- 05 April 2006 -

LED news summary

OSRAM Opto Semiconductors wins 2006 Automotive News PACE Award

OSRAM Opto Semiconductors was named a 2006 Automotive News PACE Award
winner at a gala ceremony in Detroit, MI last night. The prestigious
award recognizes automotive suppliers for superior innovation,
technological advancement and business performance. This is the first
PACE (Premier Automotive Suppliers' Contribution to Excellence) award
win for the solid-state lighting division of OSRAM Gmbh.

OSRAM was recognized for its advanced 'Color on Demand' (COD) LED
innovation, first successfully introduced in General Motors' 2006
Chevrolet HHR, Monte Carlo and Impala cars. This breakthrough lighting
technology enables automotive makers to specifically illuminate or
paint the car interior cluster, radio buttons and some switches in any
corporate brand colour. This colour effect serves to distinguish car
brands from the pack as well as enhance the driver's experience.

Web: http://www.osram-os.com

All-LED Saab concept car

The Aero X concept car is the latest in series of concepts from Saab -
its cockpit does away with conventional dials and buttons. Instead,
the auto company has applied techniques derived from Swedish glass and
precision instrument making, displaying data on glass-like acrylic
'clear zones' in graphic 3-D images. All exterior and interior
lighting is by LEDs, a technology it says will be featured
increasingly in future Saab products. It offers full 180 degree
vision, and also facilitates entry and exit from its low-slung cabin.
Power for the all-wheel-drive Saab Aero X comes from a 400 bhp,
twin-turbo, BioPower V6 engine that is fueled entirely by bioethanol.

Taiwan breakthrough in HB– LEDs

According to a report in the China Post, "It is estimated by the year
2010, LEDs will replace traditional light bulbs to become the most
common source of lighting, and home-use applications will have a size
of well over NT$1 trillion," quoting Sun Ching-cheng, Professor of
Optoelectronics at National Central University (NCU), in Taiwan.
Prof Sun was unveiling what they claim is the world's brightest 18-
and 30-W LEDs from a collaboration between NCU's optoelectronics
department and Taoyuan County-based Jenn Feng Co., Ltd. "This
partnership that we signed with NCU has resulted in a product that is
highly efficient and produced from a low-cost, zero-environmental
damage and highly modular concept," he said.

US Navy to fit Fiberstars LED lighting on ships

Fiberstars, Inc., has received $2.1 m in funding from DARPA to develop
and install high efficiency distributed lighting (HEDLight) systems on
three US Navy ships, a destroyer, an LHS amphibious ship and one other
ship.

This is the culmination of a DARPA's high efficiency distributed
lighting (HEDLight) program - the installations will be temporary and
will allow DARPA and the Navy to evaluate the new lighting technology.
Initially funded in 2003, HEDLight mandated development, based on
Fiberstars' EFO, of a highly efficient lighting system, which would
decrease maintenance costs and increase reliability of shipboard
lighting.

According to the contract, Fiberstars will install HEDLight systems in
engineering control rooms, hangar bays, berths, welldecks and
weatherdeck locations of the three ships. The current fluorescent and
incandescent lighting will be replaced by HEDLight systems, which
employ highly efficient metal halide high intensity discharge and LED
sources that are efficiently coupled to large core plastic optical
fiber and / or linear acrylic rods for distribution. Once installed,
9-month sea trials will commence which are expected to demonstrate
HEDLight's benefits of lower maintenance costs, increased lifetime,
efficiency and safety, and improved lighting.

Web: http://www.fiberstars.com