US DOE Launches LED Lighting Plan to Accelerate the Rise of the Solid State Lighting

To ensure the successful introduction of LED lighting and strengthen the promotion of high efficiency, high quality LED lighting products, the US Department of Energy, who does not hope to repeat the failure of CFL early-stage promotion has driven related standardization organizations to define the Energy Star standard for LED lighting products.

As of the April 1st, 2010, there were a total of 17 manufacturers with 19 brands and 300 products with the Category A- residential and non-residential LED luminaires certification. Most of them are major western luminaire makers.

Cree and Philips, both well-known LED packager and luminaire maker combined into one, are included the Energy Star certified manufacturer list. The famous phosphor maker Intematix also appears in the additional March list. As for the Taiwan maker, the recessed downlight of Neo-Neon Holdings Limited received LED Energy Star certification on December 4th, 2009.

Taiwan to substitute LED street lights for existing 1.3 million traditional models from next year

The President of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou has announced that following the installation of LED traffic lights throughout Taiwan by the end of this year, the government will start to substitute LED street lights for existing 1.3 million traditional models from next year, as a prelude of the adoption of LED light at all government offices.

The LED street light program alone will bring on business opportunity topping NT$10 billion for domestic LED light makers, such as Epistar corporation, Everlight Electronics, LiteOn Technology, and Delta Electronics, but may aggravate the shortage in the supply of LED chips.

Ma made the announcement during a visit to Delta Electronics, when its chairman Bruce C.H. Cheng reported to him the company`s plan to invest NT$20 billion in the green sector, including electric car, e-paper, solar energy, and LED, in response to the government`s promotion of the green industry.

Ma pointed to the vigorous development of Taiwan`s LED industry, whose output ranks first place in terms of volume worldwide and second place in value, with its global market share reaching 25% last year, up from 16% in 2008, the second highest worldwide, trailing on Japan.

Cree Increases Drive Current for XLamp® MX-6 Lighting-Class PLCC LED to 1A; Delivers 160% More Light Output

At Lightfair 2010 in Las Vegas, Booth 746, Cree are relaunching their Raye fixture, which is now based on Cree MX-6 LEDs.

Cree’s the XLamp® MX-6 LED with higher maximum forward drive current. At 1 A of current, XLamp MX-6 LEDs provide up to 300 lumens in cool white (6500 K) and 245 lumens in warm white (3000 K).

The MX-6’s PLCC package is optimized for indoor lighting where enhanced light uniformity and LED-to-LED color consistency is important.

According to Ann Reo, IO Lighting founder and general manager, the MX-6 LED has dramatically reduced the power consumption for this cove and wall slot fixture, giving us superior luminaire efficacy. Raye is now a great retrofit option for existing fluorescent cove lighting applications because it delivers the same luminous intensity at 25 percent less power.

“By qualifying our XLamp MX-6 LEDs at higher drive currents we are giving customers additional design flexibility,” said Paul Thieken, Cree director of marketing, LED Components. “Cree continues to ship the broadest portfolio of lighting-class LEDs, optimized for a wide range of lighting applications.”

iWatt Nabs EDN’s “Most Innovative Product” Award With the iW3610 Dimmable LED Driver IC

iWatt, Inc., a leader in digital power IC products and technology, announced that the iW3610 AC/DC digital power controller for dimmable LED lighting has won the Most Innovative Product Award in the Power Lighting category at EDN’s 20th Annual Innovation Awards Competition. Instituted in 1990, EDN’s Innovation Awards honor the people, products, and technologies that have shaped the semiconductor industry over the past year.

"iWatt's iW3610 meets 21st century requirements with 21st century technology. Our advanced, patented adaptive digital control technology combined with our advanced analog technology results in another market leading product" said Jerry Zheng, VP of Technical Marketing at iWatt.

“It is an honor to be recognized by EDN as having the most innovative dimmable LED driver IC” said Ron Edgerton, President and CEO of iWatt.

The iW3610 addresses the most pressing requirements of the emerging solid state LED lighting market; namely, long life, high efficiency to reduce heat loss and smaller physical size with a low bill-of-material cost. The iW3610 is the industry’s first primary side regulated digital PWM controller for 3W up to 25W dimmable LED luminaires that eliminates the opto-coupler required for isolation. The device achieves 5% LED current regulation over line, load and temperature variations for maintaining constant brightness and flicker free operation.

Over 80% efficiency is achieved thanks to valley mode switching and proprietary adaptive digital control algorithm that adjusts the switching frequency relative to line voltage. Maximum switching frequency of 200 kHz allows the design of small size transformer and use of smaller passive components to fit the LED driver electronics in space constrained Edison base sockets. Intelligent algorithm ensures that the iW3610 automatically detects the presence or absence of a wall dimmer be it a leading edge or a trailing edge dimmer and allows 2% to 100% flicker free dimming range.

The device allows automatic reduction of LED current at high temperature to ensure that the LEDs never operate outside their safe operating area. A 15W dimmable LED driver PCB can be designed with PCB footprint under 30mm x 75mm and only forty seven components for true dimmable retro-fit lamp replacement. The company has successfully enabled market leading luminaire manufacturers to design, develop and release to production dimmable GU10, A-type bulbs and PAR lamps using iW3610.