Another Semiconductor Revolution: This Time It's Lighting!

Abstract

Abstract.A 40 year old semiconductor technology, Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) has steadily improved performance and cost to a point where it will move from its home turf, signaling applications to the much larger market, general lighting. The white LEDs are building momentum at such a rapid rate that we predict a revolution in lighting comparable to blowing out the gaslights by Edison's incandescent lamp 100 years ago. One technology will compete for all applications from the smallest indicator lamp to the lighting system for sports stadiums. LEDs will provide superior performance and lower cost of ownership, at any point in this dynamic range of 11 orders of magnitude. A complete conversion to LED based lamps could reduce electricity consumption for lighting by up to 75% and reduce global coal production by approximately 600 Mtons/year. There is no single technology investment on the horizon with a better environmental benefits to cost ratio.

Solid‐state lighting: ‘The case’ 10 years after and future prospects

“…5 of Ref. [6], represented 35 years of red lm/lamp and 30 years of red $/lm data. The slope of the red lm/lamp trend line changed from 30x/decade in the 1999 graph to 20x/decade in the 2003 graph.…”

État de l'art de la science et technologie des systèmes d'éclairage : Economies d'énergie et Développement Durable

“…La figure 3 présente de façon synthétique les différentes familles de sources susceptibles d'être utilisées pour produire de la lumière ou pour assurer des fonctions de signalétique. En regardant de plus près, on y retrouve les familles de sources traditionnelles (ampoules incandescentes et lampes à décharge), mais aussi la famille des diodes électro-luminescentes qui a fait son entrée massive dans le monde de l'éclairage depuis plusieurs années maintenant 5 , ainsi que quelques nouveautés comme la lampe à agrégats et la lampe à émission de champs.…”

Physics related modeling of power LEDs

“…LED devices have developed rapidly over the last years with an average improvement of total radiant flux per package of 20 times per decade [1]. This has led to an improvement of the luminous efficacy and output power per device.…”