, rock salt, and ice size of LED sources to create a unique
this thing is very tough to crack. design that relies on 16 precision sur-
Perhaps more significantly, Ford says faces and 80 facets on the page 10

PACKAGED LEDS

Samsung introduces flip-chip mid- and high-power LEDs, SSL module

Delivering on a new LED architecture first
disclosed at the February Strategies in Light
(SIL) conference, Samsung has announced
the LM131A mid-power and LH141A high-
power LED families based on a flip-chip
device architecture. The company also
announced a new flip chip on module
(FCOM) product (pictured) that utilizes the
new LEDs and is designed for use in down-
light applications. Meanwhile, the company
also recently announced a large solid-state
lighting (SSL) module family designed for
planar lighting applications.
Bangwon Oh, senior vice president of
the LED strategic marketing team at
Samsung Electronics, had revealed
Samsungs plans during a keynote
speech at SIL. The flip-chip con-
cept isnt new in general, but
mid-power LEDs are not typi-
cally constructed with such
architectures.
By utilizing an advanced flip-chip
technology, Samsung has made signifi-
cant improvements to its LED packages
and modules, said Oh. Our new Sam-
sung flip-chip and FCOM solutions also
strengthen our overall lineup of LED com-
ponent solutions, further enhancing our
market competitiveness.
The modules are meant to compete in the
chip-on-board (COB) LED space, although
applying the flip-chip LEDs with phosphor
on each individual LED to a circuit board is
quite a different approach. Samsung says
that the FCOM concept will give it more
flexibility in delivering configurations in
terms of lumen package and driver current
required for specific applications.
In the larger modules sector, Samsung
also announced the lens-attached mod-
ules (LAMs) that are essentially larger-
format circuit boards with both LEDs
and optics installed on the board.
The company offers the LAMs in
both linear and rectangular form
factors. Samsung said that design
with the optics allows better light
distribution and therefore fewer fix-
tures to light an area. The modules
enable slim fixture designs that can be
recessed or surface mounted.
MORE: http://bit.ly/1oqPX5O

LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 9

news+views
Truck from page 9
lens to spread the light evenly on the roadway.
Teodecki said the headlamps use 63%
less energy than competitive designs based
on legacy sources. The energy savings com-
bined with the expected longevity convinced
Ford to make the switch from the main-
stream vehicle.
Still, there was a styling angle behind the
choice. The headlamp unit features an LED-
lit light guide that surrounds the perimeter
of the design, which Ford says will deliver
signature styling (as seen on our cover). It
looks so cool, said Teodecki. Im telling
you, this LED light tube is going to be the
next big thing. Our new F-150 owners will be
longing for dusk every day, just to show off
their trucks in dramatic lighting.
PACKAGED LEDS
Lumileds adds high-voltage
mid-power Luxeon LEDs
Philips Lumileds has announced the Luxeon
3535 HV LED family that, as the model suffix
implies, operates from higher voltages; 24V
and 48V versions are available. The higher
forward voltage simplifies driver design
because the voltage drop from the AC line
power is less than in typical low-voltage
LEDs, and the lesser difference can result in
better efficacy.
Lumileds is targeting what it terms
space-constrained SSL applications includ-
ing retrofit lamps, downlights, and wall-
mounted luminaires including sconces.
The advantages of a high forward volt-
age are manifested directly in driver com-
ponent count, according to Lumileds. The
advantage of designing in high-voltage
LEDs is that they utilize drivers containing
10 APRIL/MAY 2014
NETWORKS & CONTROL
Philips and Ericsson plan to combine
LED lighting and mobile broadband
Royal Philips has announced
a partnership with Ericsson
to combine LED-based street
lights and mobile broadband
access points on the same
poles. Ultimately, the combina-
tion could enable cities to both
expand wireless data services
to residents while gaining rev-
enue from mobile broadband
operators. SSL fixtures from
Philips Lighting would deliver
energy efficiency and improved light qual-
ity relative to legacy fixtures.
Ericsson and Philips announced the
venture at the Mobile World Congress
(MWC) held in Barcelona, Spain earlier
this year. Ironically, population growth,
much of which is happening in cities, is
both driving a need for better energy effi-
ciency and stressing the capacity of leg-
acy mobile broadband equipment. And
new smaller-range wireless cells can
allow a system to serve far more users.
Indeed, Ericsson has a technology that
it calls Zero Site that can be deployed
on light poles. City populations are
increasing at the rate of 7500 people per
hour, but our world is not geographically
expanding, said Ericsson president and
CEO Hans Vestberg. Meanwhile, our
ConsumerLab research shows that Inter-
net connectivity is one of the top five fac-
tors for satisfaction in city life. This Zero
Site solution is the kind of innovation
on average less than 20 components, rela-
tive to standard LED drivers that can con-
tain up to 50 components, said Lumileds
product manager Michael Howley. As a
result, the total BOM cost can be reduced
and the amount of inventory they need to
carry to design the driver is minimized.
The new mid-power LEDs do trail the lat-
est high-power LEDs in terms of efficacy. At
a 4000K CCT, efficacy tops out at 125 lm/W
for the 24V model when driven at 20 mA
and characterized at a 25C junction tem-
that offers a way for people to succeed
in the networked society.
The Zero Site platform relies on an
antenna placed on the top of a pole and an
underground equipment box that houses
the communications equipment and
power supplies. The wireless infrastruc-
ture can draw AC power for the same line
that powers the street light. The imple-
mentation is scarcely noticeable on the
pole and cities can dictate color options,
with mounting available on poles span-
ning 812m.
The economics of combining the two
services are intriguing. The ability to
license pole space to a mobile broad-
band operator could help enable the
transition to LED-based lighting in cit-
ies with limited budgets for such SSL
projects. Moreover, the combination
could expand the concept of lighting-
as-a-service business models.
MORE: http://bit.ly/1mL3enV
perature. Those conditions yield an output
of 120 lm, and the LEDs deliver CRI of 80
across the board.
Lumileds only entered the mid-power
LED space targeting general lighting
applications last year. The company now
intends to broaden its position in what it
considers a fast-growing segment. Indeed,
in an interview last October, CEO Pierre
Yves Lesaicherre foreshadowed a broader
mid-power family on the way (http://bit.
ly/1qeM1k0).
LEDsmagazine.com
 We bring quality to light.

DISCOVERING
LIGHT

Putting LEDs in the right light.

SSL solutions from the world leader in LED measurement

Right from the start, we have been

supporting the LED industries with our
measurement equipment. You will also
benet from this expertise in the new
Solid-State Lighting applications. Our
solutions combine highly precise spec-
troradiometers and photometers with
a complete family of goniometers and
integrating spheres.
LGS 1000 Discover light with Instrument Systems.
Goniophotometer
with new features www.instrumentsystems.com/ssl

light measurement

Instrument Systems Germany Phone: +49 89 45 49 43 0 info@instrumentsystems.com www.instrumentsystems.com

news+views
Some industry players have questioned
the reliability of mid-power devices, espe-
cially in applications such as downlights or
retrofit lamps where temperatures get quite
high. Since entering the mid-power mar-
ket, however, Lumileds has insisted that
it would apply technology gleaned from its
high-power LEDs to the lower-cost prod-
ucts. The company has yet to reveal details
of how the new LEDs are packaged or con-
structed. But Rahul Bammi, vice president
of marketing at Lumileds, said, Lumileds
intended goal is identical reliability for
mid-power and high-power LEDS.
Lumileds said that it is providing LM-80
lumen maintenance data for its mid-power
LEDs that would provide backing for long-
life claims. Moreover, the company noted
that the new LEDs are being offered with
a choice of 3- or 5-step MacAdam ellipse
color bins color uniformity common to
discrete high-power LEDs.
MORE: http://bit.ly/1hlq7ME
Seoul Semi adds high-
voltage mid-power emitters
Seoul Semiconductor has integrated high-
power-like features in the Acrich MJT 2525
LED (pictured) with a 22V forward volt-
age and new package that includes a pri-
mary optic. The new Seoul LED is based
on what the company refers to as multi-
junction technology (MJT). Essentially, the
12 APRIL/MAY 2014
MJT LEDs inte-
grate multiple
emitters in one
monolithic chip
with the emitters con-
nected in high-voltage con-
figurations in the back-end of
the manufacturing process with no
requirement for bond wires.
The 22V forward voltage of the new LED
will simplify driver design and enable bet-
ter system efficiency. The high-voltage
approach has been used in high-power LEDs
but is new to the mid-power segment beyond
the combination of two or three emitters at
levels of 10V and below.
The new Seoul design includes a package
architecture more like that used in high-
power LEDs. The included primary optic
provides a broader 130 beam distribution
than is typical in mid-power LEDs. More-
over, it should be useable with total internal
reflection (TIR) lenses. The new LED specs
go well beyond the 0.5W upper limit that has
traditionally defined the mid-power seg-
ment. Seoul said the new LED delivers 95
lm and efficacy of 105 lm/W from a 40-mA
input current at 25C. That performance
places the LED at the 0.9W level, although
maximum drive current is 25% higher, tak-
ing the device over 1W.
Seoul announced the LEDs across a
range of 2600K to 3700K CCTs with a CRI
of 80. As the model number
implies, the LED mea-
sures 2.5 mm per side.
MORE: http://bit.ly/1ecEooS
Cree launches XB-H
LED family, tripling output
Cree has announced another LED in its
high-power XLamp family that is smaller
than most mid-power LEDs yet delivers sig-
nificantly more light output and includes
primary optics for beam control. The XB-H
LEDs measure 2.45 mm per side yet can
deliver more than 500 lm at 1.5 A and 25C.
Cree is positioning the LED as delivering the
same level of output as the 3.45-mm XP-G2
or three times the light output of the XB-D
family in the same small footprint.
The XB-H LED family is another step in
Crees recent push on increasing what it
calls optical control factor (OCF). The com-
pany characterizes OCF as output divided
by the area of emission and Cree is applying
the metric from small discrete LEDs such
as the XB-H to COB arrays. The point is that
the smaller the light-emitting surface (LES)
area, the better you can control the beam.
Cree component product marketing man-
ager Paul Scheidt said that high OCF is espe-
cially important in directional applications
where the figure of merit for an SSL product
is often center beam candle power (CBCP)
measured in cd.
LEDsmagazine.com
news+views
Cree has characterized the XB-H LED pri-
marily at the elevated drive current of 700
mA and 85C temperature as those levels
are more indicative to how the products are
being used. At those conditions the flux out-
put maxes out at 499 lm. The company did
state maximum efficacy of 175 lm/W at 25C,
providing a comparison with the prior-gen-
eration products. Efficacy will drop slightly
at higher temperature.
The new LED uses essentially the same
die that Cree uses in the XP-G2 family with
enhancements in the package architecture
and optics. The fact that the XB-H is a follow-
on product means that market transforma-
tion programs such as Energy Star will rec-
ognize products that use the LED after only
3000 hours of LM-80 testing, allowing quicker
time to market for SSL manufacturers.
MORE: http://bit.ly/1dNAE2B
BUSINESS & IP
Lighting Science Group enters
into new $53M credit facility
Lighting Science has entered into a new $53
million credit facility agented by Medley
Capital Corp. Proceeds from the transaction
will be used to refinance existing debt and
to fund operations as the company focuses
increasingly on LED retrofit lamps that deliver
biologically-corrected light. The lamps are part
of the human-centric lighting trend and deliver
spectral distributions that can either increase
alertness or encourage rest.
This transaction provides Lighting Sci-
ence with additional and more flexible cap-
ital in order to continue to pursue our infra-
structure-related objectives for the next
several years, as well as our innovative
product and technology development strat-
egies, said Richard Davis, Lighting Science
interim chief executive officer.
MORE: http://bit.ly/1i2sBKZ
Lutron and Crestron
settle RF patent suit
Lutron Electronics has announced that it
settled an RF-centric patent-infringement
lawsuit against Crestron, with the latter
agreeing to license intellectual property
(IP) related to wireless communications for
remote control of automated shades and
lighting including LED-based products.
Lutron and Crestron did not reveal the
details of their settlement of a lawsuit
that was first filed in August 2009. Lutron
claimed that Crestron products infringed
two patents in the RF communications area
and that Crestron also infringed a Lutron
product design patent.

Crestron will now have a license to use the
IP in question. The company will pay roy-
alties to Lutron on past and future sales of
products that use the covered RF technology.
Lutron has previously licensed the IP in the
RF patents to a number of other players in
the lighting space including Control4, Coo-
per, Leviton, and Vantage Controls.
Lutron has a broad portfolio of control-cen-
tric products that can be used with both SSL
and legacy lighting. Most recently, the com-
pany rolled out new wired and wireless con-
trols in February including an LED driver
based on the companys wired EcoSystem tech-
nology and wireless dimmer control modules
for use with 010V-based luminaires.
Revolution Lighting
acquires Value lighting
LED Lighting vendor Revolution Lighting
will pay $35.6M for Value Lighting and
assume $3.5M in debt. The transaction will
include a $7.5M cash payment with stock
accounting for the remainder of the pur-
chase. Revolution said that Value Lighting
has revenue of $43M in 2013.
The acquisition will provide Revolution
Lighting with access to the multifamily
dwelling market such as apartments. Value
Lighting has specialized in the multifam-
ily housing sector, and Revolution said that
market is expected to grow faster than the
long-term average in coming years.
This is an exciting and highly complemen-
tary acquisition that will allow Revolution
Lighting to penetrate new markets, including
the fast-growing multifamily residential hous-
ing sector, and further accelerate our overall
growth as a company, said Robert V. LaPenta,
chairman and CEO of Revolution. Value
Lightings existing and new build customers
are seeking to expand into LED lighting solu-
tions and will provide a new and significant
distribution channel for our company.
LED MODULES
Cree launches 8000-lm LED
module, sets lab efficacy mark
Cree has announced a new LED module in
the LMH2 family that can deliver 8000 lm
and replace 150W ceramic metal-halide
lamps (CMH) in applications such as high-
ceiling areas. Cree demonstrated the mod-
ule along with other LEDs and SSL products
LEDsmagazine.com
news+views
Solder and
at the Light+Building (L+B) trade fair that
recently took place in Frankfurt. In addi- Fluxes for LEDs
tion, the company has achieved 300-lm/W
efficacy in an LED in the research lab.
LMH2 module
Modules continue to be a popular building Solder
block product. One of the big advantages of Paste
modules for luminaire makers is the ability
to design one luminaire and offer a range of
lumen packages and features based on the
modular light engine deployed in the product. Flux-Coated
Preforms
Cree said the new module uses 63% less
power than the 150W CMH lamp that it is
intended to replace. It adds to the family in
terms of the high-end range of output, while
Cree has also expanded the family recently Flux
with options such as high CRI and the dim-
to-warm effect in the Sunset Dimming ver-
sion of the modules.
Thermal
Lab efficacy milestone Interface
Moving to the packaged LED space, Cree has
regularly announced R&D efficacy milestones
over the last several years. Generally, the com-
pany has delivered commercial products two NanoFoil
to three years after the laboratory demonstra-
tion. In February of 2013, the company said
in a Strategies in Light keynote that it had
achieved 276 lm/W (http://bit.ly/1mUmqgl).
With the latest announcement of a 303-
lm/W demonstration, the company once
again derived the performance in relatively Learn more:
typical conditions. In other words, the efficacy http://indium.us/F313
achievement did not come at an unusually low
drive current or high CCT. The mark was set
with a 5150K CCT LED driven at 350 mA.
This is truly an impressive accomplish-
ment, said Steven DenBaars, professor and
co-director of the Solid State Lighting and
Energy Center at the University of Califor-
nia, Santa Barbara. Achieving this level
www.indium.com
askus@indium.com
ASIA CHINA EUROPE USA
2014 Indium Corporation
APRIL/MAY 2014 15
news+views
of LED efficacy amplifies the potential for
the solid-state lighting industry to deliver
smaller, lower-cost lighting solutions, and
even larger-than-expected energy savings.
MORE: http://bit.ly/1hi7aEA
Xicato launches connected and
Zhaga-compatible LED modules
Xicato has introduced the XIM LED module
that combines the companys remote phos-
phor technology with sensors and wired
and wireless connectivity options that will
enable manufacturers to simply add sup-
port for networking and adaptive controls
to luminaires. The company also announced
the XTM module recently that is much thin-
ner than the companys prior products and
is Zhaga compatible, yet the company states
that the product is still based on remote
phosphor for color consistency.
Color uniformity both initially and over the
life of an SSL product has been Xicatos core
value proposition. Because the companys
modular light engines use remote phosphor
technology, the phosphor is separated from
the heat-generating LEDs and therefore the
phosphor doesnt deteriorate and shift in color.
Integration story
Were essentially putting the power of a
smartphone into the module, said CEO
Menko de Roos. A smartphone has about a
dozen different sensors, including ambient
light for the screen. With chip technologies,
16 APRIL/MAY 2014
sensors, and networking protocols, we are
enabling an Internet of Lights. The ability
of light sources to communicate with each
other, a management system, or with people in
spaces sets the stage for a broad range of appli-
cations that improve a customers experience.
The new module includes a constant-cur-
rent driver along with the light engine, sen-
sors for light and occupancy, and connectiv-
ity features. In its press release, Xicato didnt
specify the network interfaces. At the recent
Strategies in Light conference in Santa
Clara, California, however, de Roos showed
a block diagram indicating the presence of a
DALI (digital addressable lighting interface)
wired link and a separate wireless link.
The company has not detailed the XIM
family offerings in terms of lumen packages
and performance. Presumably it will match
the existing product families over time.
Zhaga compatibility
Meanwhile, the announcement of a Xicato
Zhaga-compatible module came as a bit of
a shock. In a module feature article in LEDs
Magazine (http://bit.ly/MS1tGR), company
executive Thor Scordelis said the dimen-
sions of the Zhaga Books were not a match
for the remote phosphor design and the per-
formance the company wanted to offer with
its modules.
Fast-forward six months and the com-
pany has announced the 5.6-mm-thick XTM
that looks more like a COB LED in a holder
than one of its prior modular light engines.
Clearly, the XTM has very little separation
between the LEDs and the remote phosphor.
Yet Xicato said the design includes a metal
cooling ring that ensures the phosphor stays
cool and the product delivers on the compa-
nys color uniformity promise.
Xicato will offer the new products in
its Standard, Artist (95 CRI), and Vibrant
(color measured on
the GAI scale) Series.
The products will be
offered over the range
of 4005000 lm with
CCT ranging from
2700K to 4000K. Pro-
duction volumes of the 1300-, 2000-, and
3000-lm devices will be available in June.
While the company said the module is
Zhaga compatible, it is not claiming compli-
ance at this time. Xicato is not a member of
Zhaga and has not put the product through
certification testing.
MORE: http://bit.ly/1dNKz8v
Bridgelux announces
LED-based module to speed
outdoor development
Bridgelux has announced the Outdoor
Lighting Module (OLM) LED-based prod-
uct family meant to accelerate the develop-
ment cycle for manufacturers working on
outdoor-lighting products. Bridgelux said
the weather-tight module with integrated
LEDsmagazine.com
from inspiration...

Vi
sit
us
at
Bo
ot
h
82
35
...imagination...

...to illumination

It doesnt get any easier.

With the fexible LED light sheet from Cooledge Lighting,

designing your next project could not be simpler. With
140+ lumens per watt, over 100,000 hours to L90 and no
need for a heat sink, light sheet is a high performance
ribbon of light. Design with confdence and go wherever
your imagination takes you.

Redefining the Geometry of Light

Vancouver, BC Canada I Austin, TX USA I Hamburg, Germany

cooledgelighting.com
news+views
optics can reduce SSL devel-
opment time by three to six
months and cut $100,000 in
R&D expenses.
Each module integrates
two Bridgelux Vero Series
COB LEDs with a custom-
designed optic covering each
LED. The company will offer
six versions of the OLM with
flux output ranging from
2000 lm to more than 4000
lm and a choice of 4000K or
5000K CCTs. Product devel-
opers can combine as many
as three of the OLMs in a sin-
gle fixture design, enabling
the six base models to support
luminaire designs that can replace 70250W
HID lighting.
The OLM is not Bridgeluxs first foray into
outdoor modules. Back in early 2012, Bridge-
lux developed a module based on one of its
LED arrays in a large discrete package and
COB ARRAYS
Technology that Xceeds your Xpectations.

  

supplied the product along with
exclusive partner Chevron Energy
Solutions to retrofit projects.
For outdoor lighting, the fact that
the OLM is IP-66 rated against water
and dust ingress takes considerable
burden off the development team
that needs to ensure reliable opera-
tion in harsh conditions. Brad Bull-
ington, Bridgeluxs CEO, said, We are
now introducing the industrys most
advanced and sophisticated LED sub-
system for outdoor applications.
The OLM is based on a Vero 10 LED
that enables system efficacy ranging
from 96124 lm/W. A COB LED is a
compromise in an outdoor-lighting
design. Without question a carefully-
crafted luminaire that uses small LEDs and
TIR lenses can deliver more precise beam
patterns. That said, we expect more outdoor
lighting products to use COBs because they
are much simpler to design into luminaires
and provide performance that is suitable in
DISCOVER A BETTER QUALITY OF LIGHT
MID POWER LEDS
many applications. The Bridgelux design uses
the combination of a reflector and diffuser
lens to control the beam.
MORE: http://bit.ly/1hid3BV
RETROFITS
TerraLUX linear light engines
replace fluorescents
in condominiums
TerraLUX has announced an LED-based
lighting project in San Jose, California in
which fluorescent lamps in 200 wall sconces
were replaced with linear light engines. The
SSL project resulted in better light distribu-
tion and warmer color temperature while
also eliminating discoloration on the walls
due to the heat generated by the previously-
used PL 13 fluorescent lamps.
The Paseo Villas complex was built in 2000
in downtown San Jose and houses six floors
of residential condominiums along with some
commercial space. Hallways were lit with
sconces that housed the fluorescent lamps.

  
Full line-up from 20 lm to 14,000 lm.

Visit us at LightFair: Booth 6237

 

Complete Testing Every 6 Seconds...
Including Flicker

HIGH SPEED LED

IN-LINE TEST SYSTEMS
Model 5102 for bulbs
Model 5104 for tubes

O 

Lm, Im/w, Flicker



CIExy, Duv, CIEuv, CCT, CRI


AC mode: PF, Irms, Vrms, THD; DC mode: Forward voltage

Pre-burn handler Loading O 




' ((  ( ('(  ( ( (('( ( ( ( ( 
-

( '(( 
(( (('((

'( (
'(&'(('(-
crystalline silicon solar cells are distributed around the LED bulbs. Photoelectric conversion is
 ( ( ( '( ''( '   ( '( '( '( ( ' ( ( (  '(
 ( ( (  ''('('(!"( ('('''( (( ((
photoelectric test of one LED bulb or tube every six seconds.

#  ('( (
( ((
'(' ( ( (((

'($'( (
%!((
(' (' (' ((! ('(( 
(' ( ( '(  (
for label and logo.

chromausa.com
949-600-6400
sales@chromausa.com





news+views
There were a number of issues with the
fluorescent lighting, starting with black
streaks on the walls that were created by the
heat from the lamps. The sconces also lacked
uniformity in terms of color and bright-
ness. As lamps were replaced over
the years, new lamps were substan-
tially different in color from older
ones. Moreover, the hallways were
dim because the complex installed
one lamp in each sconce instead of
two in an attempt to save energy.
From a decorative perspective,
the existing sconce fixtures were
perfectly acceptable and indeed a
good match to the aesthetics of the
building. So the complex conducted
months-long research into options for retro-
fitting the existing fixtures.
TerraLUX proposed that Paseo Villas ret-
rofit the sconces with its LED-based Line
Voltage Linear Engine product family. A
nearby photo shows the modular prod-
uct mounted inside a sconce. The complex
20 APRIL/MAY 2014
was able to fit two of the LED light engines
into each sconce while keeping power levels
equivalent to when the fixtures were oper-
ate with a single PL 13 lamp.
The light engines are available in 4-, 6-, and
8-in. lengths. The complex installed the 4-in.
models. The project utilized the 2700K CCT
version of the product for warm light. That
light engine delivers 400 lm whereas as the
coolest option ups the output to 460 lm at
4000K and 5000K. Each module consumes
8W and offers efficacy in the 50-lm/W range.
In the Paseo Villas project, the SSL mod-
ules deliver far more light output than the
fluorescent lamps. The lighting is now very
pleasing, and with a fresh coat of paint on
the walls, delivers on functionality and aes-
thetics. The modules are color matched for
consistency. Furthermore, the complex is
projecting 33% energy savings.
The longevity of the light engines will
also deliver considerable maintenance sav-
ings. TerraLUX projects that the engines
will operate for more than five years with no
maintenance. The cooler LED engines have
also eliminated a potential fire hazard.
Cooper Lighting supplies
LEDs to Detroit airport
The Wayne County Airport Authority
(WCAA) has undertaken a lighting retrofit in
parking garages at the Detroit Metropolitan
Airport (DTW) with LED lighting projected to
reduce energy consumption by 66% and gen-
erate $1.2 million annual savings in electric-
ity and maintenance costs. Eaton's Cooper
Lighting supplied 6050 McGraw-Edison Valet
and Ventus luminaires for the project.
While the airport project was certainly
driven by energy savings, the WCAA also
sought to improve the light quality in its park-
ing structures. "Our team invested a signifi-
cant amount of time field testing 12 different
lighting fixtures and visiting local municipal-
ities that completed parking garage lighting
upgrades to take into account their lessons
learned and implement best practices for a
results-driven end product," said Tom Naugh-
ton, CEO of WCAA.
LED lighting has been deployed in parking
garages in general and airport settings in par-
ticular over the past four years. Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania was among the first to install
SSL in an airport project. There was also a
major project at the Atlanta, Georgia airport.
The project included two different facili-
ties and SSL choices. In the Blue Deck garage,
the WCAA installed 1200 60W Valet lumi-
naires in place of 210W metal-halide fixtures.
The same products were also installed in the
lower levels of the McNamara Terminal Park-
ing Structure, replacing 4800 legacy fixtures.
The WCAA installed the pole-mounted Ven-
tus luminaires on the open upper decks.
The project also includes installation
of Cooper's LumaWatt Outdoor Wireless
Control and Monitoring System that both
LEDsmagazine.com

automates maintenance operations and
adds adaptive control to maximize energy
savings. The lighting in the garages operates
24 hours a day, but the control capabilities
can dim the lighting to save energy based on
occupancy and daylight sensors.
The WCAA projects a reduction in elec-
tricity usage of 7,335,000 kWh annually and
equates that conservation to the ability to
power 880 US homes each year. "This proj-
ect is improving the lighting performance
in our parking facilities, reducing energy
consumption, saving on maintenance
costs, and shrinking our carbon footprint,"
said Naughton.
Fast...Easy...Comprehensive
New optical and illumination design software engineered for the way you work
Fastest simulation, analysis and optimization available for unbeatable performance


NETWORKS & CONTROL
Daintree and LG Electronics
partner on LED lighting
and controls
LG Electronics and Daintree Networks have
announced a partnership intended to spur
deployment of wirelessly-connected com-
mercial lighting systems that are integrated
with building- and energy-management sys-
tems. The partners have integrated support
for the ZigBee wireless network directly
into the LG drivers that will be used in the
recessed-troffer SSL fixtures. The Daintree
ControlScope management platform will be
news+views
able to control the LG fixtures and also link
the lighting system to building-management
systems and/or to the evolving smart grid.
LG Electronics has quietly launched the
beginnings of a lighting business in North
America. The company demonstrated some
early products at Lightfair 2013 in a pri-
vate suite. Now it is ready to move forward
with a more public presence. The companys
website includes troffers, downlights, some
replacement lamps, and a planar lighting
technology. Still, the success LG has enjoyed
in other electronics segments could portend
a major player in lighting.
For commercial office environments, LG
will offer both a troffer fixture and a retro-
fit kit that can be installed into existing trof-
fer housings that previously hosted fluores-
cent tubes. Other companies including Cree
offer similar kits. In either case, the LG fix-
tures will include integral ZigBee support.
LG and Daintree are stressing the integra-
tion story because the companies say con-
trols have been implemented as add-ons to

 





 





Dynamic 2D/3D models and cross sections to validate designs and accelerate your productivity







  
 

 
Test drive it at Zemax.com

LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 21

 news+views
standard fixture designs until now. Dain-
tree had announced a partnership with Phil-
ips Lighting back in 2012, although Philips
would use a module manufactured by Dain-
tree to add the ZigBee support to lighting
products. Likewise, a project that combined
Cree fixtures and Daintree network technol-
ogy was based on add-on modules.
Daintree and LG are betting that the
future of commercial lighting is networked
OUTDOOR LIGHTING
London makes LED
streetlight plans
The Transport for London (TfL) tran-
sit authority has announced plans in
conjunction with the Mayors office to
upgrade 35,000 streetlights with LED
luminaires and to install a networked
adaptive control system to monitor and
control the streetlight inventory. The
London streetlight project will sup-
port Mayor Boris Johnsons target goals
of reaching a 60% reduction in carbon
emissions by 2025.
The TfL authority has a total inven-
tory of 52,000 lights on the TfL Road Net-
work (TLRN). The plan is to ultimately
upgrade all of the lighting over ten years,
but the first phase will focus on 35,000
lights that will be replaced by 2016 either
as part of normal TfL maintenance or as
targeted retrofits that can deliver the
most savings. The initial phase will cost
GBP 10.9 million (about $18.1 million) so
payback will take a few years.
Savings will be extended in terms of
maintenance costs and energy efficiency
by a lighting network with controls and
what TfL terms a Central Management
System (CMS). TfL will use the system
to set light levels to the minimum safe
levels based on traffic and pedestrian
activity, and to automatically detect
required maintenance. TfL said that it
has already awarded a contract to sup-
ply the CMS to Harvard Engineering.
Cree and Ewo deliver LED high-
mast lighting at Munich Airport
High-mast outdoor lighting applica-
tions are one area-lighting technology
22 APRIL/MAY 2014
and that the integration story will drive the
cost of such capabilities down. Daintree
projects that customers who buy the wire-
less-enabled fixtures will save 85% per fix-
ture relative to integrating an add-on wire-
less network into a standard fixture. The
LG fixtures should also be compatible with
other ZigBee lighting products available on
the market.
MORE: http://bit.ly/1dNNGgy
in which LEDs have struggled to find
success with fixtures mounted at 100 ft
or higher. Ewo, however, has installed
its LED-based F32 floodlights in such
an application on the apron of the
Munich Airport (FMG) after first trial-
ing SSL technology at the airport two
years ago.
The prior high-pressure sodium
(HPS) lights rendered colors poorly, as
is common with HPS lights. Low CRI
isnt an issue in many outdoor applica-
tions, but the airport wanted lights that
could boost safety. Ewo didnt reveal
the actual CRI of the lights, but the Cree
XT-E LEDs used in the fixtures have a
minimum CRI of 70 and are offered at
higher CRIs. HPS lights have a typical
CRI in the range of 25. The higher CRI
makes it far easier for equipment opera-
tors to see workers and other obstacles.
When Ewo initially tested LED light-
ing on two of the high-mast poles in
2012 (http://bit.ly/1eNpi8F), the lights
delivered 46% energy savings. The air-
port projects a minimum of 50% energy
savings with the new lights. That will
equate to an annual reduction of
122,000 kWh and a reduction of 70 tons
of carbon emissions. The final installa-
tion used newer Cree LEDs, and deliv-
ered better performance.
MORE: http://bit.ly/1n7tlkP
LEDsmagazine.com
THE FUTURE
IS LOOKING
BRIGHT.
LED Compatible Products From Henkel
LED lighting device manufacturers have experienced compatibility problems
color shifts, yellowing or dome failurewhen using incompatible adhesives and
sealants. The presence of incompatible products can impairor destroyLED
performance. Product tests, for one of the worlds largest LED manufacturers,
have proven the superior quality of Henkel LED compatible products.

Henkel is the first manufacturer to provide a comprehensive offering of LED

compatible products for bonding, sealing, potting and threadlocking.

1-800-LOCTITE (5-2-8483) DARK BRIGHT

henkelna.com/LEDcompatibility LEDs without Henkel
compatible products
LEDs utilizing Henkel
compatible products

All marks used are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Henkel and its affliates in the U.S. and elsewhere.
= registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offce. 2014 Henkel Corporation. All rights reserved. 11803 (1/14)
+ funding
programs
EEPCA and LightingEurope
announce performance
mark for LED lighting
The ENEC+ mark announced at Light+Building will serve to certify
the initial performance of legacy and LED-based lighting products,
in a somewhat similar manner to the Lighting Facts program
operated by the Department of Energy in the United States.
EEPCA (European Electrical Products
Certification Association) and LightingEurope
held a press conference at the mammoth
Light+Building (L+B) trade fair to announce
the new ENEC+ mark intended to cer-
tify the initial performance of LED-
based and legacy lighting.
The ENEC (European Norms
Electrical Certification) mark
has for more than two decades
been the Pan-European stamp of
approval that declares the safety of a
marked product. Certification Bodies (CBs)
around the globe test electrical products for
ENEC safety compliance just as CBs test for
compliance to UL standards in the US.
Now EEPCA and LightingEurope will pro-
mulgate the ENEC+ mark that is focused on
the performance of lighting products includ-
ing solid-state lighting (SSL). The organiza-
tions will not define performance require-
ments but rather hope to ensure that marked
products deliver the initial performance
found in manufacturers specifications.
The program will be somewhat similar to
the Lighting Facts program operated by the
US Department of Energy (DOE).
The launch of ENEC+ demonstrates our
ability to respond to the new market expec-
tations, said Valberto Baggio, president of
EEPCA. Its evolution model makes it future-
LEDsmagazine.com
proof as it will always remain attuned to
the developments in product performance.
ENEC+ has all the elements necessary to
become largely adopted by manufacturers,
as the ENEC mark has been for the
past 20 years.
Baggios comments were
instructive in terms of where the
two organizations hope to take
the new mark. Initially, ENEC+
will be applied to the initial per-
formance of luminaires. But the pro-
gram will evolve to both validate that prod-
ucts carrying the mark in the field perform to
specifications and ultimately to validate per-
formance over the life of the products. It will
be interesting to see how the ENEC+ program
compares or contrasts with the compliance
testing specified by the DOE in Lighting Facts.
Initial certification testing of new SSL
lighting products will be handled by the CBs
that serve Europe for other product testing
such as safety and energy-efficiency require-
ments. EEPCA and LightingEurope are still
working on details as to how compliance
over time is validated for ENEC+ certified
products and how to implement life testing.
The new mark will help ensure that poor-
performance issues dont derail the prolifera-
tion of LED-based lighting and the energy effi-
ciency that the technology can page 27
LightingEuropes
SSL-erate initiative
debuts lighting
education resource
LightingEurope has used Light+Building
to broaden the impact of the market
transformation SSL-erate program,
which has been partially funded by the
European Union (EU), with the launch of
the Lighting For People initiative.
SSL-erate was funded to broaden
deployment of LED-based lighting and
increase energy savings. The Lighting
For People initiative is centered on a
new website intended as an educational
resource and a vehicle for collaboration.
LightingEurope, for instance, says
the website will include resources on
human-centric lighting. At L+B, the new
Lighting For People website launched
and complementary programs within
SSL-erate were available to attendees
of the fair. LightingEurope conducted a
half-day seminar program that covered
a range of topics from a broad overview
of the European lighting market to a
session focused on emerging opportu-
nities including human-centric light-
ing. The organization also presented
an overview of all the companies at L+B
that had human-centric lighting tech-
nologies on display and even published
a map to guide a walking tour of those
exhibits.
Funding for the SSL-erate program
in part came from the EU under the
Seventh EU Framework Programme
for Research and Technological Devel-
opment. There are 34 members in the
consortium behind the SSL-erate pro-
gram, including leading universities
and research labs. The consortium
members represent 13 countries.
LightingEurope has been espe-
cially focused on the opportunity in
the human-centric lighting area. Last
fall the organization published some
research on the topic with its partners,
the German Electrical and Electronic
Manufacturers Association (ZVEI)
and A.T. Kearney.
APRIL/MAY 2014 25

Bring your vision to light...
Makrolon Lumen XT
Bayer MaterialScience has transformed the world of
lighting. The Makrolon Lumen XT sheet product line
offers a wide range of diffusion levels with optimized
light transmission and uniform LED light diffusion.
It has higher impact strength than glass or acrylic
and high temperature resistance to satisfy design
exibility and is UL 94 listed. Put it all together
and Makrolon Lumen XT sheet provides the
freedom in design to maximize your light xtures
performance and maintain optimum aesthetics.
For more information:
800.254.1707 or
www.shefeldplastics.com
Bayer MaterialScience LLC
119 Salisbury Road
Shefeld, MA 01257
funding programs +
UL launches enhanced Type TL LED
driver certification program
UL has announced an addition to its UL Recognized Component
Program that is meant to simplify the process of modular LED driver
selection for SSL product development teams. The optional Type TL
Program places some minimum requirements on modular LED driv-
ers that would allow a luminaire manufacturer more flexibility in
swapping from one driver to an alternative, assuming both had the
Type TL certification.
The Recognized Component Program is meant to streamline the
UL product safety certification process. When an SSL development
team specifies a product from
ULs component data-
base, certain attributes
of that product rela-
tive to safety are known
through the process that
manufacturers undergo
in submitting a component
into the program. Compo-
nent types include packaged
LEDs, modular LED drivers, light
engines and modules, LED hold-
ers, and other products. For exam-
ple, Philips Lumileds Luxeon Rebel
LED (shown in the nearby photo) was
among the first LEDs submitted to the
program back in 2009.
An end SSL product must still undergo
safety certification, but the process is simpler when recognized com-
ponents are used in the product. Moreover, when a component is
swapped out in an iteration of a product design, replacement by
another recognized product results in a simpler new system-level
certification, or possibly elimination of the need for an additional
evaluation.
LED drivers have already been part of the Recognized Component
Program, but there has been considerable flexibility in terms of how
the drivers are packaged and tested. For example, the program has
included drivers in full enclosures, in a partial housing, and in an
open-frame format, basically meaning a driver implemented on a
printed circuit board (PCB). The driver manufacturers have dictated
their own temperature testing and rating procedures. SSL develop-
ers that swap drivers have generally had to submit the revised prod-
uct for safety testing.
The Type TL program will tighten the requirements on LED driv-
ers. For example, all products submitted to the new program will
require a full enclosure. Moreover, UL will require that products
must be temperature tested in a 40C oven. The tighter guidelines
will ensure that drivers have enough critical safety commonality
so SSL developers may be able to substitute drivers without having
to resubmit the system for a safety evaluation.
Our goal is to help manufacturers by providing a more efficient
path to market access, said Michael Ritto, UL business page 28
LEDsmagazine.com
 +
funding programs

EEPCA and LightingEurope from page 25

Zhaga Consortium appoints new Secretary
General, expands scope to electrical
The Zhaga Consortium is under new lead-
ership as of April 1, 2014 when Musa
Unmehopa took on the position of Secretary
General, replacing
Menno Treffers, who
has guided the orga-
nization since its
inception. Zhaga has
also announced that
going forward it will
develop specifica-
Musa Unmehopa
tions for the electrical
interface between drivers and LED modules
that together form an LED light engine
(LLE), allowing independent interchange of
either the LED module or driver.
The Zhaga Consortium seeks to help
lighting manufacturers simplify the supply
chain and even enable field upgrade and
repair of installed luminaires via modular
technology. The organization has delivered
on its promise to first publish specifications
for its members and then to make them gen-
erally available to the industry.
New leadership
New Secretary General Musa Unmehopa
has been involved in many standards bodies
and presently serves on the board of direc-
tors for the ZigBee Alliance and the EMerge
Alliance. Both of those organizations are
closely related to solid-state lighting (SSL)
with ZigBee finding use as a wireless net-
work for lighting systems and EMerge being
used as a DC grid to power lighting systems.
Like Treffers during his time with Zhaga,
Unmehopa is a Philips employee.
It is my pleasure to be appointed to
this challenging position of Secretary Gen-
eral, serving the leading page 28
deliver. The ENEC+ scheme comes at the
right time as lighting manufacturers active
on the European market now have the pos-
sibility to better respond to quality-based
tenders in the area of professional lighting
fixtures in the European
market, said Lighting-
Europe president Diet-
mar Zembrot.
The organizations
hope the ENEC+ mark
will coalesce the conti-
nent around a single
product-performance Valberto Baggio
validation scheme. Currently, a number of
European countries have individual perfor-
mance programs in place. The EEPCA-
administered program should reduce the
testing burden on manufacturers, enabling
the single mark to serve in all countries.
The ENEC safety mark, for instance, is rec-
ognized by 21 European countries and
today covers 85,000 products.

Experience the warmth of candlelight.

Utilizing Mitsubishi Chemical proprietary VxRGB technology, the
Verbatim True Candle LED produces a 1900K color temperature for
a light spectrum that closely matches that of a real candle ame a
feature not possible with traditional LED or incandescent lamps.

To nd out more about

Verbatims full range of
LED lamps please visit Technology you can trust
verbatimlighting.com Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Group
 +
funding programs

Zhaga from page 27
companies in the lighting industry around
the globe, said Unmehopa. I am looking
forward to the many exciting opportunities
ahead, as I firmly believe that the Zhaga Con-
sortium has a pivotal role to play in helping
the lighting industry with its transformation
towards LED.
Treffers, meanwhile, is leaving to take a
job at One-Red LLC. That company special-
izes in licensing the intellectual property
related to DVD, Blu-ray, and CD technol-
ogy. Treffers will leave Zhaga being cred-
ited with delivering the growing portfolio
of Zhaga books while managing the inter-
ests of more than 200 member companies.
Due to Mennos work and leadership, hun-
dreds of companies around the globe are
working directly together to create interface
specifications for LED light engines, said
Jan Denneman, chair of the General Assem-
bly of Zhaga. As Secretary General, Menno
has supported the Zhaga members with
processes to enable smooth and effective
ways to develop specifications.
Electrical interface plans
One item that will certainly be discussed
in terms of future direction will be the plan
for Zhaga to specify the electrical interface
between LED modules and drivers. A num-
ber of Zhaga Books specify LLEs with one or
more LED modules and separate control gear
or driver. Today modules and drivers from dif-
ferent vendors would offer mechanical com-
patibility, meaning they could be housed in
the same luminaire that was designed to the
Book in question. But the lack of a detailed
electrical specification means that LED mod-
ules and drivers must effectively be selected
and bought as matched pairs.
The Zhaga Consortium believes that now
is the right time to develop specifications for
the module-driver interface and enable inde-
pendent interchangeability of LED modules
and LED drivers, said Unmehopa.
UL from page 26
development manager for lighting com-
ponents. With this program in place,
LED luminaire manufacturers will be
able to more easily source alternate
LED drivers.
The benefits of the new program
to SSL manufacturers will come in a
number of ways. For example, a lumi-
naire design might be offered with
optional feature sets such as 010V
dimming, or DALI (digital address-
able lighting interface) control. Those
features are implemented in the driver,
and the luminaire maker can select a
range of Type TL drivers to offer the
optional features.
The Type TL program will also pro-
vide SSL manufacturers with supply
chain flexibility. The lighting manufac-
turer can swap vendors based on pric-
ing or supply limits. And manufacturers
can more simply upgrade products as
new driver technology emerges.

THE HYBRID type LED BULB!

Now it is possible to have the familiar look of an incandescent lamp while
getting the benet of energy saving LED technology.
With Aamscos new HYBRID type LED LAMP, you get the best of both worlds.
No Visible Heat Sink
Unique Filament Design
High CRI >80
>100 Lumens Per Watt
15,000 Hours Life
2700K Warm White
This LED has a unique design that resembles a standard incandescent bulb.

Contact us for more details!

AAMSCO LIGHTING, INC.
100 Lamp Light Circle | Summerville, SC 29483 | 800-221-9092
www.aamsco.com
email: info@aamsco.com
Building
Bright Ideas
At Proto Labs, we accelerate innovation by
turning brilliant concepts into real parts in days.

Proto Labs serves as a catalyst for product designers and

engineers when real, functioning prototype parts are needed
fast. Just upload a 3D CAD model for an interactive quote within
hours. When ready, our Firstcut CNC-machining and Protomold
injection-molding services can produce up to 10,000+ metal
and plastic parts in as quick as one day. That means you can
fail fast, iterate faster (and more often), and condently launch
your product to market before competitors.

Injection Molding
Part Design for Dummies
Request your free book at
protolabs.com/lighting
Enter code LM14B2
Major Credit Cards Accepted | ISO 9001:2008 Certied | ITAR Registered
2014 Proto Labs, Inc. | protolabs.com | 877.479.3680
BEYOND SAFETY
UL SERVICES AND EXPERTISE THAT BRING
NEW OPPORTUNITIES TO LIGHT:
INDUSTRY
EXPERTISE
NA SAFETY & STANDARDS
DEVELOPMENT FOR
EMERGING
TECHNOLOGIES

ENERGY EFFICIENCY
PROGRAMS:
DesignLights Consortium
ENERGY STAR
TECHNICAL
LED Lighting Facts
TRAINING
California Energy Commission (CEC)
National Resources Canada (NRCan)
European Energy Efficiency (ErP)
And other Global Energy
Efficiency Programs GLOBAL
MARKET ACCESS

TRUSTED
SUPPLIER OF
PHOTOMETRY PRODUCT
DIFFERENTIATION

TEST
EQUIPMENT
THROUGH
PERFORMANCE &
RELIABILITY
TESTING

Leverage ULs knowledge and expertise in performance Testing and

Global Approvals for the Lighting Industry to assist you in getting to your
desired global markets. For more information and to get a quote contact
lightingquote@ul.com today. Discover more at ul.com/lighting.

VISIT US AT THE ISA SHOW BOOTH 2402

AND LIGHTFAIR BOOTH 5446
UL and th
thee UL
U logo are trademarks of UL LLC 2014 BDi 40328 LEDs 04-14
design | CONTEXT
Land of context confusion
Return on experience, says DERRY BERRIGAN, may be more important than
return on investment when we apply SSL to the built environment with a focus
on the people that will use the space.
E
ducation about light is more crucial now
than ever. Leading education efforts
with students over the last two years,
and collaborating with lighting companies and
commercial clients over the last two decades,
I realized that we are deep in the land of con-
text confusion (with a nod to Phil Collins and
Genesis song, for those who wondered how
they knew the phrase).
What I call context confusion starts
with a lack of shared definitions. I say lamp,
you say bulb. Most people think that light-
ing design is only luminaire design, that con-
trols relate only to occupancy sensors, and
that investment in lighting is only about
energy savings. These examples apply to
both customers and to the industry as a
whole. Confusion. Everyone has different
definitions because there are so many dif-
ferent contexts. Who is a lighting designer
and who is a specifier? What is quality of
light? What is the value of light? I was at
a smart lighting summit and saw firsthand
every speaker espouse a different definition
of what smart lighting is. If we, the indus-
try, cannot agree on definitions amongst
ourselves, how do we expect our customers
to understand what we are talking about
and navigate the landscape of lighting?
Education about light, lighting, lighting pro-
fessionals, energy use, and comfort in build-
ings is critical now for many reasons: rethink-
ing return on investment (ROI), understanding
application context, defining and managing
the smart lighting revolution, and expanding
and growing market opportunity and technol-
ogy transitions.
Louis Sullivan issued the modernist dic-
DERRY BERRIGAN is a lighting
anthropologist, experiential designer, and
educator. She can be reached at derry@
lightthink.org.
LEDsmagazine.com
tum Form ever follows function. For years
I pondered this philosophical tenet, always
feeling that something was missing. Finally,
I figured it out: People were missing! After all,
the built environment is created for people
therefore the light and everything else within
a space should serve their needs.
The number one thing people want to feel
is comfort, and the level and type of com-
fort is totally dependent on the context. For
instance, when dining in an Italian restau-
rant, we experience a totally
different comfort than when
working in an office. So, I have
added on to Sullivans state-
ment, Form follows function
and comfort follows context.
When talking about light-
ing and the built environ-
ment, confusion arises when
context is generalized and peo-
ple are removed from the pic-
ture. People dont experience
light in terms of foot candles,
but this is the way most lighting is marketed,
designed, and specified. We need to edu-
cate the industry and markets, and develop
products and designs based upon peoples
real experiential context. When we do, we
not only deeply enrich experiences for peo-
ple and enhance interaction with products
and environments but we propel the engines
of prosperity forward. Example, Apple. Need
I say more?
Another expanse of land in context con-
fusion is the term ROI. I have had so many
clients with so many different definitions
of ROI, not just in terms of payback period
but what factors could be included within
the definition.
The biggest problem today in adopting
new technologies and sustainable practices
is the traditional mindset of ROI: We per-
sist in perpetuating the value of light as an
energy story only, and more fundamentally,
we characterize the return only in financial
terms. Its difficult for most to understand
that when people have a better experience in
the built environment, the returns (and often
unexpected collateral benefits) are far greater
for the bottom line. Although we may think
that these returns are more difficult to mea-
sure at the moment, the problem is the way
we characterize the return, how we measure
it, what we value as an indus-
try, and how we communicate
those values to our custom-
ers. In lighting today, we need
to educate more about ROE
(return on experience) than
about ROI.
Smart lighting is the future,
but ask five people to define
smart lighting and youll get
five different answers. Is it all
about occupancy sensors, dim-
ming, spectral tuning, data
collection, wireless networks, energy effi-
ciency, sensors, or all of the above? Like most
technology revolutions, its all a moving tar-
get. We are evolving in what we want, tech-
nology is evolving in its capabilities, and the
industrywell, we need to evolve our defini-
tions to communicate effectively with cus-
tomers and with each other while we bring
new technologies and products to market.
Theres a pervasive tendency to either
oversimplify or technologize lighting with-
out consideration for how real people will
implement and benefit by emerging technol-
ogies or combinations of them. We transition
from one generation of technology to the next
with little self-awareness. I get concerned that
the majority of designers, specifiers, electri-
cians, and facility managers that I have inter-
acted with over the last several years havent
APRIL/MAY 2014 31
design | CONTEXT

smart lighting with data collection.

I look to the important work of Bob
Karlicek and the Smart Lighting ERC (Engi-
neering Research Center) to help guide our
Form follows function and comfort follows context
industry in not only developing the founda-
tional technologies for the next generation of
smart lighting but also in collaborating with
different stakeholders on education for indus-
try and customers alike. Education is needed
to bring things into balance.
There is much more to explore in the land
of context confusionmore to come in the
next issue of LEDs Magazine. This is the
beginning of a dialogue with you, for you
and me to define context and clarify what
we mean so we can construct meaningful
messages and educational content for our
customers, for the next generation of indus-
There is no better building than Louis Kahns Kimbell Art Museum with Richard Kellys
try professionals and customers, and for
lighting design that illustrates Form follows function and comfort follows context.
ourselves. And most importantly, to begin
This building was and continues to be my inspiration for architectural lighting design.
to collaborate to create experiential light-
yet mastered the design and installation of based lighting controls that select zones of ing products and designs that deliver light-
the first generation of smart lighting (defi- luminaires to dim, turn on or off). But we're ing experiences that will deeply enrich peo-
nition: whole building activity and/or time- already heading into the next generation of ples lives.

Better Just Got Smaller.

Ground-breaking performance in one tiny LED holder.

LUMAWISE LED holders. Learn more at lumawise.com
2014 TE Connectivity Ltd. family of companies. All Rights Reserved.
LUMAWISE, TE Connectivity and the TE connectivity (logo) are trademarks.
markets | LEDS AND LIGHTING
Research projects fve years of growth
for packaged LEDs and SSL
Bracketing the keynote presentations at Strategies in Light, Strategies Unlimited analysts reported
positive developments in the LED component and lighting markets, reports MAURY WRIGHT, with both
projected at double-digit growth through 2018.
T
he Plenary session at the Strategies
in Light (SIL) 2014 conference held
February 2527 in Santa Clara,
California again featured analysts from
Strategies Unlimited presenting their
most recent research on the packaged LED
component and LED-based general light-
ing markets. Packaged LED revenue was
reported at $14.4B (billion) for 2013 with
projection that the total will reach $25.9B
in 2018. Te general lighting market will
grow even more steeply. Te SIL presenta-
tion focused on LED replacement lamps,
with that segment alone generating $4.8B
in 2013 and projected to reach $12.2B in
2018. In both cases, the revenue growth
will come amongst price decreases with the
next fve years being an exciting time in the
maturing solid-state lighting (SSL) space.
The LED research was focused on pack-
aged components, as it has been in the
past. It does not include the sale of bare
die. It also excludes products such as
infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) LEDs
that are sold into industrial, security, and
other applications.
The LED research does include chip-
on-board (COB) LEDs such as the recently
announced Cree CXA1310 pictured in Fig.1
(http://bit.ly/1hpGVhW). Analyst Katya
Evstratyeva made the point during her pre-
sentation that the line between such COB
LEDs and other light engine or modular
products is blurring. Indeed, many com-
panies use the COB term to describe larger
light engines based on printed circuit boards
in a variety of form factors. Conversely, some
modules look more like a COB LED than a
module, such as the new Xicato XTM mod-
ule (http://bit.ly/1ljJ7wB).
Evstratyeva said that the research frm
LEDsmagazine.com
FIG. 1. Cree announced the CXA1310
(pictured), CXA1850, and CXA2590
COB LED arrays leading up to Strategies
in Light.
is planning a report to address the mod-
ules and light engine space. Te universe
of manufacturers of modular products will
be signifcantly broader than that of pack-
aged LEDs, and that research will surely be
of interest.
LEDs by regions
Diving into the packaged LED revenue
research, Evstratyeva frst broke down the
revenue by region and compared 2012 and
2013 data (Fig. 2). Tere was modest 7%
growth in 2013, although as we mentioned
previously the ramp will be steeper pro-
jected at 13% CAGR (compound annual
growth rate) going forward. Companies
based in Japan remain responsible for the
largest sum of global LED revenue. Certainly,
market leader Nichia is in part responsi-
ble for that countrys position, although
Strategies Unlimited tracks the fve larg-
est LED makers in Japan. Te analysts also
track fve companies in Korea that in aggre-
gate earn the second highest revenues.
Outside of Japan and Korea, however, the
story is far more interesting. In the US, for
instance, the revenue is generated by only three
companies and in Europe only one is tracked.
In contrast, Strategies Unlimited tracks 13
companies in Taiwan and nine in China.
Tose numbers are indicative of the upstarts
attempting to win space in what is already a
crowded market.
Application segments
Now lets discuss the application segments
for packaged LEDs. Te Strategies Unlimited
team has long broken the market into fve
segments plus a catchall other category:
Backlights for displays, monitors, and TVs
Mobile devices
Automotive lighting
Signage
General lighting
Other
Fig. 3 depicts these market segments
and the contribution of LED revenue that
is attributable to each segment. Clearly, the
general lighting segment will drive the LED
component market going forward. Indeed,
general lighting displaced backlighting as
the growth driver, as we reported in our SIL
coverage last year (http://bit.ly/1jD9DNa).
Still, all of the segments are signifcant and
worth further discussion.
Given that backlighting has been such a
signifcant market, lets begin in that appli-
cation. Strategies Unlimited is projecting
in a decline in the segment at a 7.74% CAGR
from 2013 to 2018. Tere are several factors
that are combining to portend the decline.
First of all, the application segment is virtu-
ally fully saturated with a transition to LED
APRIL/MAY 2014 35
markets | LEDS AND LIGHTING

backlights at this point. Second, brighter LED components mean an LED-based fash on both the forward- and rear-facing cameras
that in many cases fewer LEDs will be needed to backlight a screen. in mobile devices.
Tird, the price drop in LED components has been especially acute Evstratyeva said LED revenue sold into fash applications is in the
in the mid- and low-power LED space and those are the predomi- $700M (million) range in 2013. Moreover, she said that sub-segment
nant LEDs used in the application. will continue to rise in revenue through 2018, albeit not at a rate that
Fig. 4 details the backlight segment. Te peak in the 2011 to 2012 will eliminate the aggregate projected decline.
timeframe came as there were still legacy fuorescent-based back-
lights in use and more potential for market share gains for LEDs. Automotive lighting
Still, the projected $1.7B in 2018 is a very signifcant market. Now we will transition into growth segments including automotive
lighting and signage. Tere are a number of factors that will keep
Mobile applications LED revenue on the rise in the automotive segment. For starters,
Moving to mobile, Strategies Unlimited primarily focuses on mobile the market is far from saturated. LED exterior lighting including
phones, including smartphones, and tablets. Te mobile sector is pro- headlamps has been primarily limited to luxury-level vehicles. But
jected in a more moderate 2.36% decline (Fig. 5). As with the back- that situation is changing. Evstratyeva noted that Toyota is moving
light segment, lower LED prices and brighter components are part to LED-based headlamps on its Corolla model, which is a smaller
of the story. economy vehicle.
Tere are market dynamics, however, that have made the revenue LED headlamps are also moving beyond stylish cars. Ford recently
decline for mobile more shallow than for backlight. In many cases, announced that its best-selling F-150 light-duty truck will get LED
mobile devices have displaced dedicated digital cameras as the pri- headlamps across the model (see p. 9). Ford noted that the durability
mary camera used by consumers. Higher pixel counts in image sen- of LED lighting technology was a good match to the work truck mar-
sors and lower cost have enabled better cameras in mobile devices. ket. Indeed, the company said it fred stones at the headlamp unit
And now the market is demanding better LED-based fash for cam- in tests. But the company also noted a styling angle and the LED-lit
eras. We discuss the trend in the companion story on the SIL con- light guide implemented around the perimeter of the unit that the
ference (p. 47). In many cases, mobile device makers are including
Revenues (US$B)
2012 Industry revenues 2013 Industry revenues
$13.3 B $14.397 B 3.0
$2.6B CAGR
Europe 2.5 -7.74%
Europe
China 8% China 8% 2.0
8% Japan $1.7B
Japan 10% Monitors
USA 27% 1.5 Video walls
32% USA
12% 13% 1.0
TVs
Taiwan/
SE Asia Taiwan/ Korea 0.5
Korea
14% SE Asia 27%
26% 16% 0.0
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Source:
Strategies Unlimited
FIG. 4. LED revenue in the backlight application will decline going
FIG. 2. Packaged LED revenue grew 7% in 2013 with Japan forward, driven by lower component prices and brighter LEDs.
remaining in the top spot in revenue production.
Revenues (US$B)
Revenues (US$B) 3.5
30 CAGR
3.0 -2.36%
$25.9B
$2.6B
25 CAGR Others 2.5 $2.3B
13% Others
20 2.0
Lighting Mobile
15 $14.4B 1.5 computing
devices
1.0
10
Signage Mobile
0.5
5 Automotive lighting phone
Mobile devices 0.0 revenues
Backlight in displays 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
0
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 and monitors
FIG. 5. The mobile segment is in a gradual decline in terms of
FIG. 3. Packaged LED revenue growth segment by application LED revenue, although the camera fash sub-segment lessened
projected through 2018. the impact of lower-cost LEDs.

36 APRIL/MAY 2014 LEDsmagazine.com

markets | LEDS AND LIGHTING

company said will ofer a signature look. Revenues (US$B)

Fig. 6 details the interior and exterior sub-segments of the automo-
2.5 CAGR $2.4B Channel letters
tive market. Te exterior segment will remain the larger of the two, 5.72% and others
primarily because of the number of diferent ways that LEDs are used LED multi-color
2.0
in headlamps, turn signals, brake lights, and other functions. Still, $1.8B LED single-color
Evstratyeva pointed out the in-cabin potential. She said auto makers
are increasingly using LED lighting with features such as color tun- 1.5
ability to add styling inside the cabin and to help drive sales.
Signage is also a growth market that totaled $1.8B in LED reve- 1.0 LED full-color
nue in 2013 with growth projected to $2.4B in 2018 (Fig. 7). Te bulk
of the sign manufacturing is taking place in China, so that region 0.5
is driving the LED purchases. Te sign market itself will grow from
$4.7B in 2013 to $6.1B in 2018 and that would indicate a market that 0.0
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
is far from saturation.
FIG. 7. Signage will remain a growing source of LED revenue for
General lighting the next fve years.
And now lets get to general lighting and the largest market for LEDs
going forward. Here we will look at both LED revenue trends and Revenues (US$B)
Replacement lamps
at lighting revenues. Moreover, we will consider the types of LEDs 16 $14.9B Strips and strings
being used in general lighting and how specifc LED manufacturers
14 Outdoor area
are faring in the segment.
12 Industrial
Te chart in Fig. 8 is a complex one that depicts the revenue fore- $7.3B
Architectural
cast for packaged LEDs relative to specifc sub-segments of the light- 10 $6.6B
ing market. While we regularly write about and presentations at Commercial
8 $5.0B Residential
conferences such as SIL support the premise that LEDs will fun-
6 $4.4B $4.0B Consumer portable
damentally change the lighting market, presumably the bulb form
$2.5B Entertainment
will begin to disappear in favor of luminaires with integral LEDs or 4 $1.5B
modular SSL engines. And these new luminaires will truly leverage Retail display
2 $3.5B $4.3B
the compact size of LED light sources and the ability to distribute $1.4B $2.3B Off-grid
$0.5B $0.8B
LEDs in arrays to cover large areas. Examples of revolutionary new 0 Safety/security
13 14 15 16 17 18
designs include the planar fxtures based on light guides that are
edge lit with LEDs. FIG. 8. The lighting market will consume the most LEDs by
LEDs may indeed yet revolutionize lighting product design. But revenue, and the replacement lamps sub-segment will be the
Fig. 8 makes it clear that through 2018 the replacement lamp will largest consumer through 2018.
be the most widely deployed lighting product consuming LEDs. Te
graph tells an interesting story. Lamps trailed the aggregate lumi- tion window, and once again luminaires will become the larger sub-
naire segment in 2013, although the overall lamps LED revenue was segment for LED revenues.
an impressive $1.5B. But soon lamps will account for half of the LED It is worth noting that the replacement lamps segment includes
revenue for components sold into lighting. Ironically, socket satu- products sold into both residential and commercial applications.
ration will happen in the lamps space toward the end of the projec- Strategies Unlimited includes LED-based linear tubes in the cate-
gory, for example, and those products target industrial and commer-
Revenues (US$B) cial applications. Likewise, the MR16 sub-segment is mostly based
2.5 on business customers whereas A-lamps are more prominent in res-
CAGR $2.3B
10.16%
idential applications.
2.0

1.5 $1.4B LED lamp market

Exterior
lighting Taking a deeper look at the lamp market, Philip Smallwood, direc-
1.0 tor of research at Strategies Unlimited, addressed the end product
market at SIL. He presented the adoption graph depicted in Fig.
0.5 Interior
lighting
9 that pretty much confrms the LED research data in Fig. 8, the
0.0 blue arrow standing for the penetration of LED lamps with regard
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
to the total global installed base. Te LED lamp market today is
FIG. 6. The automotive segment for LED lighting is far from at the earliest stages in terms of technology adoption. Smallwood
saturated and is expected to deliver growth in terms of LED asserted that we havent even reached the early adopter stage at
revenue. this point.

38 APRIL/MAY 2014 LEDsmagazine.com


Aluminum extrusions
make the difference
Advanced aluminum extrusion solutions for thermal management
When powerful technology gets smaller, things
can really heat up. How do todays top lighting
companies develop designs that look great and
solve the thermal management problem?
Thanks to a higher level of thermal conductivity,
aluminum extrusions can be as much as 53%
more efficient for thermal management than
aluminum castings. In addition, Sapa has
developed a new method of manufacturing
high-ratio air-cooled heat sinks. Our new
Sapa Extrusions North America
technique uses Friction Stir Welding technology Contact us for more about Sapa and thermal:
in a modular concept allowing for maximum NorthAmerica.Sales@sapagroup.com
flexibility and fin ratios in excess of 40:1. Our (877) 710-7272
new method also allows for the production of
large scale heat sinks up to 20" width.
With complete thermal engineering and
design assistance plus full fabrication capabilities
at multiple locations across North America, Sapa
can provide finished component heat sinks for all
your lighting needs. www.sapagroup.com/NA
markets | LEDS AND LIGHTING

Market share (%) Revenues (US$B)

100 14 2018
$12.2B
75 12 CAGR Refector
21%
10
50 MR16
8
25 LFT
6 2013
$4.8B Decorative/other
0
Innovators Early Early Late Laggards 4
2.5% adopters majority majority 16% A-19
13.5% 34% 34% 2
FIG. 9. In terms of the consumption of LED retroft lamps, the 0
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
market is still not at the early adopter stage.
FIG. 10. LED replacement lamp revenue is on a steep 21%
Still, the lamp market has racked up some impressive revenues. growth path over the next fve years.
In aggregate lamps revenue totaled $4.8B in 2013. Smallwood pro-
jected growth to $12.2B in 2018 a 21% CAGR (Fig. 10). What you have been many low-quality MR16 lamps made in China and sold
may fnd surprising is that the MR16 segment is the largest segment into markets such as Russia. Smallwood said as many as 50M MR16
at the moment and will continue to be so until A-lamps catch up in lamps were sold in Russia in 2013.
the 2015 to 2016 timeframe. Te MR16 sub-segment is also instructive of what will happen
Tere are several factors at play in the size of the MR16 sub-seg- across the lamps market because it is a year or two in front of the
ment. For starters, the lamps are primarily deployed in business other sub-segments in terms of adoption. Fig. 11 shows that in the
applications, as mentioned before. And businesses have adopted 20172018 timeframe socket saturation will impact MR16 lamps sales
LED lighting more quickly than residential consumers. Tere also with a decline in revenue inevitable.
 markets | LEDS AND LIGHTING

Conversely, Smallwood projects A-lamp revenue at $5.2B in 2018, on the huge installed base of linear fuorescent lamps around the
exceeding MR16 revenue and still on a growth path at that point. But globe. While many prognosticators, including the US Department
saturation will happen soon after, and with the long LED lifetime the of Energy (DOE), have questioned the lighting quality produced
lamps market will decline considerably. Smallwood said that North by LED tubes, Smallwood based his thoughts on the incumbent
America has been consuming 1.1 replacement lamp per year based technology. He said T8 and T5 fuorescent tubes perform well and
on legacy incandescent and compact-fuorescent technology. Tat the efciency advantage of LEDs is not signifcant enough to spur
per-year unit volume will be slashed by LED lifetime. a broad retroft wave.
Smallwood also had an interesting outlook on the LED-based
tube market, which as Fig. 10 shows is substantial but probably
Revenues (US$B)
not as large as the participants in that space would hope based
25 2018
$21.3B Retail display
Revenues (US$B) CAGR Residential
2018 20
12.3%
3.5 CAGR $3.2B Outdoor
3.0 13% Off-grid
15 2013
2.5 $11.7B Industrial
2013 Entertainment
2.0 $1.7B 10
Emergency
1.5
Consumer portable
1.0 5
Commercial
0.5
Architectural
0.0 0
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

FIG. 11. MR16 LED lamps will be impacted by socket FIG. 12. LED luminaire revenue is much higher than lamps due
saturation earlier than other sub-segments. to the complexity of the products.

Modular LED High Mast Light


  



Product range 200W, 300W, 450W, replacing up

to 1500W Metal Halide
  5
 55



53
!5"5 4
#6

654$%4&5'"
(

) ((6$ 44
 4
*
6 5'
5%




+,+' 5
5
-%(
%(",5
54 
%("
(
.+/)"%

6,*, )50
##,1
2
85/135

45
30

 
 LED Light Engine 300W High Mast Light
markets | LEDS AND LIGHTING

LED luminaires Revenues (US$B)

Lets briefy consider the state of the LED luminaire market. While 8
comparing lamps and luminaires in terms of packaged LED revenue 7
revealed that lamps were the larger segment, the opposite is true in Super-high
6 power
terms of revenue of the lighting products. Consider Fig. 12. Luminaire 5
revenues totaled $11.7B in 2013 and will grow to $21.3B in fve years. 4
High power
Luminaires are simply much more complex products with more expen- 3
sive subsystems such as driver electronics and housings. And LEDs with 2 Medium
dropping component prices represent an increasingly smaller portion power
1
of the bill of materials cost for both lamps and luminaires. Low power
0
Te luminaire market is predominantly driven by four sub-segments. 13 14 15 16 17 18
Architectural or faade lighting outdoors has been an early area of suc- FIG. 14. The replacement lamps market will consume LEDs across
cess due to both the energy savings associated with LEDs and dynamic the power sub-segment categorization.
color capabilities. Outdoor street and area lighting is a prime sub-seg-
ment because those products burn all night, and energy and mainte- lower-end LEDs and more-reliable ceramic packages being used in
nance savings are critical. Likewise, the commercial and industrial sub- higher-power devices. But the boundary lines are being crossed from
segments are very focused on energy and maintenance savings and, every perspective. Mid-power LEDs are being operated at power lev-
more recently, the quality of light that LED sources can deliver relative els above 0.5W and increasingly include architectural elements that
to fuorescent and high-intensity discharge (HID) sources. were developed frst in high-power LEDs. For example, Philips just
announced high-voltage mid-power LEDs (p. 10), and added epoxy-
Success in lighting molded-compound packages that should deliver better reliability.
Having covered the lighting products, lets return to a fnal discus- Cree continues to push ceramic packages into smaller footprints
sion focused on LEDs relative to lighting applications. First, we will smaller than mid-power LEDs while delivering the luminous fux
look at how well the LED manufacturers are penetrating the general of larger high-power LEDs.
lighting market. Strategies Unlimited does not break such data out Evstratyeva readily admitted in her SIL presentation that new think-
per individual LED manufacturers, but ing was needed in the area of segmenting the LED market by
we can make some inferences based on US$4.47B type of device. Still, she presented some projections based on
Fig. 13, and the discussion we had based Europe the conventional segmentation tied to power level. And the
around Fig. 2 and the number of LED 4% results were surprising to some in the audience.
makers that Strategies Unlimited tracks Japan For example, consider the replacement lamps market
21%
in each region. depicted in Fig. 14 segmented by LED type. Strategies
USA
In perhaps a surprising fact, Evstra- 31% Unlimited projects high-power LEDs to remain dominant
tyeva reported that LED makers in the US Korea in terms of revenue in the retroft lamps segment. A num-
accounted for the majority of the LED rev- 15% ber of attendees at SIL questioned that projection in net-
enue sold into lighting in 2013. Te bulk of Taiwan China working events after the Plenary session.
that revenue is surely attributable to Cree. 18% 11% Wed speculate, however, that the devil is in the details.
While the company is only the sixth-larg- If you stick with a categorization based on power level,
est LED supplier based on revenue for then LEDs packaged in a plastic or hybrid-composition
2013, Cree is perhaps the top supplier in FIG. 13. US LED suppliers are package, and that operate above the 0.5W level, are in
lighting applications and has taken good leading the way in the lighting the high-power category. Moreover, remember that the
advantage of its early focus on the light- application. breakdown is based on LED revenue and not unit vol-
ing application segment. ume. High-power LEDs sell at higher price levels; there-
Te real question is how the lighting market will proceed going fore, the products that use high-power LEDs will contribute more
forward. And much of that discussion could hinge on the types to the high-power category measured by revenue.
of LEDs used in various lighting products. Strategies Unlimited Te surprising angle to the category-based breakdown is the
continues to segment the LED market into low-power, mid-power, increasing prominence of COB LEDs across many diferent light-
high-power, and super-high-power sub-segments. Te key difer- ing applications. Some in the industry have the mistaken idea that
entiating point has been the line in the middle where mid-power COBs deliver more uniform light. In reality a careful optical design
LEDs are operated at 0.5W and below and high-power LEDs in the can almost always deliver better optical performance with discrete
0.5W to 5W range. High-power LEDs have been dominant in light- emitters. Te fact is that COBs are easier to design into products.
ing applications. Driving the COBs is easier and the thermals are in part handled
in the LED package. Coming out of SIL the prevailing thought was
LED categorization that you should expect COBs in virtually every lighting application,
Te boundary between mid- and high-power LEDs has also been with lighting manufacturers trading simplicity of product develop-
neatly aligned with plastic or hybrid-plastic packages used in the ment for less-precise beam control.

42 APRIL/MAY 2014 LEDsmagazine.com


LEDs that you can rely on
 conferences | STRATEGIES IN LIGHT

SIL program spans LED technology to the

breadth of emerging SSL applications
Quality of light was the predominant theme at Strategies in Light, reports MAURY WRIGHT, but the 2014
conference reflected a maturation of LED technology with speakers addressing a broad scope of
topics, including new ways to approach the lighting market and surprising new applications for LEDs.

H
ow to make chicks happy was one of
the more compelling presentations
at the 15th-anniversary Strategies in
Light Conference (SIL) held February 2527,
2014. LED lighting is how, the birds in ques-
tion are layer or broiler chickens, and that ses-
sion was representative of the broad range of
applications presented at SIL in which solid-
state lighting (SSL) is being applied. The 2014
SIL audience also heard plenty on the latest in
LED components. And if there was a prevail-
ing theme beyond diversity of applications, it
was that the general lighting market is enter-
ing a stage where manufacturers must boost
the value and quality of LED lighting prod-
ucts to both satisfy customers and to main-
tain economic health in the lighting industry.
Along with a packed exhibit floor (Fig. 1) FIG. 1. Strategies in Light 2014, the 15th anniversary of the conference, broke prior
SIL 2014 comprised a Plenary session, as well records with 200 exhibits along with an info-packed conference.
as market, technology, and luminaire design
tracks. Moreover, workshops along with an cost components, better efficacy, and better Oh. He said mid-power LEDs can only meet a
Investor Forum that pitted early-stage com- color consistency. He addressed the issues one 3-step MacAdam ellipse target through bin-
panies against investors in the Dragons Lair at a time starting with cost. The transition ning, whereas high-power LEDs can increas-
filled a pre-conference day. Here we will to lower-cost mid-power packages has pro- ingly hit that target for the bulk of produc-
focus on the Plenary keynotes, along with vided tremendous benefits to the lamp mak- tion. He added, Improving chip structure is
some of the more interesting application- ers, according to Oh. Moreover, he said that the most straightforward way.
centric presentations. mid-power LEDs capable of operating at 150
200 mA, in what was previously considered Mid-power flip-chip
Challenges to LED makers the lower end of the high-power region, have Oh said that Samsung is working on a flip-chip
The first keynote during the Plenary session enabled a 50% reduction in lamp prices and a architecture for mid-power LEDs. Such an
was entitled The real challenges facing the 230% increase in lm/$ (lumens per dollar). approach, where the epitaxial layers are grown
LED market and came from Bangwon Oh, The ability to push typical mid-power on a patterned substrate with contacts con-
senior vice president of lighting marketing packages, however, is diminishing. There structed on the top of the epitaxial layers, has
at Samsung Electronics. Oh was focused pri- seems to be very little room for further cost been used by a number of manufacturers in the
marily on the replacement lamp market with reduction in mid-power platforms, said high-power space. The chip is then flipped
the assumption that mid-power LEDs are Oh. Therefore, a total new platform is nec- with the contacts available on the bottom of
the most likely path forward, but his mes- essary to meet the market requirement for the structure and the light is extracted through
sage applies across LED segments because over 2000 lm/$ in a bulb. the sapphire layer for maximum efficacy.
he called for an all-new LED structure. Indeed, the existing mid-power architec- Bringing flip chips to mid-power will also
Oh described the three primary challenges ture is also incapable of meeting better effi- enable changes in phosphor application that
that he says face LED manufacturers: lower- cacy and color-quality goals, according to will yield better color consistency, according

LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 47

conferences | STRATEGIES IN LIGHT
to Oh. Because there are no bond wires on
the surface of the LED, unlike traditional
mid-power structures, Samsung will apply
phosphor in a film. Oh said the approach will
lower cost and improve consistency (Fig. 2).
Oh called the new Samsung structure
White Flip-Chip. The adjective white is
simply the color of the sides of the flipped
die that are not encapsulated in a plas-
tic package. The approach is similar to the
high-power chip-scale package that Philips
Lumileds announced at SIL in 2013 (http://
bit.ly/1foX4lz). Oh said the new structure
would push mid-power LEDs above 1W
and the cost profile near 1500 lm/$. More-
over, the design will maintain high efficacy
at the higher drive currents. As we went to
press, Samsung formally introduced the LED
hinted at during the keynote (p. 9).
Bringing the message back to the tar-
get lamp market, Oh offered some com-
parisons with current mid-power LEDs.
He said a 60W-equivalent lamp that today
requires 20 0.3W LEDs would only need 10
of the new devices. Moreover, he said the
approach will yield smaller LEDs that offer
better optical control for directional appli-
cations such as downlights.
SSL system benefits
Following Oh, Mark Rea, director of the
Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, took the stage to dis-
cuss SSL systems and how to monetize LED
lighting technology (Fig. 3). We covered some
of this ground in our interview with Rea lead-
ing up to SIL (http://bit.ly/MXrc0s). But Rea
was far more specific in his keynote.
An analogy led Rea into the topic at hand.
He said that Audi-branded vehicles comprise
about 20% of the total sales of The Volkswa-
gen Group. Yet Audi sales contribute 40% of
the profit to the group. Audi is perceived as
delivering greater value because it delivers
more engineered benefits and that I suggest
can be monetized as demonstrated by The
Volkswagen Group, said Rea.
LEDs have breathed new life into lighting,
leaving space for engineered benefits. Rea
said that for the first time in his near 40-year
career focused on lighting his neighbors are
interested in the topic. But he warned that if
the industry cant engineer tangible benefits,
Its close to a race to the bottom. Its going to
be a price war again.
48 APRIL/MAY 2014
Mid-power LED
Phosphor and
L / Frame High lm/$
encapsulation
Chip High lm/W
Color
Plastic refector consistency
FIG. 2. Samsung believes a move to a flip-chip structure in mid-power LEDs can lower
cost while advancing efficacy and color uniformity.
Benefit metrics
The problem with how the SSL industry is
progressing is a focus on lumens because
we can measure that data. But we dont see
lumens and metrics such as lm/W and lm/$
are only meaningful in a commodity way.
What people will pay a premium for, accord-
ing to Rea, are things such as health and
wellbeing, driver safety, personal security,
and improved productivity. But he admitted
those things are difficult to quantify.
One way to characterize lighting perfor-
mance, however, is benefit metrics based
on spectral weighting functions. The light-
ing and color science industry has developed
numbers of characterizations of light and
color that can be related specifically to ben-
efits such as visual performance relative to
work or driving a car; brightness relative to
personal security; or what he calls Class A
color relative to food, furnishings, and faces.
Indeed, if the industry established bene-
fit metrics tied to specific applications, then
you could relate those metrics to dollars or
power consumption. For example, lighting
science shows that in outdoor applications
we can realize better effective brightness by
applying the right CCT and spectral distribu-
tion. The result is better personal security rel-
ative to watts. Rea said that such a transition
in approach by the lighting industry could lead
to both increased profits for SSL manufactur-
ers and a reduction in energy usage.
Improved light quality
Steve Lydecker, senior vice president of tech-
nology solutions at Acuity Brands, followed
Rea in the Plenary session and reinforced
many of the same messages on adding value in of vividness (http://bit.ly/1jNtPMR).
lighting (Fig. 4). Lm/W, lm/$, and lm over life
White-chip
Package-free
structure
Flip chip
Phosphor
flm PCB
Source: Samsung Electronics
those are the old boundaries of efficiency,
economics, and endurance, said Lydecker.
But those table stakes have been met.
The lighting industry needs to move
up the value creation curve to enrich and
enhance our visual environment, according
to Lydecker. But before he suggested how to
make such a move, he used history to point
out where the industry cant go.
Our eyes are incredibly forgiving and tol-
erant to bad lighting, said Lydecker. He was
referring to fluorescent lighting and the fact
that it was only held to consistency within
a 7-step MacAdam ellipse. He added, As an
industry we accepted fluorescent shortcom-
ings because it was cheap and easy to fix by
changing a lamp.
LED lighting costs far more and is not
easy to replace. Consistency must be engi-
neered into the product. Lydecker said the
industry needs to be held to a 1- or 2-step
MacAdam ellipse.
Color metrics
One important measure of added value is
color rendering. And again Lydecker pointed
out shortcomings with current approaches,
saying that color rendering index (CRI) was
a simple measure and adding, CRI is a one-
dimensional measurement.
Adding the R9 red and other color samples
has helped but not enough, said Lydecker.
CRI doesnt tell us how well we can discrim-
inate between two colors in that matrix.
Surprisingly, it was Lydecker that men-
tioned Gamut Area Index (GAI) rather than
Rea since the LRC developed GAI as a second
metric to be used alongside CRI as a measure
Lydecker said, GAI gives a much better
LEDsmagazine.com
feeling as to whether a scene will be vivid.
CRI may be perfectly appropriate for residen-
tial applications, said Rea, but applications
such as retail need a better way to charac-
terize color rendering and lighting products
that deliver on that metric. Lydecker said we
need to move lighting from the cost side of
the equation to the value side.
Other angles to more value, according to
Lydecker, include a move from static settings
to dynamic experiences. And the examples
may include moving light, but the point was
really to use lighting elements and tunabil-
ity to highlight parts of a scene. Again, satu-
rated colors are key along with subtle CCTs in
the white range.
Controls needed
Lydecker did say that light fixture design is
not the only part of the equation, but that
better tools (read controls) are required.
Controls have consisted of dimmers and
on-off switches in most cases. Slide dimmers
provide 50 steps of mechanical resolution,
and thats fine for dimming white light in
low-end applications because the eye can
barely detect a 10% level change, according
to Lydecker. But for tunable color, Lydecker
said, we need tools for color selection.
Lydecker showed an Acuity color-tunable
product that was demonstrated at Lightfair
last year and said the design includes multiple
channels of control including a 16-bit color
channel, an 8-bit channel that controls the
distance from the black-body curve, and a
16-bit intensity channel. The industry needs
to borrow from the display monitor space to
see how such tunability is handled. FIG. 3. Mark Rea of the LRC said the LED
But we need more basic improvement in lighting industry must deliver engineered
terms of dimming controls as well in pro- benefits.
fessional applications; that may imply better
LED lighting products. Weve all been pretty application at hand.
spoiled by a $10 dimmer we can buy at the The real action, according to Lydecker,
DIY store and a filament inside a glass enve- is below 1% levels that the eye perceives as
lope, said Lydecker. That combination can 10%. Above that level the applications are
deliver 2000:1 dynamic range. Of course, the load shedding or energy management. But in
eye has a dynamic range of 1,000,000:1, and spaces with daylight exposure or in confer-
we need to match controls to the eye and the ence rooms with projection displays, we need
conferences | STRATEGIES IN LIGHT
accurate dimming to 1%. In spaces such as
theaters, we need accurate dimming to 0.1%,
said Lydecker. And we need it without flicker
yet LED lighting is generally more prone to
flicker at the lowest dim levels.
Now lets transition into some of the appli-
cation-focused presentations. The topics are
varied although the LED value proposition
is a constant.
LEDs and solar
The combination of solar energy and LED light-
ing has come up at several recent Strategies
Unlimited events. The presentation at SIL by
Moneer Azzam, president and CEO of SolarOne
Solutions, was the most comprehensive and
provocative that we have seen. Saying that
Azzam is boldly optimistic is an understate-
ment. He said that solar plus SSL will cause
a transition in outdoor lighting analogous to
what the mobile phone has done to traditional
phone companies. He asked, Can this combi-
nation of technology loosen the grip that the
utilities have on the access to the power side of
the business equation? At first his assertions
may seem implausible, but Azzam is very con-
vincing. And the reasons for using solar power
are far broader than you might first expect;
they could expand the applicability of LED-
based lighting.
Back to the analogy, Azzam said that a
mobile phone in 1973 cost $4000 for 20 min-
utes of talk time. That was pre-cellular, of
course, and today voice is virtually free and
wired phone companies are struggling to
stay in business. Only in 2004 did solar light-
ing and LEDs combine in outdoor lighting.
The $1/lm-h (dollar per lumen hour) effec-
tive cost and the 400-lm average output of a
solar light were unusable. Today, the figures
are in the range of $0.03/lm-h with an aver-
age output of 5500 lm in outdoor fixtures.
Ironically, its not the fact that solar pan-
els have magically broken through efficiency
barriers or dropped in price that makes the
technology a viable option. Instead, its LED
efficiency that makes solar viable in far more
applications than in rural areas where there
is no grid. Weve covered a number of rural
applications, but going forward we will find
solar in areas near grid power.
Azzam specifically mentioned a roadway
lighting project in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi
(Fig. 5). The zero-carbon-footprint city
actually already had massive solar farms
50 APRIL/MAY 2014
FIG. 4. Steve Lydecker of Acuity claimed SSL has broken through the energy efficiency,
cost, and reliability barriers and now the industry must focus on value.
but chose to use solar at the pole level for
the roadway due to cost issues and to pre-
serve the investment. Azzam said, Moving
the road was almost a certainty in the citys
future. So installing a grid along the road
could have been a waste of money.
Azzam also said installing wiring is incred-
ibly expensive in areas such as Abu Dhabi,
with sandy soil that ultimately requires mul-
tiple layers of protection for the power wiring.
He said the installation cost can run as high
as $100,000/km. The solar plus LED installa-
tion cost less than $85,000/km.
But its not just exotic locales where you
see a high cost in connecting to the grid.
Azzam said that in cities such as Bos-
ton, Massachusetts, Washington, DC, and
Toronto, Canada the cost to run wiring to a
bus shelter is typically in the $6000 range. A
solar-powered LED installation for a shelter
can cost less than $1500.
You must also consider other sources of
costs when contemplating new grid installa-
tion. Azzam discussed the rails to trails pro-
gram in Massachusetts that is in the process
of converting 450 miles of old railway beds
into recreational trails. Installing a grid
along those trails would have first required
the decontamination of the soil. The cost
could have been $100M to reclaim the soil.
Hard solar costs
But justifying the use of solar and LEDs
together is not limited to instances where
there is an infrastructure cost issue with the
grid. Azzam said solar panels have dropped in
cost, but prices are leveling. Still, he explained,
LEDs have already created a 2030%
reduction in solar cost because the efficiency
of LEDs means fewer panels are required.
Azzam showed an actual comparison of
alternatives for a roadway lighting project in
the United Arab Emirates. The twenty-year
total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis con-
sidered the upfront cost of the luminaires,
installation, and energy and maintenance
costs. The solar-powered LED option was
10% lower in TCO than grid-powered metal-
halide lighting. Grid-powered LED lighting
came in a few percentage points below the
solar alternative but the two were close. Fur-
thermore, Azzam said that by 2016, the solar
LED TCO will drop by 30% with additional
technology developments. He said, Thats
exciting and transformative.
Ironically, the cost picture improves when
you consider the usage of adaptive controls.
Azzam said a wireless network brings addi-
tional energy savings that offset the require-
ments for the battery, solar panels, and size
of the pole required. Essentially the addi-
tional savings cover the cost of adding net-
works and controls, whereas the controls
and network account for an added cost in
grid-powered applications.
UV LED chase
Solar was also described as a potentially good
match for developing ultraviolet (UV) LED
technology in the presentation that followed.
Well explain why momentarily, but first lets
cover the basics of UV LED technology. The UV
spectrum is broken into UV-A (315400 nm),
UV-B (280315 nm), and UV-C (100280 nm).
UV-A LEDs are relatively commonplace and
used in curing applications, as we covered in a
LEDsmagazine.com
 conferences | STRATEGIES IN LIGHT

recent feature (http://bit.ly/1gKflPU). The effi-

that could be applied to water and perhaps sur- similar to those used in general-purpose
ciency of UV-B and UV-C LEDs, however, drops faces or even entire rooms. Someday Liao fore- LEDs with efficiencies remaining low (http://
rather drastically. SIL presenter Yitao Liao, a
sees that a UV LED in your smartphone might bit.ly/1bY7FTg). Other companies are pursu-
scientist at startup Rayvio Corp, said that let you disinfect your table in a restaurant. ing exotic and more costly substrates. Liao
under 300 nm, efficiency is in the 10% range. Today, UV-B and -C application rely on mer- said, Growth in UV-C depends on a materi-
But its at the UV-C wavelengths that Liaocury lamps. UV-B applications are mainly als breakthrough.
sees the most potential for UV LED technology.
medical in nature where a bulky lamp may not Rayvio is a materials-focused company
The primary application would be disinfectionbe a huge issue. But the potential real-time- launched out of Boston University. The com-
disinfection applica- pany is pursuing the use of molecular beam
tion for UV-C requires epitaxy to grow more-efficient UV-C LEDs
a portable source that on standard sapphire substrates. Liao didnt
isnt prone to breaking, detail the companys progress. But he said a
has no hazardous mate- more-efficient UV-C LED could enable solar-
rial, and offers instant powered water purification for the many
on and off capabilities. regions around the world that lack access to
As we covered in clean water.
a UV article a couple
of years back, Sensor Camera flash advancements
Electronic Technology Another exciting application for LEDs that
Inc. (SETi) is the only isnt necessarily new camera flash has
volume manufacturer many new aspects to it. As we covered in
of UV-C LEDs, and that our article on Strategies Unlimited market
FIG. 5. A roadway in Abu Dhabi is cost-effectively lit with the company is using man- research (p. 35), LED revenues tied to the
combination of LEDs and solar power. ufacturing techniques flash market are growing. Yourii Martynov,

Greater Heights
ASCENDIA
High Performance LED Module
Versatile. Configurable. Flexible.
Delivers up to 8800 lumens
For mounting heights up to 40 feet
3 color temperatures; 4 beam angles

LED I NT EG R AT IO N

Call Heatron LED Integration to learn more about the

various levels of integration we offer  ranging from the
design and manufacture of component level LED light
modules to turnkey LED solutions for OEMs.

www.heatron.com
1.877.553.9070 x 1.913.651.4420
sales@heatron.com
ISO 9001:2008 Registered by Underwriters Laboratories
conferences | STRATEGIES IN LIGHT

Ambient CCT 2800K Ambient CCT 4500K Ambient CCT 5800K FIG. 6. Matching the CCT of a camera
flash with the CCT of the ambient light
surrounding a subject enables better
Cool white photo quality.
LED fash

13 Mpixels, and the image size doesnt drive

the need for more or brighter LEDs. He did
say the brighter LEDs would be welcome to
Neutral extend the range of a camera sensor. The
white LED opportunity, however, is in the need for a
fash
second flash on the screen-side of the device
for self-portraits and much better quality
flash on the forward-facing camera.
Indeed, the light quality discussion preva-
High-CRI lent at SIL, and the look of the LED, came to
LED fash bear in the flash discussion. Phone vendors
dont want LEDs with visible signs of phos-
phor because the flash cant impact the cos-
Source: Philips Lumileds metics of the phone. The vendors want better
quality light that will allow their customers
director of strategic marketing at Philips Phones and smartphones now serve to capture better photos. That desire implies
Lumileds, examined the flash market in detail as the primary digital camera for many LEDs that can deliver consistent white color
and explained that there may be even more consumers. Martynov said the megapixel over angle at the very least, and perhaps even
opportunity for growth than most realize. race is over with no need to go beyond tunable-white flashes with excellent CRI and

DIGITAL INDUCTION LIGHTING

THIS CHANGES EVERY THING...

VISIT US @ LIGHTFAIR BOOTH 4045

W W W.TESLEON.COM

MANUFACTURED IN THE U.S. A .

PER BU Y A MERI C AN AC T 41U. S .C .

52 APRIL/MAY 2014 LEDsmagazine.com


maybe even tunable color capabilities.
It turns out the color science that comes to
play in the way humans see colors, which was
discussed in the keynotes, also applies to the
quality of images captured. Poor CRI in a flash
can result in photos without vivid colors (Fig.
6). But Martynov said that really good photos
need even more a flash CCT that matches
the ambient light in the area of the subject.
At a minimum, phone vendors want a neu-
tral white that delivers the best compromise
for a variety of lighting conditions. Profes-
sional photographers, however, place filters,
including colored filters, on their flashes to
match conditions. In the iPhone 5s Apple
innovated a way to simulate that capability
with a feature called TrueTone. The camera
senses the ambient light and chooses from
a 1000-scene palette to customize the flash
profile. Martynov did not know, or did not
reveal, how Apple implemented the feature
but with- and without-TrueTone photos on
Apples website demonstrate the advantage.
Clearly, Martynov believes that there will
LEDsmagazine.com
be multiple LEDs in a phone flash going
forward. It could be a mix of whites or
perhaps a color array. The phone vendors have
repeatedly shown that they will spend money
on features that add value for the consumer.
Poultry production
Finishing where we started, we will now return
to the subject of happy chicks. Brian Wilcox,
president of Once Innovations, has his startup
chasing unlikely customers in applications
including both poultry and swine production,
among other farming applications. Wilcox sur-
vived the Dragons Lair at SIL and made a pre-
sentation in the market track.
The science that Wilcox presented was
really amazing. Chickens have a far more com-
plex visual system than humans with multi-
ple receptors. The result is a broader range of
sensitivity and the ability of tunable lighting to
spur positive changes in production.
Red light, for example, can increase the
growth rate of chickens and turkeys at the
beginning of the rearing period. Moreover,
conferences | STRATEGIES IN LIGHT
it can reduce food consumption per egg laid
while improving egg size. Green and blue light
can lead to weight increase for broilers and
higher prices at market. We hope to bring you
more details on the science in a future article.
Of course, the advantage of LEDs with
narrow spectrum comes along with energy
reduction. LED lighting can deliver 97%
energy savings relative to the high-pressure
sodium lights used in many poultry oper-
ations. Wilcox said that one major com-
plex realized a $650,055 benefit based on
increased production and energy savings.
SIL 2014 began to reveal once again what
can happen when the semiconductor indus-
try applies its expertise in mass production of
a tiny device such as an LED and, in doing so,
enables a target application. Suddenly other
industries find yet more uses for the low-cost
enabling component. LEDs deployed in gen-
eral lighting remain incredibly exciting and
the primary driver of LED development. But
leaving SIL the feeling that exciting applica-
tions are yet to come was unmistakable.
APRIL/MAY 2014 53
controls | SMART LIGHTING

Smart solid-state lighting depends

on advanced controls
The energy savings, long lifetimes, performance, and aesthetics of LEDs can be optimized by
combination with advanced intelligent lighting control technologies in both residential and
commercial lighting applications, says PEKKA HAKKARAINEN.

I
n the last few years, LED light sources
have gone from being an interesting nov-
elty to a new light source option that can
be used for energy savings, long life, and
high performance in almost any applica-
tion. A 15W LED lamp can replace a 75W
incandescent lamp, deliver a useful life-
time averaging 25,000 hours, be dimmable,
require no warmup time, and offer superb
color rendering.
These advantages alone capture our
attention and ensure a strong future
for LEDs. Paired with smart lighting
control technologies that enhance
both the energy savings and aes-
thetic benefits of LEDs, as well as
incentives and rebates that often
help to offset the initial installation
costs, LEDs represent an econom-
ically attractive alternative to both
commercial and residential end users.
LED revolution and regulations
For most consumers, the phase-out of the
traditional incandescent lamp provides
the most significant impetus for invest-
ing in LEDs (Fig. 1). The Bush-era Energy
Independence and Security Act (EISA 2007;
http://1.usa.gov/1kN9FDJ) dictated a multi-
year phase-out of the most commonly used
and inefficient light sources. As of January
1, 2014, traditional 60W and 40W incandes-
cent bulbs can no longer be manufactured or
imported into the United States. This follows
the 100W and 75W bulbs, which were elimi-
nated on January 1 of 2012 and 2013, respec-
tively, as shown in the table.
Halogen bulbs have not been affected
DR. PEKKA HAKKARAINEN is vice president at Lutron Electronics, working in government and
industry relations, including codes and standards activities.
by the incandescent phase-out, offer sim-
ilar light output to incandescent reflector
bulbs, and work with standard dimmers, but
they do not provide the energy efficiency or
long life offered by equivalent LED replace-
FIG. 1. The phase-out of traditional
incandescent lamps provides the most
significant motivating factor for investing
in LED lighting.
ments. Fig. 2 shows a sampling of various
bulb options offered in the market.
Screw-in LEDs, with their falling prices
and rapid product changes, hold the most
promise for changing the way consumers
experience lighting and delivering significant
lighting energy savings. Beyond homeowners,
high-end retail outlets, restaurants, and the
hospitality industry are the customers most
likely to rely on the familiar light quality and
full-range dimming control options offered
by incandescent sources. Ultimately, LEDs
are the most efficient alternative to incandes-
cent bulbs, and the most likely replacement.
However, compatibility between LED lamps,
drivers, and controls can be confusing, and
when controls and lamps are not properly
paired, performance will suffer.
In an effort to minimize consumer con-
fusion, and to make it easier for manu-
facturers to design lamps and dimming
controls that ensure basic compatibil-
ity, the National Electrical Manufac-
turers Association (NEMA) has pub-
lished NEMA SSL 7A-2013 Phase cut
dimming for solid state lighting: Basic
compatibility (http://bit.ly/1gDzAsg).
NEMA SSL 7A-2013 proposes a stan-
dard for the recommended interface
between the source and the dimming con-
trol, including the electric current require-
ment of the power supply internal to mod-
ern digital dimmers. According to NEMA,
All dimmers and LED Light Engines (LLEs)
tested against the criteria set forth in SSL 7A
will be compatible with one another with-
out the need for specific testing of every lamp
and dimmer pairing. This is a developing
standard, promising the assurance of com-
patibility moving forward, but it is not yet
broadly adopted in many existing products.
Todays consumers should remain vigilant
in checking compatibility information on the
product packaging when selecting a lamp
and control combination. This information
can help ensure that the lamp can deliver the
expected dimming range, and that the con-
trol will get the best possible performance
out of the lamp. Look for a manufacturer

LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 55

controls | SMART LIGHTING
that offers compatibility testing between
sources and controls, or is committed to
providing resources that help clarify the
selection process. One such resource is the
online LED Control Center of Excellence
offered by Lutron Electronics.
Connected light sources
Connected light sources are also starting to
enter the market. These are devices that have
an integral radio transceiver so they can con-
nect to other lighting devices wirelessly, much
like your PC can connect to a printer at home
without the need for a USB cable, using either
a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection.
In the lighting industry, there are two types
of communications protocols being used:
open industry protocols and proprietary pro-
tocols that are typically specific to a manu-
facturer. Open protocols, such as ZigBee,
Z-Wave, or EnOcean, offer the advantage that
they are available for any interested company
to use, provided that company pays the mem-
bership fee to the relevant alliance or associ-
ation. The membership fee ensures access to
the documentation necessary to implement
the open protocol in products.
Proprietary protocols, such as Lutrons
ClearConnect, offer the advantage that prod-
ucts using the protocol are typically tested
as a system in multiple configurations and
are thus less likely to have communication
problems. ClearConnect operates in a quiet
frequency band with a long and stable his-
tory with respect to regulatory changes that
FIG. 2. Of the various options for
replacing incandescent bulbs,
including halogen reflectors and
compact fluorescents, LEDs are
the most efficient alternative.
56 APRIL/MAY 2014
NEMA SSL 7A-2013 proposes a standard
for the recommended interface between the
source and the dimming control.
have affected other frequency bands. In this
band continuous transmissions, such as
streaming video, are not permitted. Inter-
ference by other systems is less likely than in
heavily trafficked frequency bands, ensuring
reliable system performance.
The multiple protocols being used by
the industry are not necessarily problem-
atic, but they put the onus on consumers
to make sure that the products they select
are designed to work together. The lighting
industry recognizes that this is not ideal
for the end user and has formed The Con-
nected Lighting Alliance currently made
up of more than 20 industry partners to
address the issue of compatibility between
different manufacturers products.
Starting first with standards for residen-
tial (consumer) products, in 2013 The Con-
nected Lighting Alliance endorsed ZigBee
Light Link as the preferred open proto-
col for residential applications (http://bit.
ly/1g5WpJS). The first lamps and controls
that use ZigBee Light Link are starting to
become available.
The Alliance is currently working on
requirements for commercial installations,
a challenge that is proving to be much more
complex and where it is likely that no open
(non-proprietary) protocol meets all the
requirements. For example, other build-
ing systems in commercial buildings use a
variety of protocols, so that any lighting sys-
tem in a commercial building needs to be
multi-lingual. Any widely adopted stan-
dard must not only handle the much larger
building and greater number of communica-
tion devices compared with a residence, but
it also has to seamlessly connect and inter-
face with the other building systems (HVAC,
access, security, etc.).
In the short term, at least, the ZigBee
standard is a logical choice for the compar-
atively simple demands of the consumer
market. But for lighting systems used in
commercial buildings and more complex
residential applications that require inte-
gration with security systems and audio/
video systems, it is equally likely that mul-
tiple lighting control protocols are here to
stay. In fact, some lamp and fixture manu-
facturers are choosing to integrate propri-
etary control protocols into their products
rather than use open communications pro-
tocols. These manufacturers have the great-
est confidence in the expected performance
of their products with the available propri-
etary technologies.
LEDsmagazine.com
 controls | SMART LIGHTING

Code compliance and light quality

Even as light sources use less energy to produce
recommended light output, codes still require
automated control strategies that further
reduce energy use. Low-power sources such
as LEDs still use proportionally less energy as
they are dimmed in response to daylight, or
turned off/lowered in response to occupancy.
Standards developed by the American Soci-
ety of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Condi-
tioning Engineers (ASHRAE) or their equiva-
lents are now mandatory according to the US
Department of Energy (DOE). The other allow-
able building standards, such as the Interna-
tional Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and
Part 6 of Title 24 of the California Code of Reg-
ulations, include similar requirements. Thus
far, only five states have adopted ASHRAE
Standard 90.1-2010 (or its equivalent; see
http://1.usa.gov/1l8foXo), but the standards
clearly indicate the trend toward stricter
energy codes that include lighting controls.
FIG. 3. Controllable LED lighting provides a comfortable and productive environment when The emergence of high-performance
integrated with consideration of the usage of the space and the needs of its occupants. (green) building standards, with the

See how low VeraDIM can really go...

LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 57

 controls | SMART LIGHTING

ultimate goal of (near) zero net energy
buildings, further supports the trend toward
more stringent building energy regulations.
Compared to minimum codes, these green
standards require higher energy savings and
higher levels of human comfort that can only
be achieved through an integrated approach
to the buildings lighting and envelope design.
Dynamic control of the building faade to
address solar heat gain as well as human
comfort, together with dynamic control of the
electric lighting in concert with the faade
control, is the recipe for the future.
Satisfying the needs of the lit space
Its important to look ahead without forgetting
that light serves the people in the space. Not
only do smart lighting control systems help to
meet and exceed building codes, controllable
lighting contributes to one of the most impor-
tant aspects of commercial buildings: satis-
fied, productive building occupants (Fig. 3).
The research team of Vietch, Stokkermans,
and Newsham has confirmed a significant cor-
Multi-year phase-out of most commonly used and ineffcient light sources
Todays incandescent bulbs New maximum wattage
100W 72W
75W 53W
60W 43W
40W 29W
Source: www.energystar.gov
relation between positive lighting appraisal by
employees in a space, and overall workplace
satisfaction and engagement. In their study,
Environment and Behavior (http://bit.ly/
OFzc6s) occupants were asked to assess light-
ing conditions in an experimental office space.
When occupants positively appraised the light-
ing system, they also reported the space to be
more attractive, and described themselves as
being in a better mood and more satisfied with
their work environment.
The study further concludes, We have
reported a connection between lighting-
induced positive affect and work engage-
ment, suggesting that providing lighting
Light bulb law goes into effect
January 1, 2012
January 1, 2013
January 1, 2014
January 1, 2014
conditions that are appraised as being good
will promote desirable work behaviors.
LED lighting and control technologies are
expanding and improving rapidly, but even as
light sources approach maximum efficiency,
lighting control will continue to be called on
to support the findings of the Vietch study,
and what LightingEurope calls human-cen-
tric lighting which promotes a persons well-
being, mood, and health (http://bit.ly/1ik5Tkg)
The leaders in the lighting control industry con-
tinue to engage in proactive efforts to develop
forward-thinking technologies that contribute
to enhanced energy savings, and promote a pro-
ductive, healthy lighting environment.

Illuminating Diffuser

Vivid Results Optics

in Silicone. Reector
LED Chip

PCB
Shin-Etsu Silicones propels vital silicone material Highly Reective Dam Materials:
solutions to provide innovative advantages that KER-2000-DAM
drive advanced LED display and lighting module KER-2010-DAM Heat Sink
performance including: Die Attach Adhesives:
Weatherability / Cycle Time Reduction / Environmental KER-3000 / KER-3100 / KER-3200
Durability / High Clarity / High Refractive Index Over Time SMP-2800 Driver
Driver Potting Compounds:
Shin-Etsus wide spectrum of LED application materials KET-132 / KET-132-H
includes:
Base
High Refractive Index (1.38-1.57) Encapsulants: Shin-Etsu Silicones illuminates pioneering solutions
ASP Series / SCR Series / KER-6xxx Series that drive LED productivity, innovation, and the evolving
KER-2xxx Series demands of the industry.

Shin-Etsu Silicones of America, Inc. "#$$% #
#
#

#
# %# #"##   #"##  %%#"# !!
analysis | SSL DESIGN
Four ways to die: Overcoming
common challenges in SSL design
NAT CANNON details common causes of LED failure in solid-state lighting systems, and offers
guidance on avoiding the potential pitfalls and delivering reliable products.
S
imultaneous with the rapid advance-
ment of LED component technol-
ogy over the last several years, a sec-
ond revolution has also been taking place in
solid-state lighting (SSL) luminaire and sys-
tem design. In the early days of SSL design, we
would frequently see obvious engineering mis-
takes and Frankenstein-looking retrofit lamps
and luminaires come into our Durham, Santa
Barbara, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Shanghai
Applications Tech Centers with their cre-
ators looking for engineering design help and
advice. We still see some of those on occasion,
but most of the design errors we have seen in
recent history are of a more subtle nature.
While these mistakes may be less obvious,
they can be just as limiting to the market
potential of the individual designs and det-
rimental to the reputation of the offering com-
pany and the proliferation of SSL as a whole.
Since it was launched in the fall of 2011,
Cree Services has tested more than 500 lumi-
naires and retrofit lamps in our Thermal,
Electrical, Mechanical, Photometric, Optical
(TEMPO) test program. The TEMPO testing
program has provided a unique window to
observe the rapid acceleration of SSL lumi-
naire design capability and creativity in the
industry. That said, there are still a few com-
mon mistakes we see even the most experi-
enced SSL designers make. This article dis-
cusses the top four design mistakes we see
most frequently, and makes some helpful
suggestions to avoid them and bring qual-
ity SSL luminaires to the market.
Electrical overstress
Our first area of focus is the electrical
environment. Electrical overstress (EOS),
NAT CANNON is an applications engineer at
Cree, Inc.
LEDsmagazine.com
exposure of a component to current or volt- rent exceeded the device specifications, the
age beyond its maximum specifications, is result was considered a failure. Fig. 1 shows
the leading cause of LED failures, regard- an example EOS failure of a high-power LED.
less of the manufacturer. LED EOS failures In general, single-chip high-power LEDs
result from excessive localized heat gener- with multiple contact vias are most robust
ated by the high current or voltage transient against EOS events. Low-power plastic pack-
ages are most sus-
ceptible to damage
from EOS events. COB
LEDs with more par-
allel strings of chips
are more robust than
COB LEDs with fewer
parallel strings. Larger
LEDs are more robust
than smaller LEDs. For
all the tested parts, as
the power-to-failure
increases, the time-to-
failure decreases.
Events ranging from
lightning strikes to
driver in-rush current
at power on can sub-
FIG. 1. Electrical overstress conditions can cause LED failure. ject LEDs to a variety of
EOS events. However,
that causes damage to the materials in the failure-inducing EOS events can be avoided
LED. Like all semiconductor devices, LEDs by applying proper protection techniques,
have a limited ability to survive overstress. including metal-oxide varistors (MOV) for
Cree recently conducted a rigorous regime over-voltage protection and positive tem-
of testing of three general categories of LEDs: perature coefficient (PTC) resistors for over-
mid-power single- and multiple-chip LEDs, current protection. The general guideline is to
high-power single-chip LEDs, and high- design a protection circuit capable of prevent-
power chip-on-board (COB) LEDs from mul- ing anything greater than a 0.1-msec spike of
tiple LED manufacturers. The test consisted 23 times the maximum rated current of the
of applying square-wave pulses of power lev- LED from reaching the LED. A more detailed
els up to 1700W, with time durations rang- discussion of this topic can be accessed at
ing from 0.1 to 70 msec (milliseconds), to www.cree.com/xlamp_app_notes.
each LED to simulate real-world EOS con-
ditions. The failure criteria were based on Thermal management
junction leakage current measurements per- Next up, thermal issues can lead to prema-
formed after each pulse. If the leakage cur- ture LED failure. LEDs are designed to
APRIL/MAY 2014 61
analysis | SSL DESIGN

perform over a range of operating tempera- the heat sink to occur. With the voids filled
tures. With all LEDs, the expected lifetime by a TIM, heat flows much more freely from
depends on the operating temperature. One an LED to the heat sink. In any case, careful
of the most critical design parameters for an consideration must be taken to ensure a suf-
LED illumination system is the systems abil- ficient thermal path to ambient is provided.
ity to draw heat away from the LED junction. Fig. 2 shows an example of significant tem-
High operating temperatures at the LED perature variation 22C in a luminaire
junction adversely affect the performance due to inconsistent application of the TIM
of LEDs, resulting in decreased light output to the heat sink.
and lifetime. Properly managing this heat is
the result of attention to thermal manage- Chemical compatibility
ment in the design, assembly, and operation Now lets discuss chemical compatibility. The
of LEDs in lighting applications. Insufficient presence of incompatible volatile organic
thermal management can result in damage compounds (VOCs) in LED-based system FIG. 3. LEDs can discolor as a result of
very similar in appearance to that caused by designs can impair the performance and exposure to incompatible chemicals.
chemical incompatibility a topic we will reduce the lifetime of these illumination sys-
address shortly; however, unlike chemical tems. Glues, conformal coatings, O-rings, gas-
incompatibility damage, thermal damage kets, and potting compounds are materials
is irreversible. frequently used in the construction of LED-
LEDs are commonly soldered to an based luminaires or lamps, and often contain
FR-4 or metal-core printed-circuit board VOCs. The presence of chemically incompat-
(MCPCB) that is attached to a heat sink. ible VOCs on or near LEDs can degrade the
FR-4 boards are less expensive than MC- light output levels or cause changes in the
PCBs but have higher thermal resistance. chromaticity point of the light. The photo-
COB LEDs are commonly attached to a heat graph in Fig. 3 is an example of this VOC deg-
sink using a connector that attaches to the radation on the surface of an LED.
heat sink with screws. A good thermal con- This sensitivity to VOCs is not unique to
nection between the COB LED and the heat one LED manufacturer but is a known prob- FIG. 4. Moisture ingress prior to reflow
lem for all types of soldering can result in damage to the
blue, royal blue, and LED during the reflow process.
white-lig ht LEDs.
We typically do not LED handling and manufacturing
see these issues with LED handling during the SSL system man-
green, amber, or red ufacturing process is the fourth most com-
LEDs due to the lon- mon area we see that can lead to product
ger, lower energy level failure. Handling problems in general span
of these wavelengths. a broad set of potential failure modes and
Chemical incom- here we will focus on some specific sub-cate-
patibility in SSL sys- gories. We will discuss four of the most com-
tems is often a local- mon: moisture ingress, PCB flexure, solder-
ized phenomenon, ing and solder coverage, and component
occurring in lumi- pick-and-place.
naire designs that seal Moisture ingress. Many LEDs, particu-
portions of the sys- larly those constructed from plastic, are sus-
tem, resulting in an ceptible to damage from moisture ingress.
FIG. 2. Inconsistent application of thermal interface material LED operating envi- Most LEDs are shipped in sealed moisture-
can lead to a large temperature gradient. ronment having ele- barrier bags (MBBs) and are designed for
vated temperatures long shelf life if the MBB remains unopened.
sink is critical for successful designs. A ther- with little or no air movement. However, If moisture-sensitive LEDs are exposed to
mal interface material (TIM) is required for with proper design and adequate testing, high-humidity environments after open-
optimal performance. Air is a thermal insu- chemical incompatibility effects are pre- ing the MBB packaging but before soldering
lator, so a TIM is needed to fill any voids ventable. (For more information on chemical as shown in Fig. 4, damage to the LED may
between the COB LED and the heat sink. compatibility and a table of known good occur during the soldering operation.
Without a TIM, there are a limited number and bad chemicals, see www.cree.com/ LEDs that are exposed to moist envi-
of spots for heat transfer from the LED to xlamp_app_notes/chemical_compatibility.) ronments in excess of the manufacturers

62 APRIL/MAY 2014 LEDsmagazine.com

 analysis | SSL DESIGN

maximum exposure limits will require pre-
conditioning, often baking for a period of
time, prior to soldering. Baking of LEDs for
the recommended temperature and time
will remove any moisture and reset the expo-
sure time as defined by the manufacturer.
LEDs that have not been soldered but
that are unsealed or removed from the orig-
inal packaging should be properly stored
to prevent excess moisture ingress. Below
are some common storage practices used
within the industry:
Store opened LEDs in a rigid, airtight con-
tainer with fresh desiccant and a relative
humidity (RH) indicator.
Store parts in a dry, nitrogen-purged cab-
inet or container that actively maintains
the RH below the exposure limit.
For short-term storage, LEDs may be
resealed in the original MBB soon after
opening. Fresh desiccant and a humidity
exposure indicator should be placed in the
MBB to monitor exposure levels.
PCB flexure. PCB bending and/or flex-
cesses. PCB bending and/or
f lexing is the fundamental
source of tensile stress induced
on the electronic components
on the board assembly. For
more brittle components, like
ceramic-based LED compo-
nents, micro-cracks can be
induced and eventually lead to
failure (Fig. 5).
Following are situations in
which a PCB can bend or flex,
resulting in cracks in an LED
chip attached to it:
Screw tightening/torqueing.
Uneven/convex PCB surface.
Ref low soldering the LED
board.
FIG. 5. An LED chip can crack (blue line) due to
PCB punching/separation.
bending or flexing of the printed circuit board. Cracks in the LED chip
and substrate resulting from
ing is an unavoidable phenomenon that is PCB flexure have been identified to cause
known to exist and is easily encountered unstable, partial, or no-emission LED
during the electronic board assembly pro- failures in ceramic substrate-based LEDS.

High Performance Thermal Management Solutions from

Adhesives
& Specialty
Chemicals for
LED Lighting
Assembly
1-800-888-0698
ellsworth.com
Distributors of Contact us
products from today to
speak with
our Lighting
Specialist!
and more!

LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 63

analysis | SSL DESIGN

This damage can be minimized or avoided

by practicing the following:
Do not overtighten the screws when
attaching an LED board to a heat sink.
Automated torqueing and the tighten-
ing of screws with a set torque force are
recommended.
Do not use an excessive amount of ther-
mal grease or a thick thermal tape/pad.
Do not use partial application of ther-
mal grease or tape under the LED compo-
nent only. An even spread and controlled
volume are critical to minimize possible FIG. 6. An x-ray image of an LED chip exhibits poor solder attach with excessive
board bending/flexing during the fasten- voiding.
ing process.
Do not mount an LED board on a warped, lies in the manufacturing process, not in place requirements of LEDs often expe-
convex, or uneven surface. thermal design. rience low pick-and-place yields or cause
Do not use an excessive amount of solder Most lighting-class LEDs are designed physical damage to the LEDs, as shown in
to attach an LED to a PCB. to be reflow soldered to a PCB. Reflow sol- Fig. 7. The inclusion of LEDs in the
When handling or separating LED dering may be done by a reflow oven or by pick-and-place process introduces many
boards after assembly, always ensure that placing the PCB on a hotplate and following variables that can affect the performance
the boards are properly supported to min- the manufacturers reflow soldering profile. of the pick-and-place system; most auto-
imize board bending and flexing. The choice of solder and the application mated pick-and-place tools were designed
Soldering and solder coverage. To method will dictate the specific amount of to work at high speeds with flat-top semi-
properly manage heat, specific practices solder. For the most consistent results, an conductor components, not domed-
should be followed in the design, assembly,automated dispensing system or a solder top LEDs. LEDs require specific process
and operation of LEDs in lighting applica- stencil printer is recommended. parameters for the pick-and-place equip-
tions. Insufficient solder attach between When establishing a soldering process, ment to optimize the systems perfor-
the LED and PCB and poor thermal trans- adjusting an existing process or qualify- mance. The pick-and-place issues faced
fer between the PCB and heat sink are com- ing a new product, it is recommended that with LEDs are primarily due to the phys-
mon causes of LED failure. In Fig. 6 we seethe consistency and quality of the solder ical differences in traditional surface-
an LED mounted on a PCB with severe sol- bond be verified on several trial PCBs prior mount devices (SMDs) such as integrated
der voiding. While this failure presents to running good product. The easiest and circuits (ICs) and SMD LEDs.
itself as a thermal problem (high solder quickest method to verify the solder bond Advances have been made in recent years
point temperature), the actual root cause is with an x-ray inspection. If x-ray analysis to overcome these common pick-and-place
is not available, shearing issues encountered with LEDs. Most issues
and inspecting the LEDs can be addressed by making simple tool-
is also an acceptable ing adjustments, selecting the proper noz-
method. Adjustments zle for the LEDs being used or by using a
should be made if un- feeder unit optimized for picking and plac-
reflowed solder or exces- ing LEDs. For more information on pick-
sive voiding is observed and-place operation, see www.cree.com/
during inspection. xlamp_app_notes.
Component pick- While great strides have been made over
and-place. Pick-and- recent years in SSL luminaire design, we
place is an automated still see more subtle issues with a number
operation in which a of fixtures from our TEMPO testing. Elec-
robotic arm retrieves a trical overstress, thermal design, chemical
component such as an compatibility, and handling and manufac-
LED from a dispensing turing issues are now the most common
mechanism and places sources of poor performance in LED sys-
the component precisely tems. You can avoid problems related to
on a PCB. Manufactur- these issues by carefully following the
FIG. 7. The automated pick-and-place operation used in ers not familiar with design guidance provided by LED manu-
PCB assembly can damage an LED. the specific pick-and- facturers such as Cree.

64 APRIL/MAY 2014 LEDsmagazine.com

 Visit
Future Lighting Solutions at:
LightFair International 2014
June 3 - 5, 2014
Booth #7008
Las Vegas Convention Center

Philips Fortimo
LED Line Gen 2
Systems
Features and Benets
*+ ,-
+-
+
- ++ +++
*+ 
+ 
+
+

*+ +
-
+ -+  +
++
+
+ 

-+

-
*+ -+  +
-+!"+ -+#$++ -
*+ + #
-+ -- 

*+ ,
+
+--
*+ %
+
++"+&
+-+'"+(

+)
-
+&



*+ "+
+

+

-

Ordering Information

   
1.888.589.3662
Americas@FutureLightingSolutions.com

   

standards | LUMEN MAINTENANCE

IES updates LED Lumen

Maintenance documents
JIANZHONG JIAO explains that the IES is publishing addendums to both the LM-80 standard for testing
LEDs and documenting lumen maintenance, and to the TM-21 standard for projecting LED and SSL
system life, improving and harmonizing the documents.

F
or continuous improvement in tech- current LM-80 document specifies the test in TM-21 requires the test data collected
nology to be possible, its critical that duration and requires a minimum of three from two case temperatures, versus the orig-
corresponding testing standards are case temperatures be tested. inal idea of three sets of data. In all practical
established and continue to be reviewed cases, when an LED is used in an application
and improved. The solid-state lighting (SSL) Harmonizing LM-80 and TM-21 (in-situ) in which its case temperature is dif-
industry is no exception. In 2008, IES pub- Right after LM-80 was published, a group of ferent from the LM-80 test temperatures, the
lished LM-80 for recommending how to test experts in the IES committee continued to TM-21 instruction is to collect two case tem-
LED lumen maintenance. Three years later develop TM-21. During several years of hard peratures for LM-80 data one above the
TM-21 was published as a recommendation work in the TM-21 working group, experts in-situ temperature and another below the
for projecting long-term lumen maintenance developed many mathematical formulas in-situ temperature to make the interpo-
of LEDs using the test data collected per based on the physics of LEDs structures and lation. The third case temperature required
LM-80. Based on the continuous improve- materials, as well as an empirical data model by LM-80 does not have any relevance for
ment principle, IES is in the process of pub- to exemplify the LEDs lumen decay behavior. such interpolation purposes.
lishing an addendum to LM-80 and TM-21. Meanwhile, experts in the TM-21 work-
LM-80 and TM-21 have been widely used ing group conducted numerous statistical LM-80 changes
by manufacturers, testing laboratories, gov- analyses using more than 40 sets of LM-80 Because LM-80 has been used for laboratory
ernment specifications, and in other ways. data collected by LED manufacturers and accreditation, the procedures listed in LM-80
On a large scale, the overall LED lumen contributed to the TM-21 work- must be followed so that an accred-
maintenance information provided and ing group. In order to achieve ited LM-80 report is produced,
used in the industry has been more consis- the goal (desired by industry and which is required by the certifica-
tent since these two documents were pub- governments) to have one univer- tion bodies (CBs). And in turn the
lished, which demonstrates their benefits. sal model for making long-term CBs acceptance of an LM-80 report
At the time LM-80 was developed, experts in lumen maintenance projections, is the measure to meet market-
the IES committee believed that the test dura- pros and cons of each mathemat- transformation specifications such
tion should be long enough so that sufficient ical model were thoroughly stud- as Energy Star. For the purpose of
data could be collected to use mathematical ied in the working group. In the compliance with LM-80, unneces-
models to make a reliable projection. Further- end, engineering judgment was sarily testing three case tempera-
more, experts also believed that multiple LED used to derive the final approach presented tures does not add value to TM-21; rather, it
case temperatures should be tested in order to in TM-21. puts an additional burden on the industry.
make interpolations of the test data, as well as The method for interpolation of the in- The LM-80 test is lengthy and often costly. If
to make comparisons. For these reasons, the situ temperature projection recommended the IES document that sets the basis of all
these consequences can be improved, it cer-
tainly is the right thing to do for the standard
DR. JIANZHONG JIAO, Director of Regulations and Emerging Technologies at OSRAM Opto
development bodies.
Semiconductors, Inc., is an internationally recognized lighting expert. He has been actively
Improvement is the essential message
involved in LED and SSL standard development activities. He serves as the past Chairman of the
for the LM-80 Addendum. This addendum
SAE Lighting Committee, past Chairman of NGLIA, past Chairman of the NEMA SSL Technical
provides new requirements in Section
Committee, active member of IESNA Testing Procedure Committee, Roadway Lighting Committee,
4.4.2 as such: At least one of the selected
and Computer Committee, ANSI SSL Working Groups, Standard Technical Panel of UL8750,
case temperatures shall be 55C or 85C.
standard committees in IEEE, CIE USA, SEMI, JEDEC and other organizations. He can be reached
These case temperatures are commonly
at jianzhong.jiao@osram-os.com

LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 67

 standards | LUMEN MAINTENANCE
used for industry testing to support direct
product comparisons of testing results. The
requirement for a minimum of three case
temperatures in the current version of LM-80
has been removed.
In the past few years, vast numbers of
LM-80 tests have been performed at case
temperatures of 55C and 85C. LM-80 data
alone is not very meaningful for one-to-one
comparisons, as the test duration is too short
in term of LEDs lumen decay behavior. The
comparison usually takes place in the TM-21
projected results. However, if for any reason
users want to select a case temperature to
review more than one set of LM-80 data, the
LM-80 Addendum will still meet this need.
TM-21 Addendum
As for the TM-21 Addendum, in the past
two years of practice using TM-21, users
raised several questions that need clarifica-
tion. One question is regarding
the LM-80 data collecting time
interval tolerance. The current
version of TM-21 states the data
used for projection are collected
in 500- or 1000-hour time inter-
vals without specifying the time
tolerance. In reality, the data
collection often is not in the pre-
cise hour, and for the projec-
tion purposes, small variations
of the time interval do not sta-
tistically affect the results. The
TM-21 Addendum gives a toler-
ance of plus or minus 48 hours
for collecting LM-80 data. Any
data collected within this two-
day window should be accepted
as the 500- or 1000 hour mark.
This clarification will help lab accreditation
as well as the overall practice of testing.
The second issue that was expressed regard-
ing TM-21 is the data interpolation. When two
sets of LM-80 data are collected with a higher
and lower case temperature, one set of data
may have a longer testing duration than the
other. It was not clear for the users how the
interpolation should be made for these two
sets of data with uneven test durations.
Per TM-21, test duration directly relates
to the total projection period. For example,
if a six-time multiplier is used, the projection
is 60,000 hours for the 10,000 hour test data,
but 36,000 hours for the 6000 hour test data.
68 APRIL/MAY 2014
The TM-21 Addendum explains to users that
in the situation with uneven length test dura-
tions, the projection can only be based on the
test data set with the shorter duration. This
is to ensure the acceptable confidence level in
the projection result per statistics.
TM-21 extrapolations
The next clarification in the TM-21
Addendum is for the data extrapolation
outside of the tested temperature range.
The current TM-21 does not recommend
the extrapolation for a temperature higher
than the LM-80 tested case temperature, nor
from the lower temperature. The engineer-
ing judgment for this requirement is that the
LED always decays faster for higher junc-
tion or case temperatures. If that is the case
regarding the physics, if the in-situ temper-
ature is lower than the test temperature, the
LED lumen decay should not be worse than
the tested temperature.
The TM-21 Addendum has therefore
added clarification that the extrapolation
cant be performed for the in-situ temper-
ature higher than the LM-80 tested tem-
perature. However, if the in-situ tempera-
ture is lower than the tested temperature,
the tested temperate can still represent the
long-term lumen maintenance projection for
the lower in-situ temperature.
The fourth issue is related to the TM-21
report. The current version of the TM-21
report includes two values: calculated lumen
maintenance life (e.g., L70) and reported
lumen maintenance life. The question is
LEDsmagazine.com
 standards | LUMEN MAINTENANCE

why there are two values, and what was the
intent for reporting these two values?
TM-21 users have not had a common or cor-
rect understanding. Sometimes users employ
the calculated values to make a comparison
and to assume that LEDs with longer calcu-
lated values may have longer lumen mainte-
nance life. In turn, the users may employ such
judgment to select LEDs. Even though several
LEDs were having the same reported L70, the
users believed the calculated values mattered.
That is a completely incorrect assumption.
At the time TM-21 was developed, the
working group established a tool to take the
mathematical model and LM-80 test data
into calculations, and to derive the calculated
results for projection. In order to help users
calibrate the tool, two examples of calcula-
tions were listed in Annex E using real sets
of LM-80 test data. The calculated projection
values for lumen maintenance life (e.g., L70)
were listed in the examples and the reports,
so users could compare if the tool they were
programming would get the same or identical
results as the examples in Annex E to ensure
the tool was working correctly. The tool that
the working group developed and used hap-
pened to be developed in MS Excel. According
to the IES non-commercialism policy, an IES
document cant embed a commercial product
that may be interpreted as a promotion for
MS Excel. That was the sole purpose of listing
a calculated value for L70 without putting MS
Excel sheets in the current TM-21.
Removing calculated projections
Shortly after TM-21 was published, Energy
Star released an MS Excel-based calculator.
The tool for calculating lumen maintenance
projection became publicly available. The
Energy Star calculator has been verified by
the NIST experts and other individuals and
showed no errors in calculations. Therefore,
the calculated value for the lumen mainte-
nance projection has been verified and no
longer needs to be listed.
The basic need to set multipliers in the
lumen maintenance projection is the degree
of confidence for the statistical uncertainty.
Because the confidence level is associated
with the length of test duration, and longer
durations represent a higher confidence level,
TM-21 specifically requires a notation to tell
users how many hours of test data are used in
the calculation. Beyond the time length cal-
culated by multipliers, the projection result
will exceed the confidence level allowed by
TM-21; thus, any lumen maintenance values
are no longer practically meaningful. Having
the calculated value listed in the report and
interpreted by someone to use as the compar-
ison has misled users and consumers. In the
TM-21 Addendum, the calculated lumen main-
tenance values are removed from all places.
In most cases, LED and SSL related IES
documents, LMs, and TMs are the basis of
continuous improvement following the ANSI
accreditation process. The improvement can
be demonstrated via addendums, and in the
next revision of the IES document, the adden-
dums will be fully integrated into the new ver-
sion of the LM or TM document.

CELEBRATING
70 YEARS
OF IDEAS.
This year we celebrate 70 years of ideas
and we have decided to celebrate it
with a new big idea:
the birth of Gruppo Stucchi.

A.A.G. Stucchi and PFA together

in a professional team rich in passion
and international expertise.

www.aagstucchi.com

LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 69

 THE NEW
LANGUAGE OF LIGHT
LAS VEGAS, NV USA
Las Vegas Convention Center

TRADE SHOW & CONFERENCE

6.1.14 6.5.14

LIGHTFAIR.COM

PHOTO CREDITS
TOKYO SKYTREE, TOKYO, JAPAN |
LIGHTING DESIGN BY SIRIUS LIGHTING
OFFICE INC. & NIKKEN SEKKEI LTD |
PHOTOGRAPHY, TOSHIO KANEKO
specification | DRIVERS
Simplifying the sophisticated:
LED driver selection made easy
SCOTT BARNEY takes developers through the decision-making tree for SSL system driver
selection, pointing out potential issues and highlighting the cost and benefits of common
specification options.
I
n todays fast-paced and rapidly-changing
LED arena, the complex and subtle choices
involved in choosing an LED or LED array
can be difficult enough. Add to this the con-
fusion of selecting an LED driver in a solid-
state lighting (SSL) industry marked by
obscure terminology where even the experts
still debate definitions and standards, and the
task can be overwhelming. As part of the LED
driver selection process, it behooves a light-
ing product developer, or even a professional
lighting designer/specifier, to understand
concepts such as the choice of current- and
voltage-based drive, the process of matching
drivers to LED circuit topologies, dimming
and flicker considerations, when and why
to opt for multiple outputs, and other issues.
This article will serve as a guide to help you
navigate and simplify the sophisticated pro-
cess of LED driver selection, understand and
apply the appropriate features to the appli-
cation at hand, and ask the right questions of
your LED driver suppliers.
Constant voltage or current?
The first question developers face is almost
always the choice of constant-current or
-voltage supply. There are two fundamental
types of LED arrays those which run off a
constant voltage (CV) and those which run
off a constant current (CC) and theyre
materially different inside. A constant volt-
age array will contain devices to limit the
current from going too high when the LEDs
get hot, such as resistors or constant cur-
rent resistors (CCRs) or even a switching
DC-DC regulator of some kind. By contrast,
a constant current LED array will have LEDs
SCOTT BARNEY is vice president of sales and
marketing at ERG Lighting.
LEDsmagazine.com
Volts Normal
300
200
On
100
0
Delay
-100
-200
-300
20 30 40 50 60
Time (msec)
FIG. 1. Forward-phase dimming cuts the front edge of each half-cycle of the AC line input.
connected in series and perhaps several of
these strings connected in parallel.
Youll want to choose a constant voltage
array under two circumstances:
1) You have yet to determine your LED array
and the application is one where you dont
know exactly how many LED strings will
be hung on that supply or what the cur-
rent draw will be (i.e., cove lighting).
2) The LED array is of the constant voltage
variety and therefore has a fixed range of
current for that fixed output voltage. In
this instance, youll need to ensure that
the driver you select is the right voltage
and that the allowable output current
range is higher than the gross estimated
current draw of your LED loads.
If you are aware of the current draw needed
to match application light-level requirements,
youd probably choose a constant current
array because its usually the most efficient
arrangement. If your LED array requires a
Dimmed 50%
Off
70 80 90 100 110 120
10 msec/div
constant current, then youll need a CC LED
driver. This type of driver will only have a cer-
tain range of voltages which it can drive; there
will be a minimum voltage and a maximum
voltage permissible. You need to ensure that
your LED array has a voltage requirement that
falls inside this permissible range.
The table reviews AC-to-DC driver topol-
ogies and their pros, cons, and applications.
There is no wrong or right approach to
driver selection. Instead, you need to match
topology to the application requirements.
Now lets address some specific issues.
The importance of dimming
Another early decision will consider the
importance of dimming and that can involve
human visual perception and/or energy con-
servation issues. In order to select the right
features, it helps to understand the charac-
teristics of human perception. The human
eye notices light changes on a scale which
APRIL/MAY 2014 71
specification | DRIVERS

relates to what its already seeing and the
light output of an LED lamp is roughly pro-
portional to the current going through
it. As a result, dimming to 50% is hardly
noticeable to most people and 10% is per-
ceived as just a few degrees dimmer than
that. Therefore, to have a discernable visual
dimming effect, you need to be able to dim
down to 1%. By comparison, movie theaters
require dimming in the range of 0.1%.
The lack of sensitivity doesnt mean that
dimming to above 1% is not useful. In fact,
the situation is quite the contrary. If you dim
an LED light down to 10%, youve just saved
90% of its energy consumption, which is very
significant. Dimming by any degree is worth-
while for energy-saving purposes, but if you
want to have a dimly-lit room or theater, you
must have drivers capable of dimming down
below 1%, and down to 0.1% for full-range
dimming. The bottom line is that while the
benefits of dimming in increments above
the 1% range are often not perceived by the
human eye, the energy benefits generated by
dimming even a few degrees can have a tre-
mendous impact on energy savings.
The flicker controversy
With dimming come flicker issues and the
question of how much flicker is too much.
In the lighting community, flicker is defined
as the percentage fluctuation of the light (or
LED current) at twice the line frequency,
expressed as a fraction of the steady light
(or DC current) through the LED.
Twenty years ago, magnetic ballasts
Normal
Volts
300
200
drove fluorescent tubes, which produced an
intense flash near the peak of the power-line
voltage cycle such that the entire light out-
put consisted of a series of light flashes at
twice the frequency of the power line. It was
found that even though most people couldnt
detect this fluctuation, some developed
headaches and other stress symptoms when
exposed to it. In response to the dissatisfac-
tion with magnetic ballast flicker, electronic
ballasts were developed that were capable of
less than 2% flicker, which proved effective
and quickly became the industry standard
for good quality light.
The problem still being discussed is
that flicker considerations arent simple.
Modern LED lights that have flicker are
likely to have a 120-Hz fluctuation that has
a smooth alternating variation at twice the
line power frequency. Even when this flicker
approaches 100%, it results in a significantly
less-noticeable flicker than that of magnetic
ballasts. We recommend that the 120-Hz
ripple in the output of a driver should be less
than 10% for LED task and office lighting,
while for LED decorative lighting (e.g., cove
lights, sconces, outdoor lighting, etc.), as
much as 100% flicker may be acceptable.
Dimming methods and flicker
Dimming methodologies, however, can
impact flicker. In the output of an LED
driver, the percentage of ripple at twice the
line frequency is the parameter that cor-
responds to the flicker in the light output.
Many LED drivers produce dimming by
Dimmed 50%
switching the LED light on and off at a rela-
tively high frequency, a process called pulse-
width modulation (PWM) dimming or digi-
tal dimming. The human eye is completely
oblivious to these high frequencies and sim-
ply perceives less light.
Dimmable LED drivers exist, however,
that simply modulate the light on and off at
twice the line frequency; at low dim levels,
the result can be a lot like the light output
of old magnetic ballasts where the flicker
may be easily perceived. In addition, if used
with a triac dimmer, which doesnt dim pos-
itive and negative half-cycles equally, it may
introduce a line frequency component to the
PWM that will be perceptible to anyone.
Other LED drivers produce a uniform DC
current level, which is then adjusted down-
ward to produce dimming. This method-
ology is sometimes referred to as analog
dimming. For task and office lighting, this
approach is the most trouble-free kind of
dimming to use, though its likely to be more
expensive than digital dimming.
There is also the issue of how dimming
information is conveyed to drivers. In many
cases, drivers must work with legacy wall
dimmers. The diagrams in Figs. 1 and 2 visu-
ally contrast two legacy dimming methods
used in todays LED applications that are
based on controlling the AC line. Forward
phase dimming typically operates on two
wires and avoids the labor associated with
adding a third wire; it is commonly used in
churches, auditoriums, and schools. Reverse
phase dimming is considerably more expen-
sive but minimizes electromagnetic inter-
ference (EMI) issues. The driver selected
must have the ability to work with the dim-
mers deployed in an application, especially
in retrofit scenarios.

LED driver lifetime

100
Off Driver lifetime should also be a major con-
On cern. If the temperature of your LED array is
0
Delay properly controlled, it should produce more
-100 than 70% of its initial light output after
50,000 hours. Obviously, youd like your LED
-200 driver to last equally as long.
The lifetime of an LED driver is deter-
-300 mined by the lifetime of the individual
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 electronic components inside. The weak
Time (msec) 10 msec/div link, in particular, is the electrolytic capaci-
tors, which are like little batteries. The elec-
FIG. 2. Reverse-phase dimming cuts the trailing edge of each half-cycle. trolyte inside is typically a gel that gradually

72 APRIL/MAY 2014 LEDsmagazine.com

 specification | DRIVERS

evaporates over the life of the component. The
evaporation rate depends upon the tempera-
ture inside the driver which, in turn, cor-
relates to the external temperature on the
driver case. Higher operating temperatures
speed evaporation and hence shorten the life
of the capacitor.
On the label of most LED drivers there
Driver lifetime
(years 24 hrs on)
40
30
is a small circle called the hotspot or Tc
point. This is usually the hottest point on
the can and is used to determine the can
temperature. The manufacturer will supply
a temperature that must not be exceeded if
the UL approval of the product is to remain
valid. However, be aware that if you use
the driver close to this limiting tempera-
ture, its operating lifetime will typically be
shorter than if operated at a lower temper-
ature. The driver manufacturer is able to
supply curves that correlate the lifetime of
the driver to its hotspot temperature. Fig. 3
provides an example of the curve for a typi-
cal LED driver.
To ensure that the lifetime of the elec-
trolytic capacitors exceeds the
lifetime of your LED array at
the necessary temperature, you
must ensure that the manufac-
turer has used long-life electro-
lytic capacitors.

20
Measures of power
line quality
There are additional power qual-
10 ity issues that you should con-
sider. Datasheets for LED driv-
0 ers can introduce bewildering
30 40 50 60 70
terms such as THD (total har-
Temperature (C)
monic distortion), power factor
FIG. 3. Driver lifetime varies with temperature. (PF), and universal input voltage.
 TOP 25 FAST
GROWTH SHOW
IN 2013

91%
 

  
The LED Show
  

www.theledshow.com

BOOK YOUR EXHIBIT SPACE NOW for 2014

HURRY - 85% of booth space already reserved!

The LED Show 2013 had record-breaking attendance... CONTACTS:

WHO ATTENDS:  



Tim Carli
OVER 2,600 REGISTERED ATTENDEES 

   
    1    T: +1 650 946 3163
    
   
      

     

 E: tcarli@pennwell.com
  
 
  
     
      

    !

    
1

"
 # 
 $%   & Mary Donnelly
T: +1 603 891 9118
OVER 100 EXHIBITORS 20% BIGGER EXHIBITION THAN 2013!   1   E: maryd@pennwell.com
 
  1 1& 
  '& 
   (   
 
 
!1 $'1 $)


84% * 

 +
 


 "  ,
   " -  Virginia Willis

  + . / 
0 & "  
 &

) /  
) T: +44 1992 656 663
E: virginiaw@pennwell.com

Owned
Owne
w d an nd
Supp
porte
ed by: Events:
Even ts:
Prod
oduced
uced
e bby: 





  
 specification | DRIVERS

TABLE. Overview of driver topologies.

Input
Two-stage AC to DC
Pros Relatively simple circuits: Boost
non-isolated PFC and isolated
DC to DC, high load regulation,
flexible
Cons Inefficient (two stages in series)
~80%, requires three stages
for multiple-output driver
~70%, relatively large, potentially
more expensive
Apps Applications requiring tight
output regulation with very quick
transient response
AC to DC
Single-stage AC to DC
Fully isolated flyback PFC, highly
efficient ~90%, economical,
smaller sizes possible
More complex circuit, poor line
rejection and load regulation
loads should not be susceptible
to ripple/voltage variations
General lighting, very high
efficiency requirements (for
energy savings payback: street
lighting, parking, high bay,
Single output
Constant voltage
Allows for a great deal of
flexibility: Can "drive" several
strings in parallel, stock fewer
part numbers
Requires additional hardware
to provide constant current,
stocking one part number
may be more power than
needed
For lighting integrators
handling a large variety of
lighting configurations with
multiple strings
Constant current
Driver is optimized for the
load highest possible
efficiencies
Driver is specific to LED
string configuration, lack
of flexibility
High-volume applications,
applications requiring the
highest efficiency

refrigeration, etc.), smaller

package requirements, cost-
sensitive applications

Understand these concepts when making a
driver selection.
THD. The distortion of the sinusoidal
waveform can lead to potentially danger-
ous consequences, such as the overheating
of electrical equipment and even fires in
transformers and switching stations. Con-
sidering the growth in electrical devices
with non-linear loads, THD is becoming
more and more important. Today, THD
below 20% is usually acceptable and a THD
of less than 10% is exceptionally good.
PF. This is of major concern to utilities
as it represents a difference between the
power actually delivered to a facility and
the power detected by a meter that deter-
mines the bill to a facility. Low power factor
is costly to a utility. A conventional stan-
dard for PF is 0.9 or above; anything lower
may result in a penalty assessed by the util-
ity in the form of a multiplier on your elec-
tric bill. If PF isnt mentioned in a driver
specification, the default is referred to as
normal power factor and implies any PF
below 0.9. The actual spec could be as low
as 0.4 in some of the least expensive lighting
products. While PF is generally meaning-
less in a residential setting, careful atten-
tion needs to be paid when installing large
volumes of normal-power-factor products
in industrial or commercial applications.
Universal input voltage. In the US, most
commercial and industrial lighting runs
off 277V, while consumer and retail light-
ing is mostly run off 120V. An LED driver
that can run off either is said to have uni-
versal input voltage capability. Its assumed
that the adaptation is completely automatic
and reversible. Lighting distributors like
to stock universal input voltage products
so they dont have to worry about the volt-
age required.

Production line, research lab TROPICAL RAINFOREST!

The OL 770-LED Test Measurement System is THE solution
where ever your application takes you. From LEDs and IR
sources to twilight irradiance under forest canopy, we ofer
both the tools and expertise to do the job right with the highest
reliability and utmost accuracy. Well be here for you no matter
where you are!

Formerly Optronic Laboratories LLC

Dr. Amanda Melin of Dartmouth College uses the OL 770-
LED to study the visual ecology of nocturnal mammals. 4632 36th Street, Orlando, FL 32811 USA
Here she is in Borneo measuring the intensity and T: 407-422-3171 E: sales@goochandhousego.com
irradiance of twilight in the rainforest understory. W: http://www.goochandhousego.com/products/instrumentation/spectroradiometers/ol-770-led-test-measurement-system/

LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 75

specification | DRIVERS
Multiple output ambiguity
Now lets discuss outputs in particular and
the possible ambiguity when a driver offers
multiple outputs. The terms outputs and
channels are often used interchangeably,
but professionals need to be aware that
theres a difference between multiple out-
puts and multiple independent outputs. The
difference can have a significant impact on
the luminaires reliability.
The easiest way of connecting a single
driver to multiple outputs is to simply bring
multiple wires out of the driver to handle
the current load. Inside the driver, the
wires are all paralleled and provide mul-
tiple paths for current to flow. While very
simple, this creates some significant disad-
vantages. In this type of driver, for exam-
ple, the faults arent contained and theres
poor balance of current through the multi-
ple outputs, resulting in varied brightness
of each output. In addition, if one LED load
shorts, it can bring down all of the other
outputs; if the LED load opens, it will cause
76 APRIL/MAY 2014
the other loads to absorb the additional
current and possibly drive them to thermal
overload and early life failure. Even under
normal operation, without tightly matched
LED loads there will be very poor balance
of current among the outputs.
By contrast, a driver with independent
outputs (a true multi-output driver) will
regulate each channel independently of the
other outputs. This architecture allows each
channel to have its own current regulation
or fault protection and helps answer the
question of what happens on the remaining
outputs when one output (or light engine)
fails? Instead of regulating to a total out-
put current of 1A, for example, each of four
theoretical outputs are regulated to 250 mA,
allowing each output to have its own control
and ensuring that the brightness difference
between each LED load is minimal.
To help illustrate this benefit, our own
ERG Lighting E54W Archilume driver is
an example of a driver that goes one step
beyond and enables paralleling of those
outputs to create different combinations.
With its four outputs of 350 mA each, not
only can outputs be run separately, but its
possible to run two 700-mA outputs by tying
the channels together. The E54W can also
be connected in many other combinations.
Leaving a channel unconnected or having a
channel inadvertently shorted will not cause
a change in performance within the unaf-
fected channels.
Tradeoff considerations
Last, you need to understand common trade-
offs in driver design and how that might
impact the selection process. Cost factors
may require tradeoffs in features or capa-
bilities. Following are five potential com-
promises to consider.
Output ripple. Its straightforward to
make an LED driver that has essentially no
output current ripple by building it with
two power conversion stages; a first stage
generates a stable power supply and a sec-
ond stage then generates the output cur-
rent. A two-stage design has two control
chips and two lots of high-frequency trans-
formers inside and is more expensive. The
cost of a driver can be significantly reduced
by using just one power conversion stage
for both power factor correction (PFC) at
the input and for controlling the output
current. The tradeoff is that now either the
PFC is less perfect or sometimes as much as
a 50% ripple at twice the line frequency is
introduced into the output.
Startup time. A compromise between
cost and efficiency is introduced with
startup time. A short startup time can be
achieved by using high power to charge up
all the capacitors quickly. However, this
same high power will still be there after-
wards and will decrease the efficiency
of the lighting system. Components can
be introduced to turn the excess power
off, but the tradeoff is additional system
cost. Its worth considering whether the
application requires fast startup at all
for example, most HID street lights take
a minute or so to start up, so theres no
need for an LED street light to start in less
than a second because it makes no differ-
ence to the users of the light and only gets
switched on once a day.
Dimming level and efficiency. Though
advances are currently being witnessed in
the area of dimming, in general, to achieve
lower dimming levels the tradeoff will be
lower efficiency.
Cost and efficiency. Generally, an
LED driver can be made more efficient by
using oversize switching transistors and
high-frequency transformers, which adds
expense.
Universal input voltage and cost. A uni-
versal input voltage product contains the
components and capability for both high
input voltage operation and high input cur-
rent operation. You need higher current at
the low voltage. The tradeoff is that youre
paying for both and you can get better value
by purchasing a single-voltage product.
However, fixture OEMs dont often know
what voltage the product will need, so its
usually worthwhile to pay for the more
expensive universal input voltage feature.
Evaluating and selecting an LED driver for
your project doesnt have to be a daunting
task. As outlined in the previous overview,
an understanding of such issues as current
and voltage, LED circuit topologies, dim-
ming and flicker considerations, and mul-
tiple/independent outputs will help you ask
the right questions of your driver supplier
and help identify the important features
essential to optimizing your lighting sys-
tem performance.
LEDsmagazine.com
 21ST 23RD OCTOBER 2014
M.O.C. EVENT CENTER
MUNICH, GERMANY

EXPLORING THE NEW

HORIZONS OF LIGHTING

BOOK YOUR EXHIBIT SPACE TODAY!

www.sileurope.com
Strategies in Light Europe is in its 5th year of providing Europes most comprehensive conference For more information on
and exhibition for the applications and technology of solid-state lighting. The event brings together exhibiting please contact:
designers, technologists, marketers, and fnanciers. It offers a platform for the best networking
opportunities and a forum for the sharing of ideas and experiences in the latest technologies and Worldwide
market developments. Virginia Willis
T: +44 1992 656 663
2013 KEY FACTS E: virginiaw@pennwell.com

Germany
Over Johann Bylek
900 55 65 2 45 3 1 T: +49-89-90480-143
F: +49-89-90480-145
E: johannb@pennwell.com
Registered Countries Exhibitors Conference Presentations Workshops Investor
Attendees Represented Tracks Forum

Visit www.sileurope.com to view the latest foor plan.

Owned and Produced by: Presented by: Supported by: Events:

THE







  
 SANDS EXPO &
CONVENTIONCENTER

LAS VEGAS,
NEVADA USA

FEBRUARY 24 26, 2015

BOOK SPACE NOW FOR THE LED AND

LIGHTING INDUSTRYS PREMIER EVENT
The most trusted name in LED and lighting events for over 15 years, Strategies in Light is the worlds largest exhibition designed to
connect key suppliers and service providers with infuential industry decision makers. Join over 5,000 LED and lighting professionals
for three days of face-to-face networking and beneft from unprecedented access to industrys most anticipated platform for lead
generation and new business development. With a record-breaking 2014 event, space is selling fast!
Book now to secure your prime location in 2015.

95%
said they would
recommend

81%
Strategies in
Light to their
colleagues.

125+ COMPANIES ALREADY 85%

of the attendees
have a role in
EXHIBITING IN 2015 the purchase of
products and of past exhibitors
services. have already booked
Bayer MaterialScience LLC their space
Chroma Systems Solutions, Inc.
Cree, Inc.

83%
CSA Group
Dialog Semiconductor
said the quantity
ERG LIGHTING and quality of
exhibitor traffc met
GAMMA SCIENTIFIC or exceeded their
expectations.

96%
GL Optic
HENKEL CORP
Hitachi Chemical Co. America, Ltd.
said that exhibitor
quality and variety 2014
FACTS &
met or exceeded
INSTRUMENT SYSTEMS GMBH their expectations.

INTEMATIX CORPORATION

FIGURES
LABSPHERE INC
LAIRD
LUXUL Technology, Inc.
90%
said contact for
future business
LYNK LABS opportunities met
OSRAM Opto Semiconductors Inc 95%
indicated that attending
or exceeded their
expectations.
PolyOne Corporation Strategies in Light was
ProMEMS Technologies Corp. important for their job
and for establishing
Seoul Semiconductor contacts in the industry.

STELLARNET INC

50
Styron
UL 97%
said that the
Countries
PLUS LOTS MORE! speakers
Represented
and technical
information met
their expectations.

USA WEST COAST/ WORLDWIDE USA EAST COAST EUROPE

* For more information or questions
Tim Carli Mary Donnelly Virginia Willis
regarding exhibit or sponsorship T: +1 650 946 3163 T: +1 603 891 9118 T: +44 (0) 1992 656 663
packages, please contact: E: tcarli@pennwell.com E: maryd@pennwell.com E: virginiaw@pennwell.com

OWNED AND PRODUCED BY: PRESENTED BY: Strategies Unlimited SUPPORTED BY:

WWW.STRATEGIESINLIGHT.COM
technology | LED ARCHITECTURE

LED advancements drive

quality of light gains
GaN-on-GaN LED technology can deliver better light quality in terms of color rendering and accurate
bright whites while also providing a lumen-per-wafer advantage over conventional LEDs, write
AURELIEN DAVID, FRANK SHUM, and MIKE KRAMES.

G
allium nitride (GaN) LEDs based on
sapphire and silicon-carbide sub-
strates have advanced over the last 20
years but generally still fail to meet the light
quality aspects we associate with natural
lighting (daylight and incandescence).
The shortcoming is partly due the
LED industrys focus on increasing
luminosity at the expense of aspects
such as color and whiteness render-
ing, beam pattern, and total light output. A
different approach would be to develop high-
efficiency LEDs and leverage the performance
to provide the quality aspects of natural light-
ing. Lets discuss ways to characterize light
quality and how it can be delivered by LEDs
built on homogeneous substrates.
The latest GaN-on-GaN LEDs will afford
the headroom from a performance perspec-
tive to allow a focus on better light. The
third-generation devices exhibit peak wall-
plug efficiency of 80% (at 85C), and 65% at
150 A/cm 2, a current density five (or more)
times higher than for LEDs based on foreign
substrates. The practical benefits of this
recent performance leap are twofold. First,
it enables a compelling LED-based solution
in systems running at high temperature
and high current densities, where conven-
tional LED technology has struggled. And
the headroom provided by increased effi-
ciency can be spent on light quality.
Indeed, Quality of Light (QoL) must be
considered as an essential property of light
sources. QoL has many aspects, but perhaps
the best known is color fidelity, measured by
the color rendering index (CRI) Ra and the
special index R9. The latter is important for
AURELIEN DAVID is senior principal scientist, FRANK SHUM is vice president of LED lamp
products, and MIKE KRAMES is CTO at Soraa, Inc.
deep reds but also, crucially, the tones of
human skin. Most LED products aim
moderately for Ra in the range of 80 and
R9 above 0. This target is based on the
often-held belief that such values are suffi-
cient. On the other hand, higher-end options
are also available with values as high as Ra =
95 and R9 = 95. Such higher color rendering
requires photons at the ends of the spectrum
(violet and deep red) and therefore comes at
cost of efficiency. The superior efficiency of
GaN-on-GaN technology will be crucial in
supporting high CRI, as the efficiency head-
room more than makes up for the penalties
inherent at the high QoL levels.
Optical brightening agents
An equally important and often disregarded
measure of light quality is whiteness ren-
dering. While rendering of the color white
may seem trivial, this is not the case due to
the decades-old and near-ubiquitous use of
optical brightening agents (OBAs) in man-
ufactured white products. OBAs absorb
short-wavelength light present in natural
Soraa's LED-based AR111 retrofit lamp.
daylight, as well as in halogen and incandes-
cent lamps, and convert the energy to blue
light. The OBA essentially causes a color shift
that is perceived as a bright and clean white.
Many white objects including fabrics, paper,
plastics, and others contain these whiteness-
enhancing OBAs.
The OBA trick doesnt play well with many
LEDs. Conventional LEDs use primarily blue
emission and do not deliver short-wavelength
radiation. They are thus unable to excite
OBAs, making white objects appear dull
and yellowish. A solution is the use of high-
efficiency violet pump LEDs that correctly
excite OBAs and render whites accurately.
The amount of violet light can be precisely
tuned to emulate the whiteness rendering of
natural light sources.
Fig. 1 depicts the color science behind the
use of OBAs. The material in question converts
the short-wavelength energy as shown in the

LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 79

technology | LED ARCHITECTURE

OBA luminescence 0.6

0.525
0.5 LED #1
100%

0.4

Refectivity OBA absorption v' 0.3 7 SDCM

v' 0.520

0.2 LED #2

0.1 Halogen
1 SDCM
0.0 0.515
400 500 600 700 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.243 0.248 0.253
(nm) u' u'

FIG. 1. Optical brightening agents (OBA) create additional blue energy in reflected light. A halogen lamp, and LED #2 based on a
violet emitter, result in white paper with OBA appearing bright white. Conventional LEDs based on a blue emitter such as LED #1
result in the paper appearing cream colored.
graph on the left. (For background informa-
tion on color science see the multipart series
that concluded in LEDs Magazine last year
http://bit.ly/MqbtWY.) The figure compares
how the human visual system would perceive
the color of commercial white paper illumi-
nated by different light sources with identi-
cal 3000K CCTs. The example compares a hal-
ogen source, a conventional LED (#1) with no
OBA excitation, and a high-QoL LED (#2) with
OBA excitation. The violet energy in LED #2
is tuned to match the halogen lamp and the
pair result in color uniformity within a 1-step
MacAdam ellipse (also called SDCM or stan-
dard deviation of color matching). LED #1,
meanwhile, results in a 7-step color error
meaning that the paper appears cream col-
ored rather than bright white.
LED comparison
In fact, not all high-CRI LEDs perform sim-
ilarly when you consider all aspects of QoL.
Table 1 compares GaN-on-GaN, -sapphire,
and -silicon-carbide LEDs side-by-side for
similar 800-lm flux levels. The data came
directly from the manufacturer datasheets
in the case of the Cree and Nichia LEDs. We
see that for similar input power and efficacy
levels, the QoL for the violet-primary GaN-
on-GaN LED is much higher. The compari-
son shows that the raw performance of the
GaN-on-GaN LED can overcome the inher-
ent efficiency penalties of using a primary
violet emitter resulting in Stokes loss and the
use of deep red phosphor that radiates some
energy outside the human visual sensitivity
range. The GaN-on-GaN LED delivers the QoL
aspects we associate with natural lighting.
Does such superior color and whiteness ren-
dering truly matter to users? To assess this,
Professor Kevin Houser at Penn State Univer-
sity recently organized a study comparing the
perceptual response to two LED MR16 lamps.
The study included a conventional LED lamp
(Ra = 84, R9 = 24), and a high-QoL LED lamp
(Ra = 97, R9 = 88). Participants were presented
with two side-by-side booths displaying a retail
environment. They were asked to make visual
comparisons and indicate their preference for
various colors. The results, summarized in Fig.
2, show that users easily perceived a difference
and strongly preferred the high-QoL option
both for colors and whites.
The crucial importance of QoL for the broad
adoption of energy-saving lighting technology
is clearly exemplified by the inability of com-
pact fluorescent lamps (with their mediocre
QoL) to win over end users/customers. Hence,
it is perhaps surprising that the QoL topic has
not been a subject of focus from more LED
manufacturers. The good news is that the dis-
ruptive performance leap offered by native
GaN substrates finally enables high-perfor-
mance products with uncompromising QoL.
LED surface area
Another aspect of high lumen density enabled
by GaN-on-GaN is its ability to deliver small
LED source sizes while maintaining high light
output or brightness along with high QoL. This
aspect of a light source is critical when narrow
beams of light are required. Its generally eas-
ier to control the beam from smaller sources.
Lets consider the source size issue rel-
ative to a replacement lamp that is diffi-
cult to achieve with LEDs. The AR111 is a
professional lamp that cannot compromise
on light quality and requires very narrow

TABLE 1. LED technology performance comparison for high-color-rendering LED sources with typical
800-lm output at a 3000K CCT and 85C.
LED technology Manuf. Part no. Forward Forward Input Lum. Primary CRI R9 OBA
current (mA) voltage (V) power efficacy emission whiteness
(W) (lm/W)
GaN-on-GaN Soraa N/A* 360 28 10 80 Violet 95 95 Yes
GaN-on- Nichia NSCLL036A 275 36 10 80 Blue 93 65** No
sapphire
GaN-on-SiC Cree MTG-2 310 36 11 72 Blue 90 *** No
*6-mm LES lightchip for Soraa Vivid MR16 lamp
**Not listed; estimate from datasheet spectrum
***No information

80 APRIL/MAY 2014 LEDsmagazine.com

 technology | LED ARCHITECTURE

beam angles. Until now, a) b) Overall

there have been few LED- Cosmetics
based AR111 lamps on the Red
market and those that do Orange
exist suffer from the typi- Yellow
cal LED problems of poor Green
beam quality, low Ra, poor Blue
color uniformity, multiple Violet
shadows, and form factors Pink
too big to fit into existing White
fixtures. Neutral
Preference for Preference for
Soraa recently intro- standard LED high QoL LED
duced a GaN-on-GaN-based
AR111 LED lamp with
FIG. 2. Research using a prototypical retail scene had test subjects evaluate lighting in side-by-side
exceptional center beam
booths (a). The participants expressed a strong preference for the booth that used a high-QoL LED
candle power (CBCP), CRI
source when judging the appearance of both whites and colors (b).
Ra and R9 of 95, whiteness
rendering capability, a single source beam, that was published in January 2012. GaN-on-GaN cost
and mechanical design that fits within the The advantage of the smaller sources is evi- Despite the quality advantages evident in
ANSI envelope. Table 2 compares the Soraa dent in the CBCP of 30,000 achieved by the GaN-on-GaN products applied in demand-
product with some commercially available Soraa lamp. The design delivers on all aspects ing restaurant and high-end retail applica-
LED-based AR111 lamps and with a Cree of QoL. And the small source helped the lamp tions (see the December 2013 cover story of
reference design based on the companys designers maintain compatibility with the LEDs Magazine at http://bit.ly/1ghtX3o),
XLamp MT-G2 LED (http://bit.ly/1gSDQ7E) ANSI-specified form factor. some in the industry have questioned the

SimpleTube

Slim Series Light up freshness

SimpleTube represents an innovative solution for freezer case and

under cabinet lighting with patent SimpleDrive AC technology.
Available in a wide range of CCTs and lengths, this environmental-
friendly product not only outperforms any traditional forescent
lamps, but also eliminates long term maintenance concerns.
Patent SimpleDrive technology with 120 AC direct input
Custom optical design for various lighting applications
6 year comprehensive warranty

Phone: 866.533.5588 BOOTH #7426

Email: info@ab-lighting.com JUNE 1-5, 2014
www.ab-lighting.com Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV

LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 81

technology | LED ARCHITECTURE
10.8 million
GaN-on-GaN GaN-on-SiC (8'')
cost of the LED technology. Conventional
wisdom dictated that for GaN-based LEDs,
Phosphor
the benefits of the native substrate would + silicone
be small in consideration of the much
higher prices of free-standing GaN sub-
strates compared to sapphire, silicon-car-
Phosphor
bide, or silicon substrates. and silicone
For an accurate cost picture, however, removed
examine the case for GaN on GaN relative Lumens
to higher power densities and a reduction 5 per wafer
LED die area: 2.5 mm2 12 mm2
in $/lm achieved by an approach that yields
more lm/wafer. Its an established fact that
GaN substrates offer much higher reliable
operating power densities. Indeed, these
substrates are used in the Blu-ray industry
2.7 million
for laser diodes operating at greater than 1.9 million (4'')
1000 A/cm2. 1.2 million
The power density directly enables more
lm/wafer. Fig. 3 shows the estimated lm/
wafer for GaN-on-GaN technology, com-
pared to GaN-on-sapphire, -silicon-carbide, 6'' GaN-on-sapphire, 8'' GaN-on-Si GaN-on-GaN
GaN-on-SiC
and -silicon approaches. The LED images
in the left of Fig. 3 depict the difference in FIG. 3. The high power density of GaN-on-GaN technology yields more lumens per wafer
chip size. Even in LEDs with a similar light- relative to conventional LED architectures and upstart GaN-on-silicon technology.

82 APRIL/MAY 2014 LEDsmagazine.com

 technology | LED ARCHITECTURE

TABLE 2. A comparison of AR111 replacement lamps based on a variety of LED architectures.

Mfr. & Part no. LED technology No. of sources Beam CBCP (cd) CRI R9 OBA whiteness ANSI
Soraa AR111 GaN-on-GaN Single 8 30,000 95 95 Yes Yes
Megaman LR1715d GaN-on-sapphire Multiple 8 20,000 82 * No No
OptiLED Array-MX GaN-on-sapphire Single 8 10,000 80 * No No
Osram Parathom GaN-on-sapphire Mulitple 9 6000 90 * No Yes
Cree (MTG-2 ref. design) GaN-on-SiC Single 27 4600 79 * No Yes
*Not listed

emitting surface (LES), the actual area of
the emitters in the array is far smaller in the
GaN-on-GaN case. Both the Cree MT-G2 pic-
tured on the right and the Soraa array used
in the companys MR16 lamps have a 6-mm
LES. But the area of the actual emitters, rep-
resentative of the wafer area required to pro-
duce the requisite lumen level, is almost five
times greater in the Cree LED.
The projections in Fig. 3 are based on total
wafer area of 12 mm2 to produce 800 lm for
GaN-on-silicon-carbide LEDs, and take into
account the higher lumen density for GaN-
on-GaN LEDs. Lumen density for a GaN-on-
sapphire LED is assumed to be the same as
GaN on silicon carbide, while a 10% effi-
ciency penalty is included for GaN on sili-
con, due to the inherently higher defect den-
sity for that approach. GaN-on-sapphire and
-silicon-carbide technologies offer about 1.2
million lm/wafer for 6-in. substrates. GaN-
on-silicon technology offers the promise of
1.9 million lm/wafer for an 8-in. substrate,
although the technology has not been com-
mercialized to this level yet. In contrast,
4-in. GaN substrates that are available today
deliver 2.7 million lm/wafer, already more
than the potential for 8-in. GaN-on-silicon
wafers. Future 8-in. GaN-substrate technol-
ogy, which will be driven by both the LED
and power electronics markets, will deliver
more than 10 million lm/wafer five times
more than 8-in. silicon.
GaN-on-GaN technology was introduced
in 2012 to deliver the world's first single-
beam 50W-equivalent LED MR16. Within
two years, it has advanced to offer the same
efficiency levels as traditional GaN-based
LEDs, while enabling much higher light
quality. GaN on GaN also offers several times
higher power density and a considerable lm/
wafer advantage.

PROLED DOWNLIGHT SIRIUS

6503300 Lumen
warm white 3000 K + neutral white 4000 K
CRI 80+

VISIT US AT WWW.PROLED.COM MBN GmbH

Balthasar-Schaller-Str. 3
86316 Friedberg Germany
Tel. +49/ 8 21/ 6 00 99-0
Fax +49/ 8 21/ 6 00 99-99
E-Mail info@proled.com
www.proled.com
Providing you with the most comprehensive
market studies in the LEDs, lighting, lasers,
and photonics industries
Strategies Unlimited offers the latest reports:
ORDER
The Market for High-Brightness LEDs in Lighting Applications: Your Report
Market Review and Forecast 2014 Today!
Outdoor Area and Street Lighting: Market Analysis and
Forecast 2014
The Worldwide Market for Lasers: Market Review and
Forecast 2014 Tim Carli
650.946.3163
Strategies Unlimited provides a unique blend of in-depth
tcarli@strategies-u.com
historical market knowledge and technical expertise, allowing
them to deliver comprehensive market studies and far-reaching
strategies-u.com
assessments into new applications and market directions.

Join the many companies who use research from Strategies

Unlimited as an integral part of their business decision-making
processes.
developer forum | LED DRIVERS
Proper driver design eliminates
LED light strobe flicker
LED driver architectures determine SSL flicker, explain ZHAOQI MAO, LANE GE, and GARY HUA, but
techniques that suppress ripple can prove cost effective and deliver comfortable LED-based lighting.
R
eplacing traditional incandescent
and fluorescent lights with more
efficient, and longer-lasting LED-
based solid-state lighting (SSL) is an undeni-
able trend in the lighting industry. However,
since SSL fixtures are directly connected to
the AC line, like with legacy lighting, there
is a risk that 100-Hz or 120-Hz flicker could
occur as a result of driving current ripple at
the supplys output. Flicker can make peo-
ple uncomfortable, causing headaches and
other maladies even though the human
eye may not detect the flicker. Careful LED
driver design can minimize flicker and help
ensure that SSL delivers on its energy-effi-
ciency promise through broad deployment.
Indeed, LED and luminaire manufactur-
ers are keen to solve the flicker problem, and
they have turned largely to the driver man-
ufacturers for a solution because ultimately
the driver determines the extent of flicker.
This article will explain the root cause and
characterization of flicker, describe how
it occurs in LED lighting, and explain how
engineers can trade off different driver
topologies in an effort to find the right cost/
benefit combination. We will describe a rip-
ple suppressor circuit that is a cost-effective
and flexible way of implementing flicker-free
LED lighting.
Market expectations
It is a well-acknowledged trend that LED
lighting will replace legacy sources includ-
ing incandescent bulbs and fluorescent
bulbs and tubes in the next few years. Since
LED is a new-generation light source with
electronic roots, the market expects not only
ZHAOQI MAO, LANE GE, and GARY HUA are
members of the technical and marketing staff
at Inventronics (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd.
LEDsmagazine.com
the higher SSL system-level effi- A (Maximum value)
cacy but also a better lighting
environment.
Like the legacy lighting tech- Area 1
nologies, however, most LED
lights are directly connected
to the AC mains that oper- Area 2 Average
ates at 50 or 60 Hz in differ- light
ent global regions. Even after output
rectification to frequencies of B (Minimum value)
100 or 120 Hz, any line-asso-
ciated flicker may be detect- One cycle
able by the human eye due to Source: IESNA Lighting Handbook, 10th Edition
the relatively low frequencies
involved. Indeed, the rectified FIG. 1. The IES defines flicker index.
line may lead to strobe flicker,
which can cause the previously mentioned and performance. Different levels of flicker
distress in humans. are acceptable in different applications. A
In particular, LED driver designs that system design that is unacceptable in indoor
rely on a single-stage architecture to han- applications due to flicker may perform fine
dle both power factor correction (PFC) and in an outdoor street or area lighting role.
output drive current are especially suscep-
tible to flicker. Among other causes, flicker The effect of flicker
is affected by the LED ripple current. But Now lets examine flicker. According to the
there are numerous methods to eliminate paper A review of the literature on light
the problem including a ripple suppressor flicker: Ergonomics, biological attributes,
circuit. SSL product developers need to eval- potential health effects, and methods that
uate the approaches and choose a driver that was published by the Institute of Electrical
meets the application requirements in cost and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 2010,
Rectifer Passive PFC Isolated DC /DC
Secondary
Switches rectifcation
L
N
Fly-back
Opto Regulation
controller
Isolation
FIG. 2. Passive or valley-fill PFC stage plus a DC/DC-converter stage in an LED driver.
APRIL/MAY 2014 85
developer forum | LED DRIVERS

light flicker frequency in the 370-Hz range TABLE 1. Summary of percent flicker and flicker index for light sources.
is highly perceptible by human beings and Max. Min. Avg. Flicker (%) Flicker
this could make them very uncomfort- index
able (http://bit.ly/1iL2vjq and http://bit.ly/ Incandescent 12.180 10.745 11.460 6.2594 0.0194
NAtjXq). Even repetitive flashing lights and
100W metal halide 9.1472 3.2066 6.5147 48.088 0.1398
static repetitive geometric patterns may
induce seizures in these individuals, and the T12 magnetic 9.6281 4.6256 7.1565 35.096 0.0897
occurrence rate is around 0.025%. This type T5HO elec. 10.52 9.960 10.20 2.734 0.0036
of flicker can be easily solved by the driver, LED at DC 43.4 41.0 42.2 2.84 0.0037
and normally we regard the driver as unsta- LED with flicker 15.996 0.0555 6.3026 99.309 0.4498
ble if that kind of frequency can be seen in
the output current ripple waveform. TABLE 2. Comparison of different driver architectures.
Now, however, people are beginning Design Cost Efficiency AC input range Ripple current
to pay more attention to long-term expo- complexity
sure under higher-frequency flicker in the Passive PFC + Low Low High Narrow Medium
70160-Hz range. Such flicker can cause DCDC
malaise, headaches, and visual impairment.
Active PFC Low Low Medium Wide Large
Some researchers even claim the retina can
sense flicker up to 200 Hz, but tests have Active PFC + DCDC High High 23% lower Wide Small
shown that above 160 Hz the health effects Active PFC + Medium Medium 23% lower Wide Small
of flicker are negligible. Because of the pre- Ripple suppressor
viously mentioned rectified line frequencies
of 100 and 120 Hz, we will focus on mitigat- times referred to as the modulation index. index by dividing Area 1 by the sum of Area
ing flicker in that range here. And in actual- Referring to Fig. 1, you calculate percent 1 and Area 2.
ity the human health impact of 100- or 120- flicker based on the maximum (A) and min- As noted previously, in addition to the
Hz flicker is a function of not only frequency imum (B) light output levels. You divide the frequency, the flicker index has a signifi-
but also physical and physiological factors. sum of A and B by the difference of the two cant effect on how light makes people feel.
to obtain a percentage. Higher flicker index means more sensitiv-
Defining flicker Flicker index is defined in the IESNA ity to the human eye and a poorer com-
We first need to understand how flicker handbook as a reliable relative measure fort level. Table 1 shows the typical flicker
is characterized. The Illuminating of the cyclic variation in output of various index of different light engines according to
Engineering Society of North America sources at a given power frequency. It takes the paper The evaluation of flicker in LED
(IESNA) released the definition of percent into account the waveform of the light out- luminaires written by Michael Grather,
flicker and flicker index in the ninth edi- put as well as its amplitude. The flicker president of Luminaire Testing Labora-
tion of The IESNA Lighting Handbook. Fig. 1 index assumes values from 0 to 1.0, with 0 tory, and posted on the Council for Optical
shows how the metrics are defined. for steady light output. Higher values indi- Radiation Measurements (CORM) website
Percent flicker is a relative measure of the cate an increased possibility of noticeable (http://bit.ly/1jhzSsB).
cyclic variation in output of a light source lamp flicker, as well as stroboscopic effect.
(i.e., percent modulation). This is also some- Referring again to Fig. 1, you calculate the SSL light source output
Having defined flicker, lets consider how an
LED light source operates. LED light out-
Rectifer Isolated AC /DC put is almost linear with the drive current.
Peruse any high-power LED data sheet and
Secondary you can see the linearity in graphs that plot
Switches rectifcation forward current relative to luminous flux.
L
Such a plot makes it quite obvious that the
drive current is a critical source of LED light
N
flicker, and constant current supply is the
primary job of the LED driver.
Fly-back When we discuss 100120-Hz flicker,
controller Opto Regulation
most often we are focused on indoor light-
ing applications. There are quite a few LED
Isolation driver schemes for indoor lighting that can
provide a constant current. For example,
FIG. 3. Single-stage active PFC driver architecture. simple current-limiting resistors, linear

86 APRIL/MAY 2014 LEDsmagazine.com

 developer forum | LED DRIVERS

Rectifer Active PFC Non-isolated
DC /DC
Secondary
Switches rectifcation
L
N +
Fly-back
Opto Regulation
controller
Isolation
FIG. 4. Active PFC stage plus a DC/DC-converter stage in an LED driver.
semiconductor regulation, and switching have greater than 0.9 PF value. We predict
pulse-width modulation (PWM) regulation that any lamps and luminaires with lower
following AC rectification are all possibili- than 0.9 PF will be phased out soon.
ties. But those schemes are outside our scope
here because they are not able to provide the Driver topologies
power factor (PF) required for indoor com- Given our PF requirement, lets consider
mercial applications. Typically, commer- some driver topologies that can be used in
cial applications require a PF greater than indoor SSL products along with the cost and
0.9. More and more countries and standards performance implications of each. The var-
associations like Energy Star and Design- ious approaches are summarized in Table
Lights Consortium (DLC) require lighting to 2. We will also introduce a new scheme to
lower the large ripple that is common in sin-
gle-stage drivers.
Passive PFC plus switching DC/DC. Fig.
2 depicts a two-stage design that includes
a passive PFC stage along with a switching
DC/DC converter second stage. This struc-
ture is widely used in low-cost offline adapt-
ers and chargers. The PF design is often
referred to as valley fill as capacitors keep
the output from falling to low levels. Thanks
to the valley fill circuitry and the bulk capac-
itor, the current ripple of this scheme is
small and easy to control. The drawback
of the passive scheme is that it is not suit-
able for higher power over 20W because of
inherently poor PF electromagnetic com-
patibility (EMC) issues at higher power lev-
els. Such designs are incapable of passing the
IEC EN61000-3-2 (Harmonic current emis-
sion test) class C standard. In addition, the
passive scheme is not suitable to achieve
wide universal input voltage ranges such as
100240 VAC.
Single-stage active PFC. The single-stage

HIGH-SPEED MOVING MIRROR TYPE C

GONIOPHOTOMETER SERIES 6400T
MANUFACTURED BY UL

QUICKLY
DELIVERED
READY
TO SHIP UTILIZED BY
LEADING GLOBAL
LIGHTING
MANUFACTURERS
WORLD AND TESTING

IESNA
CLASS LABORATORIES

SOFTWARE
LM-79
FAST
COMPLIANT

MEASUREMENT

BROAD
ARRAY OF
BENEFITS AND
CUSTOMIZABLE
FEATURES

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO GET A QUOTE CONTACT

ULGONI@UL.COM DISCOVER MORE AT UL.COM/LIGHTING
VISIT US AT LIGHTFAIR INTERNATIONAL, BOOTH 5446

LEDsmagazine.com APRIL/MAY 2014 87

developer forum | LED DRIVERS

approach with active PFC that is depicted lizes a uniquely designed

: 196 mA
in Fig. 3 is a widely adopted topology for linear regulator, which @: 500 mA
wide input range LED drivers. The topology can greatly reduce the
delivers good power-conversion efficiency output current ripple
and PF value with wide load range as well. from single-stage PFC Ch2
The drawback is the high current ripple constant-current out- 599 mA
that leads to visible or invisible 100120-Hz put with only 23% effi- Ch1
flicker. Good designs can reduce the current ciency loss. The approach 7.10 V
ripple to a relatively low value; however, offers additional bene- Ch2
the ripple is normally still higher than the fits. Adding a switching Ch1 = Output voltage 99.63 Hz
Ch2 = Output current
previous two-stage scheme. One interesting DC/DC stage to a driver
Ch1
feature of the single-stage topology is that handicaps the EMC per- ---- .Hz
the ripple is greatly affected by the different
formance in most of the
Ch1 2.00V Ch2 100 mA M 4.00 ms A Ch2
BW BW
622 mA
voltage and current characteristics that are cases, while adding the
52.00 %
specific to each LED load. Driver designers linear regulator does not.
FIG. 6. Single-stage driver output current.
are seeking better ways to control the ripple The better EMC perfor-
in the single-stage design. mance allows the ripple
Active PFC plus switching DC/DC. One suppressor to be flexibly : 58.0 mA
@: 568 mA
way to solve the output ripple problem is to utilized with existing
add an active second stage behind the active single-stage LED drivers
PFC stage. Such a topology is depicted in Fig.by SSL manufacturers. Ch2
4 with the addition of a DC/DC converter The addition of the cir- 601 mA
stage. But the additional DC/DC stage in the cuit to the output is far
Ch1
driver comes with a cost increase of 1520%. more cost effective than 7.08 V
This circuitry greatly lowers the output cur- buying another driver or
rent ripple and makes the output almost an switching DC/DC con- Ch2
Ch1 = Output voltage 100.2 Hz
ideal DC at the expense of losing 23% effi- verter to get much better Ch2 = Output current
ciency. Moreover, this structure can cover light output. Ch1
---- .Hz
most of the power levels required in indoor This ripple suppressor
applications and is widely used. circuit is used in series Ch1 2.00V Ch2 100 mA M 4.00 ms A Ch2
BW BW
622 mA
Single-stage PFC and ripple suppressor. with the single-stage PFC 52.00 %
Ideally, SSL system developers would prefer a output and is primar- FIG. 7. Driver output current with the ripple suppressor
lower-cost method to reduce the output rip- ily composed by a power circuitry.
ple, and that would bring us back to a single-MOSFET, a current sens-
stage approach. Fortunately, there is another ing resistor, and an error amplifier. The sens- the output. You can see how the suppressor
good solution for lowering the output current ing resistor gets the current ripple signal and effectively clips the ripple amplitude to an
ripple with a circuit thats far simpler than a
if the ripple is larger than the set value, the acceptable level, thereby eliminating the
switching DC/DC stage. You can segment a output of the error amplifier adjusts the volt- flicker through reduction of both the flicker
single-stage design with a relatively simple age on the MOSFET so as to make the rip- percentage and index.
linear ripple-suppressor circuit such as the ple smaller. Those simple components can As the LED lighting industry develops,
one depicted in Fig. 5. be encapsulated into a very small package or features like high efficiency and long life
The modified-single-stage topology uti- even made into an integrated circuit. alone cannot satisfy the market. People
are looking for a better lighting environ-
Output Driver test results ment, especially when it is related to health.
current
Consider tests on the ripple sup- For certain places like offices and living
pressor circuit that demonstrate rooms, elimination of strobe flicker is even
-
the value. Fig. 6 depicts the voltage more important.
+
and current output of a typical sin- There are multiple ways to create good
gle-stage driver. The 42W design is DC current with low ripple to drive LEDs;
Ref Filter
delivering 700 mA into an LED load. each method has advantages and draw-
Rsense The ripple is very apparent in the backs. The key advantage of the ripple
current waveform. suppressor is that it provides a very simple
Fig. 7 depicts the output wave- and flexible way to reduce the flicker of the
forms from the same 42W driver design we already have at a minimal and
FIG. 5. Ripple suppressor block diagram.
with the ripple suppressor added to very reasonable cost.

88 APRIL/MAY 2014 LEDsmagazine.com

 60VIN 350W LED Driver
VIN

IVINP IVINN

VOUT

IVINMON
ISMON
SENSE +
FAULT
3000:1 ing SENSE
PWM
imm GND
PW D
M

20A Outputs for LEDs or Current Sources That Are Easy to Parallel

The LT 3763 is a high power synchronous step-down controller delivering up to 20A of output current to drive big LEDs.
It can also be used as a current source for charging supercapacitors or lead acid batteries. Capable of sensing both input and
output current, the LT3763 ensures accurate current limiting and regulation, enabling 1.5% voltage regulation accuracy and
6% current regulation accuracy. The devices input voltage range of 6V to 60V and output from 0V to 55V provide design
flexibility. Its FBIN pin is ideal for applications that require a peak power tracking function such as solar panel chargers.

Features Efficiency vs Load Current Info & Free Samples

Accurate Control of Input & Output 100 www.linear.com/product/LT3763

Current 1-800-4-LINEAR
TM
3000:1 True Color PWM Dimming
95
1.5% Voltage Regulation Accuracy
EFFICIENCY (%)

6% Current Regulation Accuracy

90
Input Voltage Range: 6V to 60V
Control Pin for Thermal Control of
Load Current 85
VIN = 48V video.linear.com/150
VOUT = 24V
80 , LT, LTC, LTM, Linear Technology, and the Linear logo are
0 2 4 6 8 10 registered trademarks and True Color PWM is a trademark of Linear
Technology Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of
ILOAD (A) their respective owners.
CREE IS LED LIGHTING

versatile LED light.

As the developer of the rst lighting-class LED, were not scrambling to adapt to change; we are the
changeand we wont stop until LED lighting is everywhere. Design in Cree LED modules and get one
consistent light source with a choice of Sunset or WhiteLight dimming for applications ranging from
intimate nooks to soaring atriums. Cree makes light for living.

Visit cree.com/modules and learn

CREE LMH2 MODULES ARE BACKED BY 3RD-PARTY DRIVER
COMPATIBILITY TESTING AND A 5-YEAR WARRANTY. how our full portfolio of LED modules
Visit Cree at L+B Hall 5.0, Booth C34 and at Lightfair Booth 5421 can lower your system cost.