作者：Blade

Market cultivation expansive approach for world of led (1)

For the uncertain market, the really need, perhaps, is the concept of a more rational and constructive thinking. The Union Assembly, representatives of the participating companies have raised a number of insights, such as “to promote the right product in accordance with the technical requirements of the market environment”, ” and actively cultivate and open the domestic market”, “cost control spared article” “deep secret agents in the emerging market and market segments” “Focus on the added value into the world of led pn junction system to provide customers with solutions. Of course, the reason should not just talk about it, how to form a high degree of consensus in the development of the industry and transform into the real engine of the action force, which are the market forward.

Market cultivation expansive approach for world of led 1

Actively boost domestic market

The domestic market is very large indeed, how to pull the domestic market? In this regard, the government has had a lot of practices, but need to do more to cultivate the market, and they should actively encourage more people, more businesses, institutions, and more families to understand the world of led, and to propaganda better of the LED’s advantages and social benefits with actively boost domestic market.

2, to avoid the “low-price competition”

In the past two years, why the market price has continued to drop? In addition to the supply and demand of the reasons of the above, as well as one of the main reasons is because a lot of small businesses simply do not know the technology, which is simply a layman to run world of led lighting, but in order to stay in business, and grab orders, so they put the price be low; This actually a sad to our industry.

3, how to reduce costs?

Judging from the current situation, the domestic chip companies this year, or a considerable number of enterprises will encounter shuffle, the first half of next year there will be more. The key for businesses can not survive or not is in quality and cost. Enterprises, especially the equally important role of the cost should be placed and technology, but how we can reduce the cost of it? Generally speaking, it is the scale, output, as well as lowering the price of raw materials and logistics costs.

The lifetime of LED components

Basically, LED is a kind of semiconductor component (diode) that can emit light, which is also a type of electrical component. Normally, the estimation of LED components should use accelerated life testing (ALT led street light pdf) method with a couple of mature samples and statistical analysis. The current LM-80 specification based experiments on three different testing temperatures, and together with the lumen maintenance regulated by the Energy Star. It is not really controversial to use it as the single standard to determine the lifetime of LED components. Especially after the launching of TM-21 life estimation solution, LED chip manufacturers no longer determine the service life of their products by themselves. But led heat dissipation problems still existed:

 

Basically, LED is a kind of semiconductor component (diode) that can emit light, which is also a type of electrical component.

 

  1. In the LM-80 specification, LED chips should be tested in three different working temperatures. In each temperature, at least 85% LED chip should pass the 6000-hour aging test, and using the lumen maintenance parameter as the only basis for judging. The problem is this is a statistic process. Within the 6000-hour test, there are still 15% LED chips cannot pass these tests. The failure of every single LED chip will cause the failure of the lamp, thus for LED application manufacturers, lumen maintenance based on the LM-80 specification is unreliable.
  2. In order to increase the accuracy of LM-80 in estimating the lifetime of LED components, clear definition of failure modes are necessary, for example: lumen maintenance rate, dead lights, burned components, color coordinate/voltage/current offset. The occurrence of any one of these faults means the death of the lamp. In addition to grain quality, including the selection of packaging materials and packaging technologies will impact the lifetime and reliability of LED elements. Therefore, LED elements insisted on LM-80 tests need to pass the tests for reliability qualification, which is necessary.
  3. In order to reduce the interruption risk during LE-80/6000 hours tests caused by the failure of LED components, usually LED manufacturers may increase the number of testing samples. According to the regulation of Energy Star, dead lights will not be included into the calculation of average lumen maintenance rate, but should be marked within the final LM-80 report. Thus, when LED application makers read about these LM-80 reports, they will learn about the failure rate as well as the average lumen maintenance rate.

Does the lumen maintenance data can represent the service life of LED lamps?

There are two main problems in current LED lighting market:

 

The first one: unclear identity. According to the test of ITRI industry, more than 50% LED bulbs in the market are insufficient in output luminous flux as they have been marked. It is estimated that measured results will be 10% less than the value given out by laboratory experiments.

 

Does the lumen maintenance data can represent the service life of LED lamps?

 

The second problem is the different quality. Currently, there is no unified standard to provide clear definitions to the relationship between prices and qualities. In most of cases, customers might spend a lot of money but did not obtain the corresponding high-quality products. This situation made buyers from other regions, like Europe and the United States paid more attention on the identity and quality of LED lamps/bulbs.

 

Does the lumen maintenance data can represent the service life of LED lamps? At present, the most official representative standard related to the service life of LED bulbs in the LED lighting market should be the LM-80 specification released by the Energy Star (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) for LED Lamps. However, a number of different voices now have been found in North America. Some experts call on the abolishing of LM-80 specification immediately since it is not accurate as people expected in estimating the service life of LED bulbs. At least, it should not be the only specification for that.

 

In fact, in 2006, the U.S. Department of Energy Quality Working Group for Solid State Lighting (SSL) invited 32 LED experts and conducted a series of deep discussions about the reliability and lifetime estimation methods for LED lighting products. In consideration of the LED technologies at that moment, it is proved that lumen maintenance (L70) will be the most representative and most reliable specification for determining the life time of LED lamps. The light attenuation of LED lights is step by step process, which is too slow to be sensed by human. In the early stage of light attenuation, people can hardly recognize their lamps become dimmer. Not until the light attenuate to only 70% of the initial light intensity, the lost brightness of LED lights can be noticed. Thus the working group of U.S. Department of Energy Quality Working Group for Solid State Lighting suggested that L70 should be the only standard of LM-80 specification in determining the lifetime of LED lights, including LED bulbs.

Applications of high-frequency non-electrode LED lamps

High-frequency non-electrode LED lamps – a new green light source with high energy efficiency in the 21st century. The general working principles of this lamp is coupling energy into the bulb through the high-frequency induction magnetic field energy; forming plasma within the bulb via avalanche ionization; when excited atoms return to the ground state, they will send out UV rays (254nm), which is also called spontaneous emission; the fluorescent powder stimulated by UV rays, they will send out invisible light. Lacking of electrode and filament makes non-electrode LED lamps immune to the lifetime restrictions caused by light sources. The average service life of high-frequency non-electrode LED lamps is more than 60,000 hours, with a power factor higher than 98%, instant start and re-start, the efficiency of the entire system is no less than 63lm/W, color temperature between 2700K to 6500K, with CRI larger than 80, normal working temperature of -25℃-50℃. High-frequency non-electrode LED lamps have really good performances in many optical parameters. Their high efficiency and lower power consumption can save more than 60% energy compared with other traditional lamps.

 

Applications of high-frequency non-electrode LED lamps

 

Because of using solid amalgam, these lamps will not cause damages to the environment. 99% can be recycled, no flicker, low heat generation, led advantage no light pollution, long service life, no maintenance and frequent replacement, which saves a lot of human and material resources. High-frequency non-electrode LED lamps are widely used in factories, shopping malls, offices, classrooms, streets, parking lots, gas stations, stadium management, bridges, etc., especially used as green light sources in tunnels, subways, billboards, cold storage and other places where maintenance works are rather difficult.

 

Non-electrode lamp is not a new invention. As early as 100 years ago, American scientists invented similar lighting technology. However, due to all kinds of restrictions in technologies at that moment, non-electrode lamp can only stayed in the laboratory for a long time. Recently, scientists felt interested in them again and tried to combine this technology with LED lighting source (the 4th generation light source).

 

According to statistics, 20% of energy consuming of our country is from the lighting industry. If 1/3 of our current light sources replaced by LED lighting applications, then more than 150 billion degrees electricity will be saved every year. Estimated in accordance with the existing power energy structure, this assumption will reduce the carbon dioxide emission by 25 million to 43.2 million tons.

Future development of LED down lamps

With the development of LED down lighting technology, a large number of LED manufacturers realized the importance of product quality. Only high quality LED lighting products can impress customers and make them decide to replace their old traditional lighting applications with LED lamps.

 

With the development of LED down lighting technology, a large number of LED manufacturers realized the importance of product quality.

 

It is the quality that determines the future direction of LED down lamps. In fact, LED lighting industry is suffering bottleneck currently. The over-expensive production cost made them be hardly accepted by ordinal buyers. Compared with traditional fluorescent lights, which is only cost several USD, LED down lamps are incomparable. Experts believed that in order to successfully break this bottleneck, LED manufacturers should improve the quality of LED products, prolong the service life to more than 50,000 hours. In addition, they also need to spend more energy and time on the appearance design.

 

Thank to their own advantages, designers will have more creative space if they choose to use LED lighting products instead of traditional lamps. That is the main reason that more and more interior designers would like to use LED down lamps, which break the traditional concepts of appearance. The energy-saving and low heat dissipation features make LED down lights also can be used in the commercial and industrial areas.

 

With the increasingly popularization of LED lighting technologies, a large number of inferior LED down lamps flooded into the market, the instable quality of them broke the expectations of buyers towards LED down lights, even exerted bad influences on other LED lighting products. Because of the lacking of a unified standard in the LED lighting industry, consumers usually felt helpless when they bought some low-quality products but found nowhere to complain. All these casted a thick layer of shadow on the future of the lighting industry. The majority of small and media sized LED makers either to sink in the pessimistic ocean or to struggle to survive under the huge pressure. The time will give out the final result.

 

What LED makers needed desperately right now is a unified standard. They should not pursuit the immediate petty profits at the cost of the overall development of the LED down lighting products. LED down lights have a bright future, but LED manufacturers have to aim high and learn from mistakes that they made before.

Compartments that determine the lifetime of LED down lamps

There are three compartments of LED down lamps that can determine their lifetime: LED beads (LED chips car led ), LED power supplies (LED drivers), cooling sections. LED beads are the core part of LED down lamps, which will directly determine their performances and service lives. Currently, most high quality LED beads are from Cree (American) and Nichia (Japan). Other LED chip manufacturers with higher cost performances are Epistar, Everlight from Taiwan and Sanan optoelectronics, Yingrui from the mainland.

 

Compartments that determine the lifetime of LED down lamps

 

Undoubtedly, Cree is the best LED chip manufacturers in the world, LED lights used these beads have higher output luminous flux, longer service life, but also higher selling prices. These products are more suitable for European and American markets. Chips from Taiwan are weaker than Cree chips in performances, but still have very long lifetime, can be afforded by customers from developing countries and regions, like the mainland, Southeast Asia and Mid-east.

 

LED power supplies are the heart of LED down lamps, having significant influences on them. LED down lights usually work under 110-220VAC. Since the development of LED lights is relatively shorter than other traditional lamps, the Chinese Government still has no uniformed standard for LED power supplies. Currently, LED power supplies that sold in domestic market have different qualities, different standards, many of which have very low power factor (PF) and cannot pass the EMC electrical tests. The lifetime of electrolytic capacitors within power supplies are directly determine the lifetime them. In order to reduce the cost as low as possible, producers tend to use low quality electrolytic capacitors, which will weak the efficiency of power supplies, making “long lifetime” LED down lamps become “short life” lights.

 

The cooling design of LED down lights also impacts their lifetime magnificently. Heat generated by LED beads will be conducted to PCBs and finally covers, then dissipated into the air though covers. Among these parts, it is the PCBs’ heat dissipation performances that determine the quality of cooling sections. PCB must have a higher thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivity of grease should be good enough. The cooling area of the enclosure should be large enough. Reasonable design of these parts can maintain the working temperature of PN junctions under 70 degrees, which can guarantee the normal working conditions of LED down lights.

General analysis of LED down lamps’ current situation

Recently, China’s National Development and Reform Commission released an announcement: “Plans for phasing out incandescent lights in China”. According to this announcement, from 1st October of 2012, incandescent lights with power consumptions higher than 100W will be banned in the mainland. And from 1st October of 2012, incandescent lights with power consumptions higher than 15W will be banned in the mainland. That means the ordinary incandescent lighting applications will leave the stage of the lighting history. As the most advanced lighting technology today, LED lights has emerged in the market and been known by customers.

 

Recently, China’s National Development and Reform Commission released an announcement

 

Since the invention of LED lights, their brightness has constantly and stably upgraded (from LED indicators to intelligent LED street lights), implying that LED lights will become the dominated lighting applications on day. Similarly, LED down lamps also transformed from the high-en lighting products to the new darling of general application market.

 

Down lights is a type of indoor lighting applications, which can be used in shopping malls, offices, factories, hospitals and also houses. LED down lamps inherits all the advantages of traditional down lights, besides they also have typical features of LED lighting technologies: less heat dissipation, save more energy, can work for a long time, small costs of maintenance and replacement. In the early stage of development, because of the over-expensive of LED chips, LED down lamps were hardly accepted by end users. However, the reduction of LED chip prices and together with the improvement of cooling section designs made it is possible for LED down lights to seize the commercial lighting market.

 

LED chips, lamp covers and drivers (power supplies) compose the main body of LED down lights. single LED chips with high power are more suitable for LED down lighting applications. Low-powered LED chips, like 5050, 5630 are more suitable for LED panels, since they cannot provide sufficient light when used individually. The normal distance from lamp bodies to the ground for indoor lighting products is around 4-5 meters. Definitely, only high-powered single LED chip can meet such requirements. The most common used high-power LED chip for LED down lights is 1W LED chip, which can be used to make 1W, 3W, 5W, 7W and 9W (25W tops) LED down lights.

Incandescent lamps have comprehensively banned in EU, a new era for LED lighting applications

31st August 2012 is the deadline for the EU Government to comprehensively ban incandescent bulbs in any countries and regions within EU. Our researchers visited several large supermarkets and electrical stores in Brussels and found that low-wattage (less than 40W) incandescent lights have been completely replaced by energy-saving lamps with the similar power consumption.

 

Incandescent lamps have comprehensively banned in EU, a new era for LED lighting applications

 

The comprehensive ban of incandescent bulbs in EU presents the end of 100 years of “Edison Era”. As early as March 2007, the European Commission put forward proposals to replace incandescent lights with other more energy-saving lighting technologies. In March 2009, the European Commission formally adopted an order to phase out incandescent lights gradually.

 

Related tests showed that only 5% of the electrical energy can be converted to optical energy for incandescent lights, the remaining 95% energy will be converted into wasted heat. It is obvious that the elimination of incandescent lights is inevitable. Banning is mainly for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. It is showed that if replace incandescent lights with energy-saving lights in all EU member states, the saved electricity can supply Romania for one year.

 

The elimination of incandescent lights means the expansion of the market of new energy-saving lamps. Nowadays, among all kinds of energy-saving lamps, it is LED lighting applications and energy-saving lamps (compact fluorescent lamps) has become the two main lighting tools with higher cost-effective.

 

In assessments conducted by related institutes to all kinds of lamps available in the market, LED always obtained a high score. LED lighting applications have many advantages: high energy efficiency, environmental friendly, long service life, beautiful appearance and high luminous efficiency. They have broad market prospects. Compared with incandescent lights and city street light , the energy-saving ratio of LED lighting applications can reach up to 90%. Although, the current selling prices of LED lights are much higher, they can work 25 times longer than incandescent lights. Experts pointed out that the production costs of LED lamps will reduce with the improving of LED technology. Accordingly, the LED’s price dropping is just a problem of time. Studies published by McKinsey Analysis suggested that a current 20 euros LED lights will be sold on 3 euros in 2020. Some experts predicted that with the decline in the production cost of LED lights, these high-tech lighting products will go into mass production stage from next year.

India announced the latest trends of the LED lighting industry

Electronics For You is a flagship magazine of EFY Group. Recently, EFY has published a latest report for the LED lighting industry in India. Although LED lighting technology has a lot of advantages compared with other traditional lamps, like longer service life, more environmental friendly, more energy efficient, and less health-hazarded, LED products still cannot be mass produced in India as a result of the over-expensive initial production costs. Therefore, in India, almost every LED makers are eager to create a kind of LED lighting products that are completely competent for commercial operations, just like incandescent bulbs does. They still need innovations on the road to achieving this goal.

 

India announced the latest trends of the LED lighting industry

 

The luminous efficiency and output luminous flux of LED lights doubled every 36 months, as well as the total performance, which is consistent with Moore’s Law. In the past few years, LED lighting technology has been improved in many aspects: performance, color and quality. Based on different application solutions, the color temperature can be fixed within the range of 2700K to 6500K. And 70-95 for color rendering index (CRI). The life cycle of White-ray LED lighting applications have reached up to 100,000 hours, which dramatically reduces maintenance and replacement costs.

 

The report pointed out that the entire LED lighting industry is very optimistic, full of innovations:

 

1)       Omni-directional LED lights, just like incandescent lights does. If LED lights want to be the benchmark of general lighting industry, omni-directional lighting is necessary. Only the omni-directional LED lamp technology is able to provide solutions for multi-directional lighting modes. As a matter of fact, the LED lighting industry in India was followed this direction all the time, from the very early stage of development to now, from the simple equivalent LED lighting technologies to traditional lamps, from single-color LED lights to RGB LED applications, from lamps to intelligent lighting system.

2)       Organic LED. It is expected that this kind of LED lights can be the most environmental friendly lighting technology in the future due to their small size and high performance.

3)       Clever design. This provides an alternative for traditional incandescent lamps, similar parameters and output optical energy.

4)       Non-contact phosphor technology. This technology was mainly invented to reduce the cost.

5)       AC LED lamps. These lamps can maintain the same output optical output with DC LED lamps. There will be no need to conduct the AC to DC conversion.

The surge of China’s LED chip production triggered global overcapacity crisis

LED chips produced by China’s manufacturers and led enterprises can generally be divided into two types: 1. cheap but low performance. Mainly used as backlight of keyboards, children’s toys, shoes, and power indicators; 2. good quality LED chips used in high-end products. Normally, manufactures produce this type of LED chips would co-operate with large foreign companies. Currently, the soared increasing of China’s LED chip production led to the global market overcapacity. Dropping prices of LED chips is inevitable.

 

The surge of China’s LED chip production triggered global overcapacity crisis

 

In recent years, governments all around the world made great efforts to support the LED industry, subsidized related infrastructure, improved the efficiency of LED chips, drove the penetration in emerging markets, established special funds to develop industry standards, etc. The goal is attracting more LED manufacturers to invest and build factories.

 

The Chinese Government is undoubtedly the most hard-working government in the world that in the promoting of LED lighting technology. On one hand, every domestic manufacturer that invested the new epitaxial reactors could get a 1.5 million USD from the government, which has occupied nearly 75% of the total cost. On the other hand, the government expected a rapid development of every LED manufacturer and provided low-interest loans, tax breaks and ultra-low prices of land rent (or even free) for new-born LED manufactures. It can be said that the substantial support of the Chinese Government that indirectly the surge of China’s LED chip production and accordingly the overcapacity crisis in the global lighting market.

 

Ross Young, senior vice president of IMS Research indicated that “All of these LED chip makers can benefit from the growth of LED equipment investment. A large amount of Chinese LED companies have declared to enter the sapphire market (a typical LED chip material). They must have seen the opportunities and huge potentials behind the market.” Among these enterprises, a large part is successful poly-silicon manufacturers with potential advantages in the development of sapphire substrates. As for the organic metal, gas sources and MOCVD equipments, China’s LED chip manufacturers still relied on overseas imports. Mr. Young also indicated that applied materials companies have handed over the first set of MOCVD to the Chinese Government. Korea epitaxy reactor vendor Jusung started to target the Chinese market due to the falling of domestic sales. Meanwhile, Taiyo Nippon Sanso from Japan also turned to the Chinese market.