LED luminaire makers that buy all their key components from Osram will now avoid payment of licensing fees under Philips' patent licensing program.
The two largest European lighting manufacturers, Royal Philips Electronics and Osram, have concluded a patent license agreement for LED-based technology used in luminaires.
Osram says that the agreement "will give the market for LED-based lighting a further boost." Philips described the agreement as "a next step in making the basic Philips LED control IP broadly available to accelerate the development of the market."
In June 2008, Philips announced a patent licensing program for LED-based luminaires – see news and related blog entry. Customers of Philips that purchase all key LED luminaire components from Philips already enjoy the advantage of not having to pay royalties under this licensing program.
Now, Osram has taken a license from Philips to obtain the same effect for Osram customers. In other words, LED luminaire manufacturers can now use key components from Osram without having to pay license fees to Philips.
Osram says that these "special rights" relate not only to patents held by Philips but also to patents held by Color Kinetics and TIR Systems, which were acquired by Philips last year.
According to Philips, this new arrangement also benefits Philips customers, because it includes royalty-free access to Osram LED system patents when purchasing all key components from Philips.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Time for the LED industry to come clean
COMMENTARY from the September/October issue of LEDs Magazine.
Compared with CFLs, replacement LED lamps have a number of advantages and drawbacks. While CFLs have for some years been marketed as energy-efficient light sources, LED lamps are only barely starting to become a viable alternative, reflecting the current performance and cost of LED products.
However, one factor may lead to the downfall of CFLs, to the ultimate benefit of LEDs. In a word: mercury. CFLs don’t contain much, but it’s there. Attitudes vary as to the dangers posed. There was the story of a broken CFL in a US home that resulted in a clean-up operation costing thousands of dollars. In contrast, I was recently sent four free CFLs by my UK electricity supplier. In a Q&A, the question “Should I be worried about mercury content” was answered with “No. The material involved doesn’t pose a significant health problem. If a bulb breaks ventilate the room for a few minutes.”
The truth is somewhere between these extremes, but there’s no doubt that the words “contains mercury” are not generally positive for any product. Consumer perception or legislation may eventually dictate that only zero mercury content is acceptable.
So what about LEDs? Well, there’s no mercury, so that’s a good start. Ideally, we would be able to say that LEDs contain no toxic materials at all and are fully recyclable, but it’s not clear this is the case. In fact, there are numerous types of LED containing many different materials, albeit in small quantities. Whether or not a single LED might cause a problem is a different issue from whether a large pile of LEDs in a landfill might result in contamination of groundwater.
California recently listed gallium arsenide (GaAs), a semiconductor material, as a carcinogen (see article). GaAs is used in some types of LED, primarily red, orange, amber and infrared devices, but it is not found at all in gallium nitride (GaN) LED chips that emit in the green, blue and UV regions and form the basis of white LEDs.
This is a hugely important distinction that was beyond the understanding of one blogger who wrote: “Given the increasing usage of GaAs, the main constituent in LEDs…there may be significant environmental concerns as related to their disposal… arguments that LEDs are more environmentally friendly than fluorescent lights containing mercury may be totally specious.” We can dismiss this as ill-informed rubbish, but wouldn’t it be better if we had some concrete data to throw back?
This is where the US DOE’s Life Cycle Analysis for Solid-State Lighting will come into its own. As described on page 21, the DOE has commissioned a study looking at the energy and environmental aspects related to the manufacturing, use and disposal or recycling of LEDs and SSL products.
LED manufacturing involves numerous steps, often with low yield, that consume some pretty nasty chemicals as well as lots of energy. The cost and environmental issues are dealt with by the LED makers, and reflected in the prices they charge. But that won’t satisfy the environmental lobby. So far, no-one seems able (or willing) to figure out how much energy is consumed by LED manufacturing compared with other light sources. It would be great to be able to say that LED manufacturing is more environmentally friendly, while also resulting in products that consume less energy. Let’s hope the DOE study yields the right results.
Compared with CFLs, replacement LED lamps have a number of advantages and drawbacks. While CFLs have for some years been marketed as energy-efficient light sources, LED lamps are only barely starting to become a viable alternative, reflecting the current performance and cost of LED products.
However, one factor may lead to the downfall of CFLs, to the ultimate benefit of LEDs. In a word: mercury. CFLs don’t contain much, but it’s there. Attitudes vary as to the dangers posed. There was the story of a broken CFL in a US home that resulted in a clean-up operation costing thousands of dollars. In contrast, I was recently sent four free CFLs by my UK electricity supplier. In a Q&A, the question “Should I be worried about mercury content” was answered with “No. The material involved doesn’t pose a significant health problem. If a bulb breaks ventilate the room for a few minutes.”
The truth is somewhere between these extremes, but there’s no doubt that the words “contains mercury” are not generally positive for any product. Consumer perception or legislation may eventually dictate that only zero mercury content is acceptable.
So what about LEDs? Well, there’s no mercury, so that’s a good start. Ideally, we would be able to say that LEDs contain no toxic materials at all and are fully recyclable, but it’s not clear this is the case. In fact, there are numerous types of LED containing many different materials, albeit in small quantities. Whether or not a single LED might cause a problem is a different issue from whether a large pile of LEDs in a landfill might result in contamination of groundwater.
California recently listed gallium arsenide (GaAs), a semiconductor material, as a carcinogen (see article). GaAs is used in some types of LED, primarily red, orange, amber and infrared devices, but it is not found at all in gallium nitride (GaN) LED chips that emit in the green, blue and UV regions and form the basis of white LEDs.
This is a hugely important distinction that was beyond the understanding of one blogger who wrote: “Given the increasing usage of GaAs, the main constituent in LEDs…there may be significant environmental concerns as related to their disposal… arguments that LEDs are more environmentally friendly than fluorescent lights containing mercury may be totally specious.” We can dismiss this as ill-informed rubbish, but wouldn’t it be better if we had some concrete data to throw back?
This is where the US DOE’s Life Cycle Analysis for Solid-State Lighting will come into its own. As described on page 21, the DOE has commissioned a study looking at the energy and environmental aspects related to the manufacturing, use and disposal or recycling of LEDs and SSL products.
LED manufacturing involves numerous steps, often with low yield, that consume some pretty nasty chemicals as well as lots of energy. The cost and environmental issues are dealt with by the LED makers, and reflected in the prices they charge. But that won’t satisfy the environmental lobby. So far, no-one seems able (or willing) to figure out how much energy is consumed by LED manufacturing compared with other light sources. It would be great to be able to say that LED manufacturing is more environmentally friendly, while also resulting in products that consume less energy. Let’s hope the DOE study yields the right results.
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