AC LED "electricity" out of new business opportunities

LED energy saving, environmental protection, high efficiency characteristics, so it has been widely used in traffic signal, 3C goods or cars and other products. But it must be driven by DC LED, have to be connected to a large and heavy current converter, not only caused by the price increase, the loss of power conversion, but also to allow the use of LED limited. Now Taiwan electronics and Optoelectronics Research Institute developed AC LED, this new source of growth space and the possibilities! In the past, the high growth of LED industry, thanks to the development of the mobile phone industry. A color screen mobile phone camera from the call display lamp, keys with backlight, screen backlight, mobile phone flash to the camera, at least should be 10 ~ 12 LED, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) statistics, in 2007 the global mobile phone shipments of approximately 1 billion 100 million units to estimate, to the global demand for light is LED the mobile phone will reach 110 ~ 13 billion 200 million. However, with the gradual saturation of the mobile phone market, the growth of LED applications in mobile phones, although slowing down, but also because of rising oil prices, environmental awareness, began to derive new growth opportunities. First of all, because the EU should notice the "electrical and electronic equipment limit of Hazardous Substances Directive" (RoHS), prohibition of electrical and electronic equipment containing lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and other six input EU mercury cathode ray tube (CCFL) screen LED backlight module was gradually replaced with more environmentally friendly. ASUS Eee PC and apple computer's new ultra-thin notebook computer Macbook Air shorter, more let the outside world to recognize the application of LED backlight advantage; therefore, SONY, DELl, HP and other manufacturers are also expected to launch the LED backlight notebook computer more in this year. In addition, due to improve the luminous efficiency and heat dissipation module, the global carmakers such as TOYOTA, Audi, BMW and GM have started using LED headlights; Taiwan Yulon and Chinese Dongfeng Motor will follow in the beginning of this year, the future of LED in the car on the market a long scale is expected to. As a result of L ED energy saving and environmental protection, the United States, Britain, Netherlands, Canada, the middle of the country began in full swing in 2007 launched the LED CITY demonstration program. Among them, China with the Beijing Olympic Games will bring more publicity, and actively build LED lights, billboards, large screen, subtitles and landscape lighting, such opportunities also bring new growth opportunities for LED lighting applications and technology progress.

The development of DC LED limit but because belongs to the semiconductor light source LED to DC (DC) drive, so in general and alternating current (AC) between must have a converter converter, but the large volume and weight, not only increase the cost, power conversion is not consumption, with the existing source of price competition it has been in the range of application and popularity is limited. ITRI team broke through the AC / DC conversion problem, directly with the AC drive LED chip, developed the first AC LED bulb in the world, bring a broader imagination space for the application and development of LED. Lead AC electro-optic LED R & D team leader Zhu Mudao said, compared to DCLED, AC LED, ITRI developed does not need lamp rectifier transformer, not only reduce the volume and weight of LED, enhance the application space, less out of the transducer element cost; also, in the past LED, AC DC conversion between 15 ~ 30% the electric power consumption, enhance the luminous efficiency of the whole LED. Especially in the era of energy crisis and high environmental demands, these advantages of ACLED really let the industry as one of the eyes.

Backlight module needs to accelerate the development of AC LED

Zhu Mudao said that the current application of LED is divided into two categories of lighting and display. In part because of LED lighting, light direction, unable to provide the main lighting range, high brightness, so the auxiliary lighting and indirect lighting, such as concentrating the light reading lamp or Nightlight etc.. If you want to enter the family, the cost must be significantly reduced, the efficiency must be further overcome. But because of the brightness of the display of the application requirements if the light source is harsh, and the 3C product price elasticity is bigger, so the pace of development will be more than the application of lighting fast, such as notebook computer, computer screen and LCD TV backlight module etc.. At present, LCD screen with CCFL cold cathode tube for backlight mainly, but its color is very low and the mercury, brightness and color performance of the problem, the high efficiency, low power consumption, no mercury pollution and long life LED attention, become a high-profile alternative; but the cost of LED backlight module too high and the heat problem has been unable to break through, has become its development limited. The use of LED AC on three-dimensional thermal design, heat transfer area compared with the traditional packaging methods with more than 10 times, greatly enhance the cooling effect. In addition, the size of the control module of the backlight module is greatly reduced, which is driven by alternating current to reduce the cost of many components. At present, LCD has also stepped up ITRI TV test AC LED backlight module, the development process of the LED backlight module to make people look forward to.

The future of lighting star while LED to replace the existing lighting still have a long way to go, but compared to the traditional light source technology has stalled, LED progress fast, the current efficiency, has been far more than the incandescent lamp. Zhu Mudao said, the most common household light source is energy-saving light bulbs and fluorescent lamp, so AC LED is currently in the light bulb as the comparison object, comparing the equipment and the cost of power consumption, although still slightly inferior, but according to the present