Does The Future Belong To LED?
- Posted by admin
- April 1st, 2010
- Under: HDTV
Not so many years ago LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) were only ever seen in instrument panels – trusty little green and red indicators that told you what some box or other was doing. No one ever took much notice of them since they never seemed to fail and it was only if you got up close you realized that for tiny little lights they were awfully bright.
Hardly top of anyone’s list as one of the major technologies for the 21st Century and almost certainly its dominant form of lighting. But combine the exponential growth associated with all electronic developments with a helping hand from the global backlash against fossil fuels and the obvious flaws with traditional incandescent lights, and it soon becomes clear why LED is set to be the light of the future.
Among the most pressing problems facing society right now is the unavoidable depletion of the fuel that powered the 20th Century – oil. We cannot create new oil, so the only plausible solution is to use less of what is left. To that end we need to switch from using a lighting technology that literally burns 90% of its input energy to a more green technology. The phased elimination of incandescent light bulbs has been underway for some years now and continues apace, which leaves a problem: what to use instead?
The established form of low energy lighting is CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamps) which are about 4 times more efficient at converting electricity into light, but they come with a price (they’re not very nice and contain mercury) and the technology underpinning them already has its future behind it. LEDs, at 10 times better, are without doubt the most efficient alternative but LEDs surely aren’t up to the task of fully lighting the modern world are they?
Well, let’s see how things have moved on recently. From a niche market in battery powered torches and the like, LEDs started becoming popular a couple of year back in the automotive industry for high intensity brake lights and also in traffic lights and street signage. Anyone who has been to a concert recently may also have noticed the wonderful lighting effects that can instantly switch between a huge range of colors and patterns – those would be LED stage lights that run cool to the touch and save big bucks in running costs.
Moving closer to home it’s already clear that LED landscape lighting has well and truly parked its tanks on the lawn so to speak. And although it has only just started to appear as we enter the second decade of the century, LED home lighting has become genuinely possible for a number of applications (for now, mainly those addressed by flexible strips and spot lights).
But, you might say, LEDs are still not bright enough and anyway they cost too much. Not actually true – cheap LEDs are definitely not up to scratch for domestic use, but high quality lamps certainly are. And as regards cost, the purchase price of the bulb is almost totally irrelevant; the damage is done by the running costs and LEDs cost 10 times less and last easily 50 times longer so that higher purchase price is paid back many times over.
But what really seals the fate of lighting technology is Haitz’s Law which mirrors Moore’s Law for semiconductors and states that every 10 years LEDs increase in power by 20 times and decrease in cost by 10 times. Put another way, they double in power every 18 months.
Whatever the price and power now, LEDs are just going keep on getting ever more attractive ever more quickly. This is one of those rare times where in one narrow field we can see what the future holds with near certainty – LEDs everywhere.
Popularity: 21% [?]
Not so many years ago LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) were only ever seen in instrument panels – trusty little green and red indicators that told you what some box or other was doing. No one ever took much notice of them since they never seemed to fail and it was only if you got up close you realized that for tiny little lights they were awfully bright.
Hardly top of anyone’s list as one of the major technologies for the 21st Century and almost certainly its dominant form of lighting. But combine the exponential growth associated with all electronic developments with a helping hand from the global backlash against fossil fuels and the obvious flaws with traditional incandescent lights, and it soon becomes clear why LED is set to be the light of the future.
Among the most pressing problems facing society right now is the unavoidable depletion of the fuel that powered the 20th Century – oil. We cannot create new oil, so the only plausible solution is to use less of what is left. To that end we need to switch from using a lighting technology that literally burns 90% of its input energy to a more green technology. The phased elimination of incandescent light bulbs has been underway for some years now and continues apace, which leaves a problem: what to use instead?
The established form of low energy lighting is CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamps) which are about 4 times more efficient at converting electricity into light, but they come with a price (they’re not very nice and contain mercury) and the technology underpinning them already has its future behind it. LEDs, at 10 times better, are without doubt the most efficient alternative but LEDs surely aren’t up to the task of fully lighting the modern world are they?
Well, let’s see how things have moved on recently. From a niche market in battery powered torches and the like, LEDs started becoming popular a couple of year back in the automotive industry for high intensity brake lights and also in traffic lights and street signage. Anyone who has been to a concert recently may also have noticed the wonderful lighting effects that can instantly switch between a huge range of colors and patterns – those would be LED stage lights that run cool to the touch and save big bucks in running costs.
Moving closer to home it’s already clear that LED landscape lighting has well and truly parked its tanks on the lawn so to speak. And although it has only just started to appear as we enter the second decade of the century, LED home lighting has become genuinely possible for a number of applications (for now, mainly those addressed by flexible strips and spot lights).
But, you might say, LEDs are still not bright enough and anyway they cost too much. Not actually true – cheap LEDs are definitely not up to scratch for domestic use, but high quality lamps certainly are. And as regards cost, the purchase price of the bulb is almost totally irrelevant; the damage is done by the running costs and LEDs cost 10 times less and last easily 50 times longer so that higher purchase price is paid back many times over.
But what really seals the fate of lighting technology is Haitz’s Law which mirrors Moore’s Law for semiconductors and states that every 10 years LEDs increase in power by 20 times and decrease in cost by 10 times. Put another way, they double in power every 18 months.
Whatever the price and power now, LEDs are just going keep on getting ever more attractive ever more quickly. This is one of those rare times where in one narrow field we can see what the future holds with near certainty – LEDs everywhere.
Popularity: 21% [?]