VW has unveiled today the new 2011 Volkswagen Eos facelift and released the first images of the updated model. The 2011 Volkswagen Eos facelift features the new "face" of VW including new headlamps with integrated LED daytime running lights, a new front grille with three blades. The rear of the 2011 Volkswagen Eos facelift features newly designed, two-piece LED taillights and a redesigned bumper with diffuser.

The interior of the 2011 Volkswagen Eos facelift now features a Premium color multi-function display, the Light Assist system, and the second generation Park Assist system. The equipment list of the 2011 Volkswagen Eos facelift also includes keyless entry and engine start, which also controls the sun roof.

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct 07, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Philips Lumileds announced today that it has added a new 4000K CCT ANSI binned part to its award winning LUXEON Rebel product portfolio and raised the top flux bin for its cool and neutral white LUXEON Rebel by 20%. The new part delivers improved color rendering and tight binning to simplify luminaire designers' engineering efforts. In addition, flux bin increases for cool and neutral white LUXEON Rebel parts to a minimum 120 lumen flux bin at 350 mA demonstrates continued flux and efficacy improvements that are part of the company's technology development path. Coupled with the recent introduction of LUXEON Rebel ES, Philips Lumileds LEDs provide high performance options for a wide variety of applications.

"As the market for solid-state lighting solutions takes hold, feedback from lighting engineers, designers, and end-users is playing a critical role in the development of the LUXEON LED portfolio," said Frank Harder, VP Marketing LUXEON Product Lines at Philips Lumileds. "The new 4000K CCT part addresses specific needs in the office lighting segment where light output, efficacy and quality of light must meet certain levels. And our light output increases coupled with superior performance at application conditions means that our LUXEON Rebel LEDs will outperform virtually any similar product available today."

Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar has always advertised itself as good for the neighborhood, but now this particular Applebee’s is good for the environment. 

The Applebee’s located in Newtown, Pennsylvania, owned by The Rose Group, who has overseen its complete LED lighting retrofit, replacing traditional halogen and fluorescent bulbs with new light emitting diodes (LEDS). 

According to the energy audit completed by LED Saving Solutions, the retrofit will save the Newtown Applebee’s more than $150,000 in energy costs over the lifetime of the products and abate more than 1.8 million pounds of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere – that’s the equivalent of taking 10 mid-size SUVs off the road each year, for ten years.

“We’re honored to be selected by The Rose Group to retrofit this first Applebee’s restaurant in Newtown,” says Charlie Szoradi, founder and president of LED Savings Solutions. “This move to sustainable, ultra-energy-efficient LED lighting exemplifies their forward-thinking approach to environmental stewardship and is an excellent model for the entire national category of casual dining family restaurants.”

According to Szoradi, “Our engineers and account managers worked closely with The Rose Group and their restaurant management team to determine the best solution using LEDs.  Matching aesthetics and the correct color temperature are key.  Finding a solution that could dim appropriately also allows the restaurant to enjoy both mood and quality lighting.  We were extremely impressed by the commitment of our clients to their customers, and the neighborhoods they serve.”

Excitement about the new lighting appears to be coming from both the corporate and restaurant levels.  Jeff Warden, CEO and President of the Rose Group, says, “We’re thrilled to work with LED Savings Solutions to help our restaurants evolve from traditional, energy-intensive lighting to more sustainable LED lighting that will provide the same sort of dining comfort, be better for our shared environment, and save on energy costs of the restaurant for many years to come.  It’s the kind of simple, long-term beneficial change our industry needs.”

Bill Reed, general manager of the Applebee’s in Newtown, says he and his staff really like the new LED lighting. “LSS helped us find just the right light tone for a comfortable dining experience. The bulbs are always very cool, silent, and will last ten times longer than other types of bulbs. We’re looking forward to seeing the savings with them.”

Saving energy on lighting is one of the easiest ways to reduce your electricity bill.  Although the energy consumed by lighting is not a line item on the electricity bill, on average it accounts for 22% to 30% of commercial energy consumption. Every $100,000 spent on electricity generally translates into approximately $22,000 to $50,000 spent on lighting.

According to information gathered from the US Census, the Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Star, and various private sector reports, there are over 349,000 Food Service Buildings in America, taking up approximately 1,851,000,000 square feet. These buildings are typically operational 84 hours per week (4,368 hours per year) and consume 12 Billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year for lighting use. LEDs are by far the most sustainable light choice as they consume 50%-80% less energy, can last 2-3 times longer than fluorescents, and do not contain any mercury.

If every Food Service Building followed the lead of the Newtown, PA Applebee’s and underwent an LED retrofit it would result in $636,000,000 of annual savings on operating costs and remove 4,134,000 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year – that’s the equivalent of taking 689,000 SUVs off of the road. Given the operational hours of Food Service buildings, an LED bulb would be capable of lasting over 11 years. Since fluorescent tube lighting in the same application would have to be changed anywhere from 3-6 times within that 11 years, a substantial amount of money could be saved both in materials and labor by switching to LEDs.

To create a more holistic picture of how a lighting retrofit of all Food Service Buildings could impact the environment it is helpful to look at the lifecycle savings that can be realized through an LED retrofit. Based on the lifetime expectancy of the LED lights there is a projected industry savings of $7,280,219,780 and the removal of 47,321,429 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere over the life of the bulbs.  Since the range of LED products on the market can match just about any lighting need – from color temperature to color quality – hopefully many other restaurants will follow suit to save money and the environment.

For the Rose Group, who own and operate 59 Applebee’s and 4 Corner Bakeries throughout the MidAtlantic Region, the possibility of expanding the use to LED lighting to the other 58 Applebee’s franchises is on the table.  An expansion of that magnitude would have a massive impact on energy savings among the neighborhoods throughout the region. 

For now, however, both GREENandSAVE and The Rose Group are simply enjoying the debut of the new green restaurant in Newtown, PA and are tracking the savings.  Quality green dining:  It’s a whole new neighborhood.

LED-based lighting is still far from a mainstream technology, and its designs are in flux. Consumers have not signaled the price-to-performance ratio for which they will open their wallets and homes, and businesses are reluctant to spend money in the current economic climate. Nevertheless, early SSL (solid-state-lighting) products are making their way onto store shelves and into inventory. These initial designs can indicate what direction SSL design will take, at least in its early stages.

This article describes the tear-down of five LED-lighting products to see how they perform and what components and design topologies they use. It’s OK to design in the abstract or to speculate about the most effective ways to use a brand-new technology. The designers and manufacturers of these products, however, have made many assumptions about component pricing and availability, manufacturing and distribution pricing, features that prospective customers will want, and the prices that the market will bear. This level of uncertainty is common when manufacturers are introducing technologies. Five years from now, you’ll know what the market wants and is willing to pay for in efficient lighting, but no one now has a clue, partially because of the existence of so many as-yet-undetermined variables. What will the price of energy do? Will the government set an energy policy and stick with it? Will global-energy needs affect investment in energy-efficient hardware?

This tour of tear-downs begins with a 48-in. LED T8-sized tube light. You can’t call it a “replacement” T8 light because it doesn’t go into a fixture for fluorescent tubes. Fluorescent tube lighting requires a fixture with a ballast, the lighting industry’s term for a fixture-enclosed power supply for a light source. This arrangement works for technologies in which the light source, on average, wears out before the power-control circuitry. Fluorescent-lighting fixtures apply a voltage to a glass tube containing vaporized mercury. The excited mercury emits photons in the ultraviolet wavelength; these photons strike the phosphor coating on the inside of the tube, in turn emitting light in the visible wavelength. High-quality T8 fluorescent lights have efficacies of 100 lumens per watt and greater.

Figure 1 shows an LED T8 tube light from Alpine Electronics. Alpine also provided a modified fluorescent-light fixture with no ballast. Each 18W tube emits 820 lumens, which works out to almost 46 lumens per watt, or just about half of what a high-quality fluorescent tube light emits. Figure 2 shows that each tube contains three rows of 96 LEDs. When the tube lights, the center row of LEDs are a warmer, yellowish white (Figure 3). The end cap routes ac power down to the tubes’ internal power supply (Figure 4). The aluminum back is a thin, rounded cover that touches the LED PCB (printed-circuit board) only at the edges and doesn’t provide much heat sinking. The PCB has no metal core; it looks like a garden-variety fiberglass board. The board itself is thus not a heat sink. Figure 5 shows the power supply. The part number on the three-terminal power regulator is missing, so it yields no part information. However, the part includes a lot of electrolytic capacitors (Figure 6). Two stapled-together PCBs make up the 4-foot-long light. Figure 7 shows the staples that connect the two boards, and Figure 8 shows the top view of the staples and the jumpers that route the power bus.

The specs for the light claim that the tube has a 50,000-hour lifetime; with all those electrolytic capacitors, though, this figure seems dubious. It’s possible to get a 50,000-hour lifetime with electrolytic capacitors, but I think the manufacturer may have just picked the general-lifetime number for LED components and used that figure for the whole light. The tube’s innards exemplify excellent manufacturing quality—much better than many other LED lights and CFLs (compact fluorescent lights).

The LEDs are in a matrix of 288 diodes in 18 parallel strings with 16 diodes in each string. Each LED has a drop of approximately 3.2V, totaling approximately 50V across the array. The specifications state that the light is 18W, so each string consumes about 1W, meaning that each diode uses approximately 0.0625W. This figure is a far cry from the HB (high-brightness) LEDs that you usually encounter in designing for LED lighting, which use approximately 0.5 to 1W.

The power supply apparently outputs 51V dc—that is, although it measures 51V dc at the load, it could be a constant current rather than a regulated-voltage power supply. Regardless, all of the diode strings are paralleled across the power-supply output—not an ideal load for an LED matrix because, as LEDs age, their current profiles change. In an array like the one in Figure 9, the string with the lowest resistance pulls the most current, heating the diodes and yielding differences in LED output. One of the most important characteristics of a light source is an even, consistent intensity and color; a matrix such as the one in this figure is asking for hot spots. A better choice would be a constant-current driver for each string (Figure 10).

Many power-management-IC vendors have developed their own LED-driver chips, such as Texas Instruments’ C2000 DSP-based IC driver, which lends itself well to applications with several strings. National Semiconductor, International Rectifier, Marvell, NXP, NEC, On Semiconductor, and several others also offer LED-driver chips, but the C2000 uses a DSP core with multiple PWM (pulse-width-modulated) outputs; one chip can provide a constant-current source for as many as seven LED strings.

You may be thinking that 18 strings would require 18 control loops. This requirement would be a problem for a cost-constrained tube light. Why not dispense with those wimpy 0.0625W LEDs and use some HB LEDs that will each put out 0.5W? Then you would need to use only 36 HB LEDs. This approach brings up a couple of other constraints, though. For example, 0.5W HB LEDs provide distinct, intense-point sources of light, and lighting designers and consumers alike don’t want that type of illumination. In addition, HB LEDs of this power have heat-dissipation issues: The 288 0.0625W LEDs more uniformly disperse heat and can use an inexpensive PCB. Using fewer high-power LEDs, however, requires a heat-dissipating substrate and may require the use of heat sinks, increasing the price of the tube light.

This design uses fewer expensive LEDs, power-management devices, and intense-point sources of light, but it has uneven current sourcing because LEDs age unevenly, which affects light quality and reliability. The challenge for an LED-based T8 LED-replacement light is to cost-effectively replace today’s $2 fluorescent light and maintain the quality of light. Prices for the Alpine T8 tube light range from $65 (1000) to $95 (one) per tube.

You can’t consider the tube light as a true replacement of a fluorescent light because of the modifications you must make to a fluorescent-light fixture. An example of a true replacement light for a 40W incandescent bulb is Home Depot’s recently introduced EcoSmart dimmable LED bulb (Reference 1). The 8.6W light sells for $20 and comes with a five-year warranty. The light provides warm, diffuse light; dims nicely; and produces no noticeable audio noise. It has a glass, dome-shaped outer shell that covers the LEDs and that doesn’t easily come apart, as you can see in Figure 11. The LEDs are not the usual intense light sources you see in other LED lights, such as the nondimmable, 7.5W bulb from TESS (Topco Energy Saving System) Corp that I disassembled in March (Reference 2 and Figure 12). That light uses seven LEDs that output 560 lumens, according to the specifications on the packaging. These large-surface-area LEDs provide a pleasant, diffuse light source, and only two of them output 429 lumens at 8.6W.

Figure 13 shows a close-up of the EcoSmart LEDs: I removed one to look for a manufacturer’s label or mark because officials at LSG (Lighting Science Group), the bulb’s designer, don’t want to divulge the company’s suppliers. I couldn’t find a manufacturer’s label, but there is an apparent part number, AM6L1, and the part looks like an LED array, meaning that the LED packages several tiny LED chips in one package and covers them with a single phosphor. It’s a good choice to use such a diffused light source because there is no pixilation.

To determine whose LEDs the light uses, I perused an LED catalog from Japanese LED manufacturer Citizen (Reference 3). It looks as though AM6L1 is similar to Citizen’s 6W CCL-L251 LED. In other words, the LSG derates the bulb’s two LEDs and runs them at less than 6W each—a smart, conservative design choice.

A rubbery compound encapsulates the electronics—a good choice for lighting technology because encapsulation cushions the electronics from all the vibrations inherent in a small, easily accessed light bulb (Figure 14). It’s not so nice for a tear-down, however. Nevertheless, the rubbery encapsulation material comes off fairly easily, exposing all of the drive electronics. The most promising IC—that is, the one with the most leads—is a 10-pin MSOP with a cryptic “SULB” marking on the top (Figure 15). A quick Google search reveals SULB as the “top mark” for National Semiconductor’s LM3445 TRIAC (triode-alternating-current)-switch-dimmable LED driver (Reference 4). I could see only one 50-μF Nichicon electrolytic capacitor, which operates at 105°C. The black capacitor-like components in the figure are inductors.

The electrolytic capacitor, which is partially visible in the right side of the figure, is a potential weak link, and this design uses a high-quality part to mitigate the risk of failure. The solder joint is the Achilles’ heel of LED-lighting reliability (Reference 5); using a highly integrated LM3445 LED driver decreases the number of solder joints. The metal baseplate of the LEDs mounts directly on the finned metal heat sink using a dab of thermal grease (figures 16 and 17).

Compare this approach with the seven-LED light from TESS, in which the LEDs sit on a metal-core substrate and then on a flexible thermal interface before mounting on the heat sink. EcoSmart uses a simple approach that quickly removes the heat from the LEDs. Its overall design philosophy increases reliability by reducing the parts count and, thus, the associated solder points.

These two tear-downs have been of lights that comply with a lighting form factor. For my next project, I’ll take a look inside a new lighting engine from Cree, a manufacturer of LED components. You can think of the Cree LMR4 module as a light engine that can serve as a building block for a lighting luminaire (Figure 18 and Reference 6). You can quickly disassemble this light by removing several screws. A large, white-metal hood encloses the entire device (Figure 19). The back of the LED unit lies to the right of the penny, and the light cover is above the unit. The cover has a simple paper cone that serves as a reflector, and a diffuser sits between it and a clear-plastic light cover.

Plus, if you leave the light on at a power level in which the fifth white LED initially is off, it comes on after a couple of minutes, which perhaps means that the LED lights’ color changes with temperature and that the other two are balancing LED-color changes for both temperature and power. Cree’s marketing videos refer to “active color management” when describing TrueWhite, so the power and thermal response must be the active part.

An eight-pin TI 9C L2903 dual differential comparator sits next to the LEDs. This chip perhaps compares the current through the main LEDs and turns on the secondary color-balancing LEDs when the current exceeds a maximum threshold (Reference 5). Figure 21 shows the substrate after it has popped off the baseplate, displaying the metal core. The marking on the front, “Berg MP A2,” looks like a Bergquist Thermal Clad metal-core substrate, which comprises a circuit layer over a dielectric layer over a base-metal layer. The substrate clamps onto an adhesive, thermally and electrically conductive layer to the baseplate of the power supply (Figure 22). The National Semiconductor LM3445 TRIAC-dimming SULB is probably the power-management IC, and the capacitors are 22-μF, 200V, 100°C Nichicon devices. The power and ground wires loop through a large ferrite bead to filter noise.

Cree specifies the power factor of the LMR4 module at greater than 0.80 for 120V ac/60 Hz, or more than 0.90 for 230V ac/50 Hz. Measuring with my trusty $20 Kill A Watt power meter from P3 International yields a power factor of 0.56. Granted, the Kill A Watt is not the most sophisticated power meter going, but 0.56 is a far cry from 0.8. Removing the Lutron dimmer from the circuit causes the module to operate directly off ac-line voltage, increasing the power factor to 0.91, so the TRIAC dimmer is evidently not fully on even when the switch indicates 100%.

The Helieon module includes a Bridgelux LED array mounted on an aluminum spreader, a lens, and a socket. The LED array can deliver 500 to 1500 lumens in 3000K warm white or 4100K neutral white, and the module’s optics shape the light path to deliver narrow, medium, or wide flood-beam angles. You can change the white-light unit’s color temperature and beam focus by swapping out the LED module. The socket attaches the LED module to the ceiling or the wall and delivers power to the fixture. The Helieon lacks the heat sinking necessary for a fully functional light; I suspect that this omission is the reason that it has a momentary on switch: to prevent evaluators from turning on and leaving on the evaluation kit, resulting in overheating. The Helieon design also lacks power-management circuitry, but it serves as another example of LED emitters for LED lighting. Bridgelux LEDs package a matrix of LED emitters into one LED device, an approach that’s similar to—but on a larger scale than—the one that Citizen LED takes in the EcoSmart bulb. The Bridgelux device provides as many as 1500 lumens in this package (Figure 25).

NEW YORK, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue:

Indian LED Lighting Market

http://www.reportlinker.com/p0306592/Indian-LED-Lighting-Market.html

The study provides an in-depth coverage of the LED lighting market in India by product and application segments. Key trends across applications have been analysed. This study also analyses the market opportunities in India for LED lighting to an extent to provide strategic recommendations based on findings from the electronics manufacturing industry. Analysis includes identifying the key challenges, drivers and restraints for LED lighting penetration, profiling the key participants, forecasting revenue growth and competitive analysis of the market.

In 2008, the global lighting market witnessed a significant slowdown in demand for LEDs and a consequent drop in LED prices owing to the global financial crisis and economic recession. In 2009, demand for LEDs increased significantly due to their applications in camera flash, automotive, lighting and mobile devices. This is expected to increase demand manifold in the global LED lighting market. As India is emerging as a key market for LED TVs and other portable consumer electronics devices, LEDs' demand is expected to increase manifold in the coming years.

Lighting fixture and luminaire manufacturers are expected to demand greater energy efficiencies from LED-based lighting sources in 2010. Many countries have banned incandescent light bulbs owing to their low efficiency, while increasing the energy- efficiency requirements for modern lighting technologies, including LEDs. Thus, LED manufacturers are expected to invest more in increasing efficiencies for LED light sources. Furthermore, an increase in efficiency is also expected to translate into cheaper lighting expenditure. India, being a price sensitive market, will witness a significant increase in penetration, as LED lamp prices go down the price ladder.

Lighting brands are also expected to push for greater end-to-end manufacturing of LED lighting solutions. This will involve streamlining the manufacturing process by integrating LED- based light with drive electronics, optics and thermal considerations. LED luminaire manufacturers currently purchase light sources, drive electronics, and fixtures from multiple vendors or from their own vertical in-house divisions. As this adds to the cost, design complexity, and risk for lighting manufacturers, luminaire manufacturers are exploring options of designing and producing the fixture, as well as procuring the ballast and light sources which are then assembled in-house. India, which has witnessed the advent of many key international lighting brands, is expected to witness an increase in localisation of content, with many key luminaire manufacturers setting up luminaire assembly facilities in the country to achieve cost- competitiveness in the Indian market.

LED lighting is expected to witness significant penetration in commercial applications worldwide. The key driving factor is expected to be the quick ROI that LED lighting provides in lighting applications requiring a continuous operational time of over 16 hours per day. The energy savings alone account for significant cost savings. When coupled with lower maintenance costs, this offers scope for achieving an ROI in lesser than two years in commercial applications.

Veeco 將於第七屆中國國際半導體照明展(China SSL) 展示TurboDisc® K465i™

四, 2010/10/07 - 00:00 — annchang

2010年諾貝爾化學獎頒給日美得主，其研究與製藥、LED相關

四, 2010/10/07 - 10:59 — ivan