APEC LED-driver-IC announcements highlight PFC and efficiency, along with TRIAC dimming capabilities and single-stage power supplies

The 2010 APEC (Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition) kicked off in Palm Springs Monday, and among the early highlights you will find several LED-centric developments. The power-electronics IC community has embraced LED lighting as a key application going forward, and the current trend appears to be more efficiency and power factor correction (PFC).

On Semiconductor, Fairchild Semiconductor, and Infineon have all made news in the LED space. Along with efficiency, other headlines include TRIAC dimming and varying power-supply topologies.

On Semiconductor launched the NCL30000 driver that is mainly used in critical-conduction-mode flyback supply architectures, although it can also support buck topologies. The IC can implement a single power stage working from the AC line, eliminating the need for a DC/DC stage.
On Semiconductor NCL30000

The design includes power factor correction (PFC). In a power supply, PFC circuits control input current to the load attempting to keep voltage and current in phase and to make the load appear purely resistive. A resistive load allows most efficient usage of AC mains power. PFC is expressed as a fraction of unity and the On Semiconductor component achieves a 0.95 rating.

Targeting residential and commercial applications, the NCL30000 also offers the efficiency needed for certifications such as Energy Star. In fact the IC can maintain efficiency even at very light loads and can implement TRIAC dimming to less than 2% of full light output.

Infineon also introduced a dimming capable IC at APEC. The company claims that the ICL8001G achieves 90% overall efficiency and a PFC rating of greater than 0.98. Moreover, the IC maintains efficiency of over 80% across the entire dimming range.

The Infineon IC targets residential applications including 40W to 100W incandescent bulb replacement. The AC-driven IC includes digital soft-start capability to limit in-rush current as well short-circuit, over-voltage, and over-temperature protection.

The Fairchild offerings include the FSEZ1307, FSEZ1317, and FAN103 PWM drivers. All of the products use primary-side regulation (PSR) techniques that don’t require feedback from the secondary side of the supply. The constant-current drivers dissipate only 30 mW of standby power and achieve efficiency levels needed for Energy Star compliance.

Stay tuned for more APEC news later in the week.

The new investment fully funds the company’s operating plan to expand production and enable growth with minimal debt.

Investors including Argonaut Private Equity, Braemar Energy Ventures, Paladin Capital Group and Stata Venture Partners have led a new investment round in Luminus Devices. Luminus specializes in LEDs for specialty applications such as projection displays, digital signage, and ultra-violet industrial processes.

The new funding will allow Luminus to expand product offerings and the breadth of target applications. Keith T.S. Ward, president and CEO, Luminus Devices, said “This financing has dramatically improved our balance sheet, simplified our equity structure, while better aligning investor objectives with management’s market-focused strategy.”

Luminus’ PhlatLight LEDs are currently designed into products such as projectors at leading consumer electronics companies such as Acer, LG, Philips, Sony, Samsung, and Toshiba. The products are in DLP, 3LCD, and LCOS projection products. The company targets the range of applications from pico projectors to home theater.

The investment group sees a bright future for Luminus. “We continue to be bullish on energy efficiency, especially in the area of LEDs and solid state lighting, which makes up a large portion of our portfolio. With our expertise in the area and Luminus’ dominance as a LED manufacturer and supplier across multiple market segments, it provides a great investment opportunity for Braemar,” said Dennis Costello, managing partner, Braemar Energy Ventures.

Dr Paul Conley, principal at Paladin Capital group, added, ” We invest in companies with strong leadership and breakthrough innovations in high growth markets. We’re proud to back the Luminus team again. It’s incredibly rewarding to see the rapid adoption of the PhlatLight LED products in a diverse range of commercial, industrial and defense applications.”

Ironically, Luminus was almost force from business in early January (see related stories at right for details). Now the company appears both stable and ready for growth.

Over two decades, LED-based SSL deployment could generate $120 billion in energy savings assuming products achieve forecasted performance objectives.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has released a new report that analyzes the potential energy savings of broadly deployed solid-state lighting (SSL) sources – predominantly LED- and OLED-based products. The DOE projects that between 2010 and 2030, SSL could save 1,488 terawatt-hours representing a savings of $120 billion at today’s energy prices.

The DOE has taken an active role in supporting and funding SSL lighting both to achieve energy savings and to position the US as a global leader in SSL technology. This latest report updates previous projections the DOE made in SSL lighting over the last decade.

The multi-faceted reports begins with an examination of lighting inventory and lumen demand. It continues with a look at the installed base and the technology improvements in conventional light sources.

The LED-centric content examines the improvements and cost savings expected in SSL over two decades. For instance, the report projects efficacy improvements. In high CRI (76-90) SSL lights, the DOE expects efficacy to go from 64.3 lm/W today to 147.3 lm/W in 2020 and to 176.3 lm/W in 2030.

From a cost perspective, the DOE projects SSL to go from $169.49 per klm today to $5.03 per klm by 2030 for high CRI products. The report makes projections for other CRI ranges and for OLED lighting as well.

The latter portion of the report focuses on projected market penetration and energy savings calculations. The analysis attempts to take a balanced view on the gradual replacement of technologies such as fluorescent with SSL alternatives.

The conclusion as stated up front is certainly impressive. The DOE expects SSL to completely displace all other technologies in commercial, residential, industrial and outdoor segments by 2030. The projected savings, however, come primarily from the replacement of fluorescent and halogen lamps in the commercial sector.

Outdone by an tower extending over 800 meters in Dubai, the world’s former tallest building, Taipei 101, wants to become the highest green structure by completing a checklist of clean energy standards, a spokesman said on Monday.

Taipei 101 will spend T$60 million ($1.9 million) over the next year to meet 100 criteria for an environmental certificate that it would hold over Dubai, spokesman Michael Liu said.

The office-commercial tower that reigned for five years as the world’s highest building at 509 meters (1,670 feet) expects the U.S-based Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design to give it the certificate in 2011.

“We’re focused now on becoming a Taiwan landmark, that won’t change, and on going green. We’d be the tallest building to get a green certificate,” Liu said by telephone. Taipei 101, he said, would work with its 85 office tenants to cut electricity and water use, while encouraging them to recycle more refuse. Annual utility savings should total T$20 million.

Restaurants would be asked to bring in supplies from as close as possible to reduce transportation.

“We can reduce power, trash and water by more than 10 percent,” he said. “We’re already pretty green. In principle there’s no major problem.”

The Taiwan skyscraper, complete with an observation deck popular with tourists, has already met 60 of the checklist items, including double-paned windows to retain cool air.

FlyFire: This 3-D face (left) is built of a swarm of golf-ball-sized, LED-equipped helicopters (right). MIT

Meet the next generation of art installations. Together, the SENSEable City and ARES Labs atMIT have created an adaptable, remote-controlled display comprised of dozens of robotic, flying “smart pixels.”

The concept is simple: As with any digital image, the picture is made of groups of tiny dots of varying colors that, at the right scale, appear as one large image. Now imagine the pixels in a pointillist painting like a Georges Seurat aren’t tiny flecks of paint, but thousands of miniature helicopters with varying color LEDs arranged as the image.

Flyfire, though, takes things one further by adding depth. The face of the Mona Lisa, for example, can be blown out and backward to create a 360-degree rendering of the painting.

The helicopters are about the size of a golf ball, each with a color-changing LED. It took the expertise of the ARES flying robotics lab to make small ‘copters that fly steadily enough and that can adapt quickly and with utmost precision.

Right now, Flyfire is best suited for large-scale art installations, since the ‘bots are still a bit hefty. In the future, though, smaller parts will mean smaller ‘copters and more exact displays that don’t need to take up a whole room.

Reposted from: NicerNews.com

Millennium Visual Systems made a major contirbution of programmable, LED badges to the Eatontown Elks Club of Eatontown, NJ for their use in fundraising. Millennium is pleased to join with the Lions Club in providing this support to the community.

In December 2009, Millennium similarly made a contribution to the American Red Cross in support of their community efforts.

The new 70 foot long, 30 foot high sign has the same dimensions and the same general look as its predecessor, but the neon lights have been replaced with 4,800 CFLs for the white lettering and strip LEDs for the sign’s background. The end result is a sign that is crisper, brighter, and most importantly, more efficient than the original. 100 percent of the power used by the sign is offset by wind renewable energy certificates.

Wondering how you missed the sign switchover? The whole thing happened in just four days, with the new sign in place by Christmas Eve. Almost all the metal and wiring from the original sign has since been recycled.

It’s easy to chastise Coca-Cola for not taking down the energy-intensive sign altogether, but we have to applaud the company for figuring out a way to keep an iconic advertisement without compromising its sustainable ideals.