The U.S. Department of Energy's Municipal Solid-State Street Lighting Consortium (MSSLC) has released an update to its Model Specification for Adaptive Control and Remote Monitoring of LED Roadway Luminaires, V1.0. The new resource has been renamed to better reflect its evolving scope. The new Model Specification for Networked Outdoor Lighting Control Systems, V2.0 is intended to help cities, utilities, and other local agencies accelerate their adoption of systems that can further reduce the energy and maintenance costs of operating their streetlights.
The Model Specification remains a work in progress, a living document that reflects user experiences and the changing commercial market. Major updates in V2.0 include:
• The introduction of a Backhaul Communication Network section, with associated requirements.
• Separation of the Start-Up and Commissioning sections, with updated or enhanced requirements for both.
• Further refinement focused on facilitating independent bids for Central Management System(s), Backhaul Communication Network(s), and Field Devices. The latter focuses on improving user ability to tender multivendor, multi-bid projects.
• More user notes, new and updated references to industry standards activities, and continued clarification of specifications recommended for all users vs. those deemed optional and likely to be only required by some users.
Download the updated Model Specification.
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Osram recorded a significant year-on-year earnings increase in the second quarter of its fiscal year 2014. The business with LED-based products (Solid State Lighting, or SSL) continued to rise strongly in the second quarter and achieved a revenue share of 34 percent.
"In the recent quarter, we did well in a challenging environment. In light of the decline of the traditional general illumination business, our revenue target has become more challenging. We are very confident regarding our earnings target”, said Wolfgang Dehen, Chief Executive Officer of OSRAM Licht AG. “To reflect the accelerated transition towards LED technology even more, we will separate the SSL business and the business with traditional products from one another within the reporting segment Lamps & Components. The intention is to sharpen the focus for the different strategies of both businesses and to increase entrepreneurial responsibilities as well as external transparency.”
Osram is implementing or planning further measures to improve structures and processes. These include reorganizing the general illumination sales organization as well as setting up a global shared service organization, among other things.
Osram reporting segments and regional developments
Osram’s opto-semiconductor components reporting segment Opto Semiconductors, or OS, recorded a revenue increase of 14 percent on a comparable basis in the second quarter, with contributions from all regions and businesses. General illumination and industry sales recorded particularly strong growth. At more than 19 percent, the EBITA margin was exceptionally high and included among other things a gain of more than €7 million from an insurance reimbursement. OS will officially open its new LED assembly plant in the Chinese city of Wuxi at the end of May.
Specialty Lighting (SP), with its Automotive Lighting and Display/Optics units, also continued to benefit from rising demand for LEDs in the automotive industry. On a comparable basis, the segment’s second-quarter revenues rose eleven percent, with all reporting regions contributing to this development. The automotive business has been growing faster than the global car production for 17 quarters now. Thanks to high capacity utilization, SP again achieved an EBITA margin of about 16 percent.
In the Lamps & Components (LC) reporting segment, which covers the product business with lamps, light engines and electronic control gears, the clear decline of the traditional business also impacted the second quarter. Total comparable revenue was down two percent, even though revenue with LED-based products rose 40 percent on that basis. The adjusted EBITA margin fell to slightly above five percent, in part because of the rising revenue share of LED-based products. These are less profitable. As announced during the Osram capital markets day (CMD) at the beginning of April, the businesses of the reporting segment Lamps & Components will be reorganized as of May 1, 2014: The traditional business will be bundled in the business unit Classic Lamps & Ballasts (CLB), while the LED-based businesses will be pooled in the business unit LED Lamps & Systems (LLS). Both business units will also be part of the company’s financial segment reporting from the third quarter.
The Luminaires & Solutions (LS) reporting segment comprises luminaires for professional customers, products for consumers, as well as the service and solutions business. In the second quarter, LS recorded a significant sales decline of 19 percent on a comparable basis, mainly due to luminaire portfolio adjustments and the restructuring of the service business in North America. The adjusted EBITA margin was about minus 25 percent. Osram anticipates that the decline in sales has now bottomed out.
From a regional perspective, the Osram reporting region APAC recorded a year-on-year comparable sales increase of three percent, while revenues in EMEA rose two percent. In both regions growth was again driven by OS and SP. In the Americas region, revenues on a comparable basis fell slightly by one percent, in part due to the ongoing reorganization of the North American service business.
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Soraa announced that eight of their most popular MR16 products have been recognized with the ENERGY STAR qualification from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the first full-visible-spectrum LEDs to attain this qualification. The ENERGY STAR label certifies that Soraa’s MR16 products have met the stringent energy efficiency standards and performance criteria established by the EPA.
Soraa products already qualify for a wide range of rebate programs based on their superior color rendering and energy efficiency. With the ENERGY STAR label, Soraa’s LED lamps now qualify for additional utility rebate programs nationwide.
“The superior performance of our GaN on GaN™ LED technology enables products that are not only highly energy efficient, but also produce beautiful full-visible-spectrum light, making them the simply perfect choice for illuminating any environment,” said George Stringer, Senior VP of USA Sales at Soraa. “We are very pleased to see our first MR16 products receive the ENERGY STAR label, but this is only the beginning of an exciting year for Soraa. Stay tuned as we roll out our full portfolio of energy efficient, full-visible-spectrum products through the rest of 2014.”
All Soraa LED lamps feature violet emission with 3-phosphors that enable benefits such as VP3 (Violet 3-Phosphor) Natural White and VP3 Vivid Color which reveal the magic of whiteness and colors in every environment, and Point Source Optics for beautiful, uniform beams of high intensity. Now, Soraa’s Simply PerfectTM Light comes with the ENERGY STAR stamp of approval.
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1.4 The accuracy, completeness, or timeliness, or security of any information that you download from the website
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Energy-efficient lighting industry professionals expect commercial and industrial LED installations to eclipse those using fluorescents for the first time in 2014.
That's one of the results of a state of the lighting industry survey distributed to 5,000 professionals by Precision-Paragon (P-2), a maker of commercial and industrial energy-efficient lighting, now part of Hubbell Lighting.
Figure 1
Participants were asked, "What is the predominant light source you expect to install in your relighting
projects in the coming years?"
(Source: P-2)
Last year, 26% of the survey participants said they would use LEDs in their relighting projects. In fact, retrospectively, LEDs made up 37% of the fixtures installed in 2013. This year, for the first time, more respondents are looking forward to LED installs than fluorescent ones, by a margin of 49% to 46% (see Figure 1).
The industry professionals were upbeat, with 82% saying they expect modest or substantial growth in their businesses in 2014 (see Figure 2). The majority of businesses have experienced growth in each of the four years in which the survey has been conducted.
Perspective
It is easy to see why P-2 wants to collect the kind of data its survey produces.
Figure 2
Participants were asked, "What do you expect from the overall market for energy-efficient relighting projects in 2014, compared to 2013?"
(Source: P-2)
The company has been in business since 1992, and today it operates nationwide and sells a range of lighting products: LED, fluorescent, induction, and HID. It favors fluorescent as "frequently the best commercial and industrial lighting solution," but it says it will always work with customers to find the right solution for each situation. The survey data can act as a rough guide to the balance of its own future business.
P-2 says it's in the business of energy-efficient lighting. Its customers -- building contractors, facilities managers, and lighting specifiers -- would probably also describe their own roles with respect to lighting in similar terms. Who isn't concerned about energy efficiency these days? So, despite the apparent narrowing of the sample, the survey may in fact be pretty representative of those who undertake commercial lighting retrofits.
It seems that the industry believes LEDs have caught up to fluorescents in these applications.
— Keith Dawson 
You know how technologies sometimes overlap and coexist, and then the better platform becomes ubiquitous? That's what's happening this year with SSL, as organic LEDs catch up with the more established inorganic kind.
It's my vocation and avocation to chronicle this trend.
I came to be an ardent OLED guy for two reasons. One is an awareness or precognition of what will come to pass (kind of like the guy who took a pass on purchasing a Betamax recorder); the other is an acknowledgment of the "I must have that" factor.
I know that the day of OLED lighting is at hand. I know it because a dozen industry hot-shots are ringing me up or contacting me, looking for these dynamic OLED wares, and I'm not an OLED distributor. The genre's best goods are creating their own consumer demand.
Here are some of the compelling developments we're seeing: much longer lifetimes, more light coming from panels, a growing number of flexible and/or color-tunable panels, new advances in roll-to-roll fabrication, patterning, self-monitoring, and repairing, and even in OLED marketing. OLED fabrication sees a cost reduction with each new production advance. Profit margins improve. An OLED's bill of materials typically shows a single country of origin for all of its components, as opposed to typical SSL where the components hail from all over the globe.
I'm now hearing about OLED fabricators discussing production of a half a million units a month. I can name a half dozen OLED products that are putting out 100 lumens per watt and have a typical CRI of 90. I'm optimistic that these numbers will continue to improve.
There's no question that OLEDs will enjoy a growing profile as elements in the lighting landscape. Their elegance in design and construction are going to be relevant and contemporary for many years to come. Take as an example the wearable segment of electronics: The characteristics of OLEDs make fabricating them into conformable shapes easy and natural.
The expansion in what is possible design-wise is being enabled by designers with the shackles removed. The most remarkable "flatware" is becoming a little more evolved with each passing week.
Natural demographic
The natural demographic for OLDEs is the two younger age brackets. Twenty-somethings want things that they can claim as their own icons of their time. Few teens look at mega-finned SSL wares and covet their clunky look; it's already passé in their eyes.
Now, I do try to be a realist -- OLEDs are hardly a one-size-fits-all solution. There is still a place for those directional, glare-prone LED retrofits. They will be made and sold in healthy numbers. And while the OLED product planners are doing their best, they know that it will be years before they get shelf space at Lowe's.
All part of the realities of being an OLED zealot at this juncture.
The part in the future that will require a little self-restraint will be not telling everybody in 2018, "See, I told you so." A satisfied grin will have to suffice.
After debuting in German luxury car brands in Europe several years ago, LEDs are finally entering the mainstream headlight market in the US.
The Ford Motor Company announced that it will be equipping its new line of F-150 light trucks with an LED headlamp, as we reported last month.
Osram and sister organization Sylvania have a long tradition of supplying automotive headlamps. Those old enough to remember the vehicles built in the 1980s and prior may recall that Sylvania produced sealed beams for such cars. More recently, it manufactured halogen and Xenon sources for automobile headlights. Now, Osram Sylvania will be the first to introduce an LED-based headlamp assembly on a mainstream vehicle in the US market.
As with many applications, LEDs offer an opportunity to reduce power consumption and maintenance requirements. The new Osram headlights should last the life of the truck. That's a welcome relief for those of us who have had to replace the light sources in headlight assemblies on older vehicles. I still drive a 1997 Lincoln Continental. I've had to replace each of the two front lamps so far, and I spent several hours on each side. Gone are the days of replacing sealed beams in 15 minutes. Of course I've only replaced my halogen headlamps once, compared to the frequent sealed beam replacements on prior vehicles.
Beyond limitations
Perhaps more significantly, LEDs permit Osram and Ford to leverage the LED's unique characteristics, and depart from the limitations of the traditional bulky light source and reflector combination.
In addition to the obvious benefits of longer life, LEDs have the potential to change the headlight's beam angle and color characteristics. Done properly, these characteristics could be used to improve the lighting system's overall effectiveness: the "human factors" of the design. Indeed, according to LEDs Magazine, Ford claims:
...the LED-based design will outperform traditional headlamps optically. Ford's engineers took advantage of the small size of LED sources to create a unique design that relies on 16 precision surfaces and 80 facets on the lens to spread the light evenly on the roadway.
The article is mute on spectral content, but we can hope the engineers at Ford and Osram took advantage of the latest human factors research. One of the more prominent papers on the subject was Spectral Effects of LED Forward Lighting, prepared by RPI's Lighting Research Center in 2005. That paper concluded that it is possible to spectrally "tune" a forward LED lighting system to improve peripheral vision and address issues such as glare.
I'm looking forward to seeing the new vehicle on the road, and hope it is the beginning of an exciting new advance for the LED into traditional headlights, despite the inherently glacial pace of change in the US market for headlights.
Related posts:
A team led by an Italian physics professor has developed an indoor "skylight" that mimics sunlight, blue sky, or cloudy sky more faithfully than has been achieved before.
Paolo Di Trapani, a professor and physicist at the University of Insubria in Como, Italy, worked on an EU-funded research project called CoeLux through 2011 and 2012. The result is embodied in the startup CoeLux Srl, which will be commercializing the sunlight-simulating technology.
The CoeLux lighting system consists of white LEDs that reproduce the sunlight spectrum; a polymer optical system designed to produce "a sensation of distance between the sky and the sun"; and titanium dioxide nanoparticles that, in just a few millimeters, mimic the Rayleigh scattering process that occurs in the Earth's atmosphere.
Different compositions of the nanoparticles produce the effects of direct sunlight, blue sky, cloudy sky, twilight, etc. In a version of the technology that mimics the sun in a blue sky, two different sizes of nanoparticles are clustered in different sections of the plastic; they separate white light into blue-dominant wavelengths and a bright spot of sunlike yellowish light.
The images that appear on the CoeLux website, one of which is reproduced above, look like computer-generated renderings, but we are assured they are un-retouched photographs.
Prototype
A prototype CoeLux skylight, 1.8 m long and 85 cm wide, was shown at Light + Building in Frankfurt, Germany, earlier this month. It took one of the slots in Lux Review's list of 10 hottest products at the show.
CoeLux Srl will be selling three models of the skylight, dubbed 60, 45, and 30. The names seem to represent the angle of the light produced; they also correspond to tropical, Mediterranean, and Nordic light, respectively.
Applications
The applications for such light seem to be wide open: underground spaces such as mass transit; rooms in permanently smoggy cities; restaurant patios; shady apartments; research stations in Arctic or Antarctic regions; help for sufferers of Seasonal Affective Disorder.
None of the descriptions I found talked about the photometrics, spectrum, illumination levels, or anything else quantitative. I'm sure the researchers and the commercial entity have these details, but they are talking now in much more expansive (and fuzzy) terms about the possibilities for CoeLux.
I can't say that I blame them; the technology does look like something quite new. But I will be glad when samples get into the hands of those who can report in detail on their characteristics for the rest of us.
— Keith Dawson
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You don't have to be a Buddhist to reserve your spot at the Ruriden mausoleum in Tokyo.
All it takes is about $7400, plus $88 per month until you need the space, and your bones can rest in perpetuity in a charnel house festooned with LED-lit glass statues, with state-of-the-art lighting controls.
A recent story on JapanTimes.co.jp describes the mausoleum at the Kokoku Temple. One wall contains 2,046 small statues made of "ruriki" glass, each illuminated by an individually addressable, color-controllable LED. They are described as "Buddhist" statues, which may or may not mean statues of the Buddha; that's how I picture them.
There are no photos of the space on the web, which strikes me as odd, because it sounds impossibly photogenic in a somewhat macabre way. Picture a wall of small Buddhas, all glowing golden in a dark space. (It might be blue for a memorial service.) You approach a computer terminal and type in the name of your revered ancestor. One ruriki Buddha glows in a different color to mark the resting place being sought.
Family members are given an IC security card so that they can enter the facility off-hours.
Most of those who visit live in the neighborhood in central Tokyo, and aren't able to afford to buy a traditional burial plot in what must be some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Some of these people have relocated their loved ones' remains from the countryside to the mausoleum for convenience in visiting.
The chief priest at the temple, Taijun Yajima, is quoted: "We believe Buddhist ceremonies should change with the times and environment... as long as we can maintain a balance."
The article doesn't give any technical details about the LEDs used, of course. It does sound like the color is fully controllable, as well as the light level. Philips Color Kinetics would do the trick for such a relatively large-scale installation. Philips Hue would not be suitable because its ZigBee-based controller can run at most a few hundred lamps. It's possible the temple uses a local product that is not exported to the US. Japan has, after all, the highest penetration of LED-based lighting of any country in the world.
— Keith Dawson
Those who have suffered through enough technical journal articles to gain fluency in the language of scientific discourse will have no trouble learning how to read patents.
Written by lawyers, not scientists, patents frequently are far more syntactically and grammatically sound than the average technical paper. Furthermore, anyone who possesses the dedication and self-discipline to learn how to understand a phrase like "amorphous silicon (a-Si) has two important advantages compared with bulk crystalline silicon: the luminescence efficiency in bulk a-Si is higher than that in crystalline silicon due to its structural disorder" should, with enough practice, be able to read a phrase like "the indirect-bandgap-semiconductor, light-emitting diode (401) of Claim 1, wherein said indirect-bandgap semiconductor is selected from the group consisting of silicon, germanium and a silicon-germanium alloy" with equal ease. It's English, not rocket science.
Now that you have been duly encouraged to persevere, let's move on to the technical details.
There are four main parts of a patent: the title, the abstract, the claims, and the description. This installment provides a general overview of these four parts, with editorial commentary.
Title
This provides a high-level description of the invention. People who are accustomed to scientific journal articles are usually disappointed by patent titles' overall lack of specificity, as they generally provide only a vague sketch of the subject matter. Often, the title will allow the reader to determine if the patent is at least tangentially related to the reader's interest; however, maddeningly broad titles like "Laser devices" are also common.
Abstract
According to the USPTO, a patent's abstract should be:
...a summary of the disclosure as contained in the description, the claims, and any drawings; the summary shall indicate the technical field to which the invention pertains and shall be drafted in a way which allows the clear understanding of the technical problem, the gist of the solution of that problem through the invention, and the principal use or uses of the invention.
Patent abstracts are generally quite informative and usually suffice as a comprehensive overview of the patented invention. It is nevertheless important to read them mindfully: In some cases, patent abstracts intentionally obfuscate the elements of the patent that are most relevant to the company's targeted products. (This is more common when an invention could reasonably be used in a number of different ways, for a number of different applications.) A trained scientist or engineer will recognize the cross-applicability of the invention, however, and can easily check the claims and description for additional information -- if she or he is paying attention.
Claims
If a patent is the "deed" to an intellectual property, the patent's claims are the property's street address. No matter what its abstract says, and regardless of the extraneous information provided in its description, a patent's claims define the nature of the protected invention.
There are two types of patent claims: independent claims, which stand alone as unique descriptors of an invention; and dependent claims, which elaborate on various embodiments of the invention. It is very easy to tell them apart, as a dependent claim will invariably begin with a phrase like, "The invention as described in claim 1, where..." An independent claim, by definition, does not reference (i.e., does not depend on) any other claims.
Description
This section defines the invention described by the patent's claims. For example, if the patent claims, "A white shirt," the description might specify that the shirt could be made out of cotton, linen, or any other natural fiber. Similarly, the description might mention that the shirt has a collar, or that the material can be treated with a stain-resistant finish. A patent's description therefore provides both boundaries and speculation. It is often designed to push the boundaries of the imagination, to incorporate all possible embodiments and uses of the patented inventions.
The most important thing to remember, when reading a patent's description, is that the patent's assignee owns only the intellectual property that is described by the patent's claims. Furthermore, the patent's claims are only valid to the extent that they are supported by the patent's description. The claims define the ownership rights, and the description defines the claims.
Disclaimer
The author is a scientist, not an attorney, and this information should not be construed as legal advice. It is the author's opinion that, as patents are intended to be understood by those who are "skilled in the art" -- i.e., by scientists and engineers, who do not necessarily have a legal background -- factual interpretation does not require the assistance of a legal professional. Technically adept non-lawyers are fully capable of discerning whether or not two patents contain similar information; however, bar-certified counsel is certainly recommended for those who have questions regarding legal issues, such as infringement or patentability.
[Yankun Fu, a process development engineer at Cree, has written an article characterizing LED failures that occur due to electrical overstress. Part 1 is now up on our sister site EDN. -- Ed.]
Like any semiconductor component, all LEDs are susceptible to electrical overstress (EOS). Although EOS is by far the leading cause of LED failures regardless of the manufacturer, to date there has been no data to characterize EOS failures or determine the specific conditions that cause EOS failures. We tested more than a dozen commercially available LEDs from multiple manufacturers to identify the conditions that cause EOS failure in mid-power, high-power and chip-on-board (COB) LEDs. This article identifies the transient conditions that are benign to LED components and those that can induce EOS and catastrophic failure and suggests some ways to minimize the potential for EOS.
What is EOS?
EOS is the exposure of an LED to current or voltage beyond its maximum specifications. EOS failures result from excessive localized heat generated by the current or voltage transient that accompanies the EOS event. Like all semiconductor devices, LEDs have a limited ability to survive overstress, which we refer to as the maximum withstand power.
EOS differs from electrostatic discharge (ESD), the rapid transfer of static charge between a non-operating part and an object at a different electrical potential. EOS events have a duration that ranges from milliseconds to seconds, which is longer than ESD events that typically range from picoseconds to nanoseconds.
EOS can be a single event or an ongoing periodic or non-periodic event. Following are some typical causes of EOS:
Read the rest of the story at EDN.
— Keith Dawson
This week: $5 million for African lamps, the new World Trade Center's light show, and GaAs grown on graphene.
LEDs from nanowires grown on graphene
Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, have developed a process for growing gallium arsenide wires on graphene by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Here is their paper in Nature. They have spun off a company, CrayoNano AS, to commercialize the process.
This development came out of earlier work in manipulating the crystal structure of GaSa and other semiconductor materials as they were built up by MBE. The use of one-atom-thick graphene as a substrate, in place of the more common silicon (which is millions of times thicker), points to the possibility that, over time, graphene could replace silicon as a component in electronic circuits. Additionally, the graphene process could find application both in LEDs and in photodetectors for solar cells. CrayoNano is already beginning experiments with growing GaN crystals on graphene.
LED light may aid skin
This isn't refereed and published work -- it was presented as a poster at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers conference -- but it is of interest in alleviating concerns about the long-term health effects of LED lighting. A group of chemical engineering undergraduates at Stony Brook University developed a senior thesis, "The Effects of Color LED exposure on Human Dermal Fibroblast Proliferation, Mitochondrial Activity and Cell Morphology."
The team worked under Miriam Rafailovich, Distinguished Professor of Materials Science & Engineering, exposing fibroblast cultures to red, green, blue, and white LED light. The exposures varied in duration to equalize the power delivered to the specimens by the different frequencies of light. The team found no evidence that the light was harmful to human skin cells. In fact, the students found some indications that it could be beneficial in healing wounds.
Bloomberg invests $5 million for cheap solar lamps in Africa
The foundation started by the former New York mayor has agreed to put the money into the European social enterprise Little Sun. The project is an artfully designed, hand-portable solar lamp. Four hours' exposure to sunlight gives five hours of LED light. The Little Sun is in use in seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Bloomberg's commitment marks the first time the foundation has invested for social good, not just for increase of capital.
See the related posts below for more of our coverage of LED lights for Africa. Most of them (unsurprisingly) are solar-powered.
New World Trade Center can put on an app-controlled light show
We have written several times about the Empire State Building's LED light shows (see related posts), as well as the lighting of the spire at 1WTC. Now it seems that the new tallest building in the Western Hemisphere doesn't want to be left out of the light-show buzz. Or perhaps its resident digital-media artist, Mark Domino, doesn't want to come second to the ESB's Marc Brickman. "Domino has real-time control over the lighting program via his phone, though he says he doesn't know whether management will let him use this custom-built software when 1WTC opens later this year," Wired reports. That sounds like a pretty casual arrangement compared to the ESB's elaborate choreographed shows synched to music broadcast over local radio stations.
— Keith Dawson
Related posts:
