The Air LED’s
Singapore, 30th October 2014
As I was reading some of the literature from the fair on my way back to Singapore last night, one article specifically struck me. It was an article in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post with a report on one of the manufacturers that had launched a new innovative LED technology, it seems to call the Air LED. The article states that the technology is developed by Lau Kei-may, who is a professor at the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the University of Science and Engineering and telecommunications developer James Wang, who founded start-up company Cledos International just a year ago. They claim the new LED bulb is 25% more energy efficient than existing LED bulbs as they managed to considerably reduce the heat element in the bulb. As we all know heat dissipation in LED chips is one of the biggest challenges, resulting in some really ugly shaped lamps and luminaires. The Air LED claims that it emits light through a waffle shaped plastic component that removes the need for transformers (drivers?) to transfer electricity between circuits. I would have loved to go see this “innovation”. Yes, I am a bit sceptical, but would not be surprised that indeed innovations of this kind are possible.
This reality was further reinforced as I was googling additional information on the net and unexpectedly stumbled on Cree’s latest press release (date only the day before yesterday) that their engineers had managed to develop a heat sink-less LED lamp. Claimed to be dimmable as well the lamps will be much cheaper as not surprisingly the costs of thermal management in LED’s can cost up to 30% of the total product costs. Losing the heat sink also allows Cree to lose the always awkward looking metal structures used to dissipate heat. Interestingly here also it is claimed that convection (air flow) is at the core of this new development. As the LED chip diode heats up, air is drawn from outside through small vent-like openings at the base and the top and because hot air rises air flows continuously through the bulb to keep the LED chips cool. The press release claims that air flows regardless of the position of the lamp.
Two interesting and seemingly related developments…something to keep an eye on…
Light Watch 5-184: The article from the SCMP and the release picture from the Cree bulb…
More can be found on the Cree website: http://www.cree.com/
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