Posts Tagged Lighting
Sharp to expand production of blue LED chips
Posted by LED Larry in Other Technology on May 24th, 2010
Sharp will start production of blue LED chips at a second facility in Japan during 2010, boosting its production capacity to five billion units a year.
LED maker Sharp Corporation will start mass production of blue LED chips at its Fukuyama Plant in Fukuyama City, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan within 2010. The company started blue LED chip production at its Mihara Plant in Mihara City, Hiroshima Prefecture in January 2010.
The new production capabilities will boost Sharp’s production capacity of blue LED chips to approximately five billion units a year in fiscal 2011, the company says.
In the last two years, Sharp has signed two patent cross-license agreements with major Japan-based LED chip makers. These deals were with Nichia in November 2008 and with Toyoda Gosei in December 2009.
The move is driven by the growth in demand for LED backlights for LCD TVs and LED lighting fixtures, which has led to a rapid increase in the demand for blue LED chips. Sharp has invested around Yen15 billion (around ($164 million).
Sharp’s blue LED chip production business at the Fukuyama Plant has been adopted as a project under the “Fiscal 2009 subsidy scheme for promoting the location of low-carbon industry and creating employment” run by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
Sharp says that it “will strive to further enhance the development of eco-friendly products through its cutting-edge technologies and will continue to expand the market for LED business.”
LED modules for accent lighting surpass the performance of halogen lamps
| Modules built using separated phosphor technology demonstrate that the benefits of LEDs can be harnessed in the realm of accent lighting with no compromises in light quality, even taking halogen as a benchmark, as ROGER SEXTON describes. | |
| In the 1970s, the advent of dichroic halogen lamps allowed high-quality accent lighting in retail, hospitality, museums and other applications. From the 1990s until now, compact metal halide lamps have also been used in these applications offering more “punch” (for example, highlighting of merchandise even against the higher background illumination levels of department stores) alongside improvements in longevity and energy consumption.
At the beginning of this decade, highbrightness LEDs showed the promise that more improvements still could be made in terms of longevity. However, until now, light output and efficacy, luminaire size and light quality compromises have been barriers to adoption. ++++++ This article was published in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of LEDs Magazine. To read the full version of this article, please visit our magazine page, where you can download FREE electronic PDF versions of all issues of LEDs Magazine. You can also request a print copy of LEDs Magazine (available by paid subscription) and sign up for our free weekly email newsletter. |
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| About the Author | |
| ROGER SEXTON is VP of Marketing and R&D at Xicato (www.xicato.com). |