Strategies in Light Europe – Day 1 Summary

On Wednesday November 20th in the MOC event center in Munich (Germany) the fourth edition of the Strategies in Light Europe conference began. Over 1000 people registered.

The first day a number of activities took place which were very interesting. There were three workshop on different topics (Quality metrics for Solid-State Lighting, SSL measurement, Replacement Lamp Tear Down workshop) and there was the investors forum that aims to address some of the principle questions asked by investors regarding investment opportunities in SSL businesses.

In the opening presentation an overview was given on some of the trends in SSL. In 2012 the market for packaged LED is estimated to have been 13.3 B$ and is expected to grow to almost 20 B$ in 2017 (8% CAGR). In 2012 the market for packaged LED for Lighting applications was 3.3 B$ and for the first time larger that packaged LED for display applications. 70% of the supplies come from the top 10 players in this market such as Nichia, Samsung, Seoul Semi, Osram, Cree and Philips Lumileds. Especially the mid power LED’s showed an above average growth. The LED lamp+luminaire market has grown from 9.4 to 12.4 B$ in 2012 versus 2011. In particular, the retrofit lamp market saw a strong increase i.e. 2.1 (2011) to 2.8 (2012) to 3.8 (forecast 2013) B$.

Presentations from Seoul Semicon and TSMC gave a good overview of the investments made in LED for lighting. In a presentation by Cree some of the important trends were mentioned: more focus on color/lumen maintenance, lumen/Watt will decrease in importance, connectivity/compatibility drive growth. Other companies that presented their approach to the LED market were: Zumtobel (30% of sales based on LED technology compared to 6% three years ago), Dialight (focus on niche markets  such as  signalling and explosion proof lighting solutions), Xicato (stressed the importance of color rendering/stability through their color consistency warranty program), Cambridge Nanotherm (new approach to thermal management using a nanocrystaline layer). There were two presentations (mLED and InfiniLed)  of the use of micro LED’s in applications that require high brightness in directional lighting applications such as digital projection and heads-up displays. In the presentation by Digital Lumen the key theme was that the future of lighting is intelligent: digital, networked, personalized, energy-aware and responsive. The use of 3D printers can be seen in all kinds of applications. Luxexcel presented the use of 3D technology to prototype/manufacture optical lenses for LED’s. This approach allows for designing and prototyping new lens solutions in a few days. Cooledge showed an interesting way of making a flexible plastic foil with LED’s mounted on it. Product to be launched at Light+Building in 2014. After Eoin Billing inspired the audience by a view on the LED market from a lighting designers perspective, the last presentation of the day was by SORAA on their MR16 LED based product using GaN-on-GaN technology.

The presentations were followed by a forum discussion.  It was an interesting day with a good variety of presentations that gave insight into what some of the key players and newcomers are working on.

If you want to find out what happened on Day 2, you can read it here.

Written by our special correspondent, Bas van de Kieft, in Munich.

20 Nov