LED lighting pursuit of high efficiency should also pay attention to "light quality"

Xicato, USA, will promote high-power LED lighting modules to replace halogen lamps. The company not only sells products with luminous flux of 400lm, 700lm, and 1000lm, but also adds 1300lm products in October 2010 and adds 2000lm products from the end of 2010 to the beginning of 2011 (see this site's report). A few days ago, the reporter interviewed Mark Pugh, president of the company, about Xicato's business objectives in the field of LED lighting.

Reporter: Please talk about the reasons for the halogen lamp replacement product business.

Pugh: Replacing halogen lamps with LEDs not only drastically reduces power consumption, but also eliminates the need to replace light sources due to the long life advantages. It takes only about two years to recover the initial investment in LED lighting fixtures. This is the biggest reason. It takes 5 years to replace the halogen lamp with the bulb type fluorescent lamp to recover the initial investment. Compared with the LED, the effect is more significant.

Although we are currently promoting products in Japan, the United States, and Europe, the initial products were launched on the European market. The reason is that we hope our products will be well received in Europe. Europe's electricity bills are high and its environmental awareness is also very strong. The most important thing is that Europe pays much attention to the quality of lighting, such as color rendering and color uniformity. The impression is that for manufacturers supplying lighting fixtures to places such as shops, hotels, and art galleries, the priority in light source selection is light quality, followed by energy efficiency. Therefore, although halogen lamps have low energy efficiency, halogen lamps are still widely used in Europe. In other words, even if these manufacturers knew that the energy loss would be less if they were replaced by LEDs, the use of halogen lamps has been a long way off from the use of LEDs that are prone to color maldistribution. Our product uses a technology called Remote Phosphor that separates LED chips from phosphors within the module, enabling uniform light intensity and color tone. Therefore, the company's products can eliminate the concerns of LED lighting manufacturers in Europe.

Reporter: When did you start putting products into the European market?

Pugh: The company began operations in 2007 after it was independently owned by Philips Lumileds Lighting. After the "XSM" product for replacing halogen lamps was developed in July 2008, it began introducing European lighting manufacturers and began mass production in December 2008. The amount of European adoption is large. For example, 700 stores in the UK have introduced the company's products.

I always think that "LEDs can be applied to lighting before and after 2008." And I also think that in order to differentiate the product, light quality is more important than light flux and luminous efficiency. I think the company's startup and product supply are very timely.

After European manufacturers, I think American manufacturers and Japanese manufacturers will also increase our use of LED modules. The Japanese market is very active in adopting LED lighting. Compared with the US market, our products are expected to be promoted in the Japanese market.

Reporter: What are the characteristics of Xicato's products in addition to light quality?

Pugh: Operating convenience of LED modules. Most lighting fixture manufacturers have previously purchased lamps as light sources from the outside when designing lighting fixtures. In the case of LED lighting, this is almost impossible at this stage. At this time, the light source can no longer be installed in a "plug and play" manner as before. In order to obtain the same light output power as a halogen lamp, it is necessary to use a plurality of LEDs (each having a small output power). In a sense, it can be said that lighting equipment manufacturers must make their own light source.

The company's product is a round LED module with a diameter of 45mm (thickness さ 17mm) used to replace the MR16 halogen lamp. There are three types of products: 400lm, 700lm, and 1000lm in brightness, and more brightness products will be added in the future. Lighting manufacturers only need to purchase the company's products like the purchase of halogen lamps, and install them on lighting fixtures. In this way, manufacturers of lighting fixtures do not have to manufacture light sources by themselves and can achieve plug-and-play as before.

Secondly, as long as the junction temperature of the lighting fixture and the LED module is below 90°C, it can be used. This is also a major advantage of our LED module. This reduces the number of heat sinks placed on the lighting fixture.

Reporter: Does reaching a high temperature of 90°C degrade the LED module?

Pugh: Our products use the Remote Phosphor technology, which enables work at high temperatures. By separating the blue LED chip forming the high temperature from the phosphor in the lighting process, the phosphor is prevented from being degraded after being heated, and the light emitting characteristics are significantly changed.

Reporter: The low-cost competition of LED lighting is intensifying, and it is estimated that it will become more intense in the future. Can Xicato, which emphasizes light quality, cope with this competition?

Pugh: In lighting applications where brightness and luminous efficiency are the first priority, cost competition will become increasingly fierce in the future, but lighting applications that emphasize light quality will not. In the field of lighting applications targeted by the company, lighting design companies will never choose products with low light quality. In fact, in the process of negotiating with a lighting design company that focuses on the quality of light, there is almost no product that can compete with the company's products. If lighting design companies are concerned with brightness and luminous efficiency, competitors should have emerged for a long time...

However, this does not mean that our products are not price competitive, or their luminous efficiency is worse than other products. By using Remote Phosphor technology, the blue LED chips packaged inside the LED module can use the products of many chip manufacturers. Due to the wide range of choices, the best chip can be selected according to the situation.

Reporter: Xicato plans to increase the brightness of high-light-quality LED modules to 1300lm and 2000lm in the future. Will there be any functions such as dimming that can change the light color in the future?

Pugh: There is this intention. The use of changing the color temperature of LED lighting in the morning, during the day and at night is getting more and more attention, but for us, this is not the top priority. We will expand the brighter alternative to halogen lamps while achieving high light quality. At this stage, we can only say that we have the idea of ​​changing the color temperature.