White LED lighting is the main trend of the future

White LED lighting is the main trend of the future

In many families, institutions, government and industrial applications, high brightness (HB) White LED (LED) is rapidly replacing incandescent lamps. In the past year, the white light LED Lighting System in general lighting applications accounted for more than 50% more than the final color LED applications, application of colored LED lighting, mainly by the beauty of color demand-driven. Growth of white LED lighting, new drivers is simple: lower energy consumption result in lower tariffs.

In many cases, LED high efficiency can reduce power consumption by up to 88%. They also greatly reduce the lighting and power generation and transmission of electrical energy caused by carbon dioxide emissions. According to research firm Strategies Unlimited, 2012, the total high-brightness white LED lighting market is expected to exceed 50 billion dollars, corresponding to the 2009-2012 compound annual growth rate of 28% (CAGR). This is just the beginning, because the LED luminous efficiency continues to accelerate the commercial / residential lighting market from incandescent, fluorescent and high-pressure sodium lamp with high brightness white LED to change at the same time, LED or even from a commercial point of view has become more cost-effectiveness.

According to some calculations, shifted from traditional incandescent and fluorescent lighting, LED current global total energy consumption could save up to 10%. With accelerated efforts to reduce the total power generation of carbon dioxide emissions, global lighting energy demand by 10% of the potential of this shift played a great role.

Linear Technology Product Marketing Engineer Jeff Gruetter

What factors support such a huge growth potential? First, the current generation of LED luminous efficiency 10 times higher than incandescent, fluorescent and high pressure sodium lamp is (HPS), more than twice, thus greatly reducing the necessary light output (measured in lumens) the necessary power. With the further development of LED, which depend on the efficiency of electric light will continue to increase, and is expected to double within the next few years.

Second, in a very environmentally conscious world, LED lighting does not need treatment, contact and remove the toxic fluorescent mercury vapor in common. Today, most residential lighting systems for cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) with up to 5mg of mercury, which contain more mercury lamp much more!

Third, the incandescent lamp with 1,000 hours each to replace, and sustainable use of fluorescent lamps up to 10,000 hours, compared, LED life over 100,000 hours. In most applications, this allows LED permanently embedded into the final application, without attachments.

Examples include commercial and residential indoor and outdoor lighting, such as street lamps, industrial lighting, and indoor and outdoor such as power plants and refineries and other hazardous environment lighting. Some applications (such as refinery) run 24 hours a day, LED will continue to use up to 11 years, which means they will need replacing. In addition, LED lighting than other types of several small and flat digital level, can create a very flat form factor, so they can be permanently placed in the internal and external applications.

New York, by the high brightness LED lighting of the bridge.

LED's small size also makes LED into the reflector housing can be made more sophisticated, and thus more efficiently focus light. White LED provides pure "full spectrum" white light, there is no gap in chromatography, leading to the need for reliable visual acuity tasks, we can very easily see it. For example, see color wire, colored flags read or distinguish between water vapor and smoke caused by fire. In contrast, high pressure sodium orange light environment to accomplish the same task may be difficult, because in this lighting environment can not accurately distinguish between colors.

With the human eye can detect changes in comparison to, LED but also to a much faster rate of dimming and on / off, which greatly reduces power consumption. LED lighting can be dimming or off, until they are needed, and then immediately switched to the maximum intensity, and fluorescent or high pressure sodium lamps take up to 30 seconds or longer to reach maximum intensity.

However, the lighting system is one of the biggest challenges facing designers is how to optimize all the benefits of the latest generation of LED. Because LED usually need an accurate and efficient DC current source and a dimming method, so LED Driver IC must be designed in a variety of applications to meet those needs. Power solutions must be efficient, robust, very compact and cost-effective. Can be shown to drive lighting from incandescent, fluorescent and high pressure sodium lighting to LED array change, the fastest growing application will appear in the general internal / external lighting applications, because in such applications, the power to save the return is the largest.

Such as small size, long life, low power consumption, easy to transfer the benefits of light and fast turn time has accelerated the high-brightness LED lighting in the industrial and residential lighting applications, and many have been adopted. LED's long life and small size makes the introduction of new applications in a variety of configurations possible, these applications include in the refrigerator white LED lighting in front of the array, as well as illuminate the more complex the entire campus system. Figure 1 below shows the New York Verrazano Narrows Bridge, the bridge entirely by the high brightness LED lighting. LED high efficiency greatly reduces power requirements, and their long life and durability in a relatively harsh marine environment is particularly important.