LEDs opening the solid-state lighting market

Dan Rogers - 21 Oct 2010

LEDs are helping to develop the solid-state lighting (SSL) markets, creating longer-term opportunities to commercialise new devices such as OLED panels.

SSL projects and development grants from the Department of Energy, such as those in the US, are pushing the creation of commercially viable LED and OLED lighting devices.

Trials of LED lighting have also started in the public sector. Seattle began using LEDs for street lighting in June 2010.

Early products

With OLED demonstrators being created for longer-term applications, LEDs are providing an insight into where the SSL market is heading.

Daniel Doxsee, vice president of lighting materials supplier Nichia America, comments: 'In the coming years LEDs will light the streets we drive on - including traffic signals and digital billboards; the parking lots where we shop - or hopefully the trains we ride instead of cars; the stores we shop in, the homes we live in and, at least partially, the offices we work in.'

The company, which will be appearing at the LEDs 2010 conference later in October, is among a number of companies that could benefit from the widespread replacement of incandescent lighting with SSL alternatives.

Others, such as Osram and Philips, are involved in both LED and OLED developments.

Cooperation

And Doxsee suggests that industry cooperation will be crucial to LEDs and also OLEDs making inroads as SSL products.

He notes: 'While we are competitors we are also responsible for building the industry in a responsible fashion together.

'We collectively must listen to the market and deliver products that meet the customer requirements.'

Earlier in October, such a collaboration was announced by Universal Display and Moser Baer for an OLED light pilot production line.

And continued government support for sustainability and SSL will accelerate the progress of these emerging lighting technologies.

Doxsee adds: 'Probably standards and legislation phasing out inefficient technology are the most important [factors] from the policy side.'

The LEDs 2010 conference is taking place on 25-27 October at the San Diego Convention Centre in California. To register, visit the website or contact john.buss@pira-international.com.