Focus on LED lighting -
CIE: The designer of an LED light has to not only offer a special power supply but also look to dissipate the heat which its new light source develops. How does EBV assist the lamp manufacturer in these cases?
BL: First of all, I must be perfectly honest about one thing: we cannot do everything. But this is precisely the
CIE: In recent times, there have been more and more news stories that the raw materials for manufacturing specific semiconductors or devices could grow scarce. Do you see a danger here, and can the distributors counteract this?
BL: Answering this question is part of our strategy. When it comes to establishing a supply chain, we see it as our duty to respond to the concerns of our customers and of their suppliers. To this end, we must know our customers’ goals and ideas and inform the manufacturers of the relevant requirements so that they can organise their production capacities in such a way that the customer does not experience any bottlenecks at the point of production start-up. In other words, we primarily see our role as working together with our customers in order to understand what they are developing. These form the basis for our forecasts with
reason why we have created our ecosystem. With regard to the question of heat dissipation, we are working with the Swedish company Aluwave. This company has developed an innovative circuit board, marketed under the name Alunat. This product is a multi-layer, ceramic- based circuit board with which electronic assemblies can be cooled efficiently.
In general, we also use our partners’ expertise and refer our customers to these companies when necessary. For example, in Germany we work with Soluxion, a company that can assist a lamp manufacturer in developing a product from the initial design through to the production stage.
CIE: In lighting technology, the light bulb socket and later on the socket for luminescent tubes were regarded as paradigms for standardisation. Could you ever see EBV playing a major role in a standardisation initiative for LED lighting?
BL: We believe that it is not particularly likely that such a consortium will be founded. What we can see in the various manufacturers is that they want to differentiate themselves from the competition. We can also see this when it comes to the manufacturers of components. They prefer to adapt to specific applications instead of trying to achieve standardisation. In addition, we are working in an industry in which technical development moves forward very quickly, so quickly in fact that it is barely possible to establish standards here. There are therefore hardly any standards in the LED industry.
CIE: In your opinion, what technical obstacles are standing in the way of a breakthrough in LED lighting?
BL: When we look back at the previous development of LEDs, we can see that what was always at stake for the LED manufacturers was improving efficiency, i.e. increasing the lumen per watt. To achieve this, an entire series of technological difficulties had to be overcome. Today, however, the manufacturers are supplying us with LEDs with brightnesses and levels of efficiency that exceed what we used to call the ‘magic limit’ only a few years ago. Naturally, there is still a ‘magic limit’ with the ‘lumen per dollar’, but it is to be expected that the level of efficiency can be further increased while also lowering costs.
which we keep our suppliers up to date.
Instead of just ordering and supplying, our rule of thumb is to anticipate market developments and provide sufficient inventories. This also applies in all divisions and, allows us to assist our customers to the best of our ability by balancing out the high- and low-points in production.
However, the central focus remains working closely together with our customers so that we are involved, right from the start of a new development.
EBV |
www.ebv.com Bruce Lynch is Segment Director for the Lighting Division at EBV
Q&A
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