Osram Opto is claiming “one of the best values in the world in terms of forward voltage for blue high-current chips” following improvements in epitaxy, leading to up to 8% efficiency improvement. Some devices have been getting the new die since August. Its blue Oslon Square now has a typical forward voltage of 2.87V instead of the data sheet value ...
LED Lighting
The latest Electronics Weekly product news on LED lighting (light-emitting diodes – a semiconductor light source).
Glasshouse LEDs save greenhouse gasses
UK plant researchers are looking into LED lighting to grow plants with less energy. While outdoors in the summer there is no real need to provide plants with artificial lighting, it is increasingly used to extend the growing day and growing season inside greenhouses. It is not necessarily the efficacy of LEDs that is the advantage, as the high-pressure sodium ...
Passive device improves reliability of LED streetlights
The principle advantages of LED lighting are its long life, which can be as long as 60,000 hours, or 20 years, and inherent energy efficiency. LED streetlights have been shown to use 15% of the energy and give off less heat, while generating more light per watt. LEDs do not contain toxic chemicals such as mercury compared to high-pressure sodium ...
Dialog improves LED dimmer compatibility
Dialog Semiconductor has improved its LED light dimming intellectual property. “The first LED driver from this new platform, the iW3688, delivers smooth, flicker and shimmer-free dimming supporting the widest range of phase-cut dimmers. It also eliminates the external bleeder circuit,” said Dialog. Instead of a bleeder circuit (see below) Dialog has integrated digital algorithms that modulate primary FET switching to ...
Largest OLED lighting installation
LG Chem has supplied 1,100 OLED reading lights to the KwanJeong Library at Seoul National University (SNU), claiming it to be the biggest OLED lighting installation yet. “SNU adopted OLED lighting for the library’s reading lights because it is energy efficient and is comfortable to the eyes,” said the firm, claiming: “OLED lighting comes closest of any lighting source to ...
Osram laser chip simplifies fibre optic power
Osram Opto is claiming cleaner laser injection into optical fibres with its most recent laser bar. The device is 5mm wide and consists of five emitters, each 100?m wide with a 4mm long cavity. Called SPL BF98-40-5, it creates 976nm infra-red at 3W/mm.mrad at an optical output of 44W. Lateral divergence is between 6° at 30W (95% of power) and ...
Cree seeks to beat mid-power LEDs on intensity
Cree has introduced lens-less surface-mount LEDs in a 7x7mm format, emitting over most of their surface area. MHD-E and MHD-G deliver 1,800 lm at 14W and 2,500 lm at 19W respectively, and build on the earlier 5x5mm MHB-A. “MH LEDs enable a smaller board size, tighter beam angle and a more traditional appearance than mid-power LEDs,” said Cree. “They are ...
Ambient light controller has on-chip light sensors
An lighting controller IC from ams has integrated light sensors and is designed to bring control capabilities to luminaire, light engine and replacement lamp manufacturers. The AS721x senses the ambient daylight and enables the delivery of constant lux levels in the space by managing subtle adjustments as the amount of outside light varies. “Integrating a sensor-based manager into each luminaire ...
LED car headlight design can benefit from thermal simulation, says Mentor
The exterior conceals new technology behind the bezels that make possible such features as adaptive beams and LED matrix beams, for example. Often, each LED has its own lens that is held by a fixture, and light guides with small saw-tooth structures to direct the light to the road and to the external viewer are used more often. All of ...
CES: Osram’s day in the spotlight
Osram Opto Semi has doubled the power of its top-end multi-coloured stage lighting LED, creating Ostar Stage LE RTDUW S2WP. “Compared with previous members of the product family, the chips are twice as large as the previous ones but, at 5.7 x 6.4 x 1.3mm, the package size is only slightly larger,” said the firm – up from 4.8 x ...