A Manufacturing Revolution for the LED Lighting Industry
LpR 67 Article, page 76: Western business investments in local manufacturing facilities have been declining since the 1980s due to partnering with contract manufacturers in Asia. But with increasing and hidden costs in Asia, companies are now seeking to bring manufacturing back home. A recent innovation, microfactories, could be the solution. Paavo Käkelä, Chairman and VP at EID Tech in Finland, presents the microfactory called Ant PlantTM. He explains this new, flexible manufacturing concept, shows how it works and how it is set up, and analyzes the benefits of local, automated production of LED lighting products as an alternative to contract manufacturing in Asia.
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Fraunhofer IIS IoT-Bus: The Secure Communication Bus - Not Just for Lighting
The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS is developing the IoT-Bus with IPv6 support and integrated security concept. It is a communication bus based on EIA/RS-485 and the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which enables a secure and reliable data transmission of measured values and control commands and connectivity to the Internet of Things. The IoT-Bus forms a cross-media communication protocol and unites the two worlds of WPAN and fieldbuses without complex protocol conversion. The novel technology IoT-Bus is developed as part of the SEEDs project.
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SoC Technologies in Lighting - Today’s Landscape and Tomorrow's Practices
A system-on-chip (SoC) quite suddenly became an important component in the lighting industry,
fueling IoT innovation and opening new opportunities, while at the same time bringing disruption and
new challenges. With rapid advancements in wireless communication, the impact of connected
technologies on the lighting business will only keep increasing. This means deeper integration with
SoCs and more attention from silicon vendors as they start competing for market share in this
promising segment. But what is the current state of SoC design from the lighting perspective?
Are chipmakers keeping up with the growing expectations for wireless lighting control solutions that
are mature and truly reliable? When developing its complete Bluetooth software stack for professional
lighting, Silvair worked with a number of different SoCs. Therefore, Piotr Winiarczyk, Wireless Solution
Architect, and Szymon Rzadkosz might have found the answers to these questions.
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LED Driver Miniaturization - Opening New Opportunities for Solid State Lighting
While LEDs have significantly improved over the past decade, driver technologies have not kept pace and
are, in some respects, the limiting factors for new applications. Size is a particular issue. Dramatically
increasing the switching frequency helps to reduce size but often causes other issues or is costly. Mickey
Madsen, CEO of Nordic Power Converters, explains how his company has overcome the hurdles and
made it feasible by designing very high frequency LED drivers.
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LED-Retrofit Based on AlGaN/GaN-on-Si Field- Effect Transistor Drivers
Efficient driver technologies for LED systems are still a relevant topic. Several new approaches are
proposed and new technologies are under development. Andreas Zibold, PhD student at the
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF, and his co-authors, M. Kunzer, R. Reiner,
B. Weiß, P. Waltereit, R. Quay, J. Wagner, and O. Ambacher demonstrate the suitability of AlGaN/GaNon-
Si field effect transistors (FETs) for their use in LED drivers. The transistors are tested in an isolated
buck converter and an efficiency of 86% is measured for the full converter circuit. The driver circuit is
combined with an LED module based on a laser-structured Aluminum Nitride (AlN) ceramic board onto
which 21 high power white-emitting LED chips are mounted. This combination resulted in an LEDRetrofit
lamp with a total light output of 2676 lm at an efficacy level of 119 lm/W. The results compare
favorably to state-of-the-art commercial solutions.
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Is the Light Industry Still in the Dark When it Comes to Cyber Security?
This May, the global news headlines announced that a penetrating chain of attacks had taken place. Over the course of just 24 hours, 45,000 cyber-attacks had taken place in 99 countries around the world. The ‘WannaCry’ ransomware attack hit multiple organisations hard, created over 200,000 victims, and even left vital operations having to be cancelled in UK hospitals.
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Smart LED System in Package through Wafer Level Integration Approach
It is believed that LEDs will dominate all lighting applications in the near future. Integration and packaging are the two critical issues that, if resolved, will enable efficient and reliable solutions for lighting requirements. Z. Kolahdouz, H. van Zeijl, and G. Q. Zhang from the Institute of Microsystems and Nanoelectronics (DIMES) at the Delft University of Technology, and M. Kolahdouz from the Thin Film Laboratory and Nano-Electronics at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Tehran show that wafer level packaging is a promising method to ensure lower cost, higher scale, and superior yield. A new integration approach of a smart unit of LED lighting is introduced:
LED System in Package (SiP).
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Enabling Total Control in the Next Generation of Outdoor Lighting
Outdoor lighting is certainly one of the applications with the greatest potential for energy saving. Although many approaches are discussed, they all end up with a smart lighting solution. In order to accommodate this, intelligent software and electronics are required as well as standardized, robust interfaces. Ronald Weber, Global Industry Manager, Building Automation and Benjamin Nelson, Business Development Manager, Intelligent Buildings, both from TE Connectivity, present a Zhaga compliant solution.
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Tech-Talks BREGENZ - Philipp Henrici, President and Managing Director at BJB
It’s unusual for a lighting company to be older than electric lighting itself, but BJB in Arnsberg, Germany is celebrating their 150th anniversary this year. LED professional’s Siegfried Luger and Dr. Günther Sejkora spoke with Philipp Henrici, the President and Managing Director at BJB about disruptive technology changes, starting from petroleum lamps to electric lighting as well as conventional lighting versus solid state lighting. They also touched on the subjects of chances and drawbacks of LED component standardization, modular systems and automated production processes.
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A Standardized Open Platform Is Key to the Future of Smart Lighting System Design
The LED industry’s pace of evolution is more prevalent now than it has ever been. The shift from traditional
standalone LED bulb lighting to fully connected digital LED systems is upon us and is transforming the
industry for the better. For years, LED manufacturers have focused on driving cost down rather than
focusing on improving quality, but with the advent of connected lighting, smart lighting and human-centric
lighting, the focus has shifted back onto quality. Dr. Kyeongik Min, Principal Engineer in the LED business
team at Samsung Electronics, explores how the LED industry can accelerate the transition from
standalone lighting to fully connected lighting through a deeper understanding of current market trends.
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Enhancing the LED Experience - UI & UX as Success Factors for IoT Based Lighting Controls
As LED lighting systems become part of the Internet of Things, getting the interface right is essential if all of the potential benefits are to be realized. Karl Jónsson and Christian Moormann of Tridonic explain why UI and UX are crucial for the acceptance of the “Internet of Things”, give design hints and describe what this type of user interface that accommodates scalability, simplicity and ease of handling could look like. The authors also discuss examples based on a system Tridonic pre-launched in 2016.
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Lighting Up Smart Cities, Dr. Wu Chou, Huawei
Although streetlights have been
associated with cities for more than
a thousand years, they are rarely
considered for functions other than
luminary purposes. One of the distinct
features of streetlights is their
geographic location. In particular,
streetlights follow the roads and
streets that are the arteries of the city,
and at night they outline the city so it
can be seen from many miles away.
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Swiss Photonics Workshop on Intelligent Efficient Solid State Lighting
Swiss Photonics held their Swiss Solid State Lighting Workshop in the Pantheon at Muttenz near Basel
on December 12th of last year. The ambience of the automobile museum was perfect! The program
covered a broad range of topics including Human Centric Lighting, Internet of Things and the results of
the LASSIE project (Large Area Solid State Lighting Intelligent Efficient: A 7th Framework Program for
Research and Technological Development). In the following article, Arno Grabher-Meyer, Editor-in-Chief
at LED professional, summarizes the highlights.
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Smart Lighting Market and Technology Trends
Intelligent lighting technology that enables its users to control lighting through connected devices such as smart phones or remote controls is a big topic in the industry. A new report sheds light on different aspects of this business including drivers, restraints and opportunities. Jasmine Hinduja, Research Analyst at The Insight Partners, summarizes the major findings and how the trend to intelligent systems affects the companies regarding technology skills and strategies.
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Flicker: Standards and Test Methods
Much has been written and said about Temporal Light Artifacts (TLAs). What is essential about TLAs is that they consist of flicker and/or stroboscopic effects induced by a light stimulus whose luminance or spectral distribution fluctuates with time and causes undesired changes in visual
perception for an observer in a certain environment. Walter Parmiami, Senior Engineer at UL International Italia S.r.l., discusses the current status of regulations and measurement standards and proposes a certification to help manufacturers to generate user confidence, and consumers and specifiers to find the right product for an application
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