High-Brightness LEDs: The New Trend in Illumination

Anne L. Fischer, Senior Editor

Over the past five years, the LED market has evolved and has grown at an average rate of 50 percent per year, reports “LED2Light: HB-LEDs for General Illumination & Automotive Lighting.” The publication, from Yole Développement of Lyon, France, indicates that blue and white high-brightness LEDs are at full production and are the latest trend in general and automotive lighting.

Yole predicts that the luminous efficacy of commercial high-power LEDs will be 80 lm/W in 2007, when solid-state solutions will begin to replace conventional lighting — first in professional applications and then in consumer ones. This technology penetration could result in energy savings of 120 GW in the US, or $100 billion, in 2025.

Commercial LEDs are expected to achieve a luminous efficacy of 80 lm/W around 2007, at which time they will begin to replace conventional lighting.

The five leaders in LED manufacturing are Lumileds Lighting, Osram, Toyoda Gosei, Cree Inc. and Nichia Corp. The report looks at the three approaches to manufacturing high-power LEDs and discusses the benefits and drawbacks of each. The nitride-based high-brightness LED market is expected to reach $3 billion in 2006, and the specifications and applications are described for conventional nitride LEDs, high-brightness LEDs and ultrahigh-brightness white LEDs. The report indicates that ultrahigh-brightness LEDs will come on the market by 2007 and forecasts a growth rate of more than 40 percent for sales of these devices.

Looking at high-brightness LEDs in the automotive sector, the document predicts that, as performance improves, fewer chips will be necessary for forward lighting; it estimates that fewer than 15 will be needed by 2009. By 2007, they will be used in forward lighting in high-end cars, and by 2010, costs will come down to the point where they will be widely used in that industry.

The market, forecast to reach $90 million by 2009, will be continually strengthened by new technologies resulting from worldwide research and development efforts. A variety of GaN and SiC projects, for example, involve research and academic institutions, automotive manufacturers and the large LED manufacturers, and focus on everything from materials to packaging to end products.

The report, released in November, is available for h3900. For more information, visit www.yole.fr.