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Hot debut in even hotter market: Oree's LED-based planar lighting
Patrick Mannion
8/13/2010 5:06 PM EDT
LEDs are hot, really hot. So when I got a call asking if I’d spend a few minutes with a startup claiming to have the next big thing in LED lighting, I jumped on it. And I wasn’t disappointed.
The company is Oree Inc., taken from the Hebrew for light (or) and which translates to ‘my light’. It has developed a new way of packaging off-the-shelf LED die with state-of-the-art micro optics to realize a low-cost, thermally stable, uniform LED area light source that can produce up to 100 Lumens per Watt.
“That’s twice anything else that’s on the market today,” said its CEO, Eran Fine, who managed to turn my few minutes into a really fast full-hour conversation.
Catch a quick synopsys of that conversation in the video here, where Fine shows the LED lights in action and summarizes the key attributes, characteristics, performance specs and innovations. In essence, he makes the case that its planar light sources eliminate the tradeoffs between thickness, uniformity and efficiency.
The technology is called LightCell and while the company has been quietly sampling for a few months now, it is still so new that Fine went through permutations of the spelling and format of the name as we were chatting.
The site launched this week (www.oree-inc.com) and that launch was quickly followed by the announcement yesterday (August 12th) that the LED chip supplier to Oree, Taiwan-based Epistar Corporation has invested in Oree and its technology.
According to BJ Lee, chairman of Epistar, Oree’s is a ‘game-changing’ technology. I have to side with him on this, and to have one of the largest LED die makers in the world first partner, then invest, in your LED-based innovation has to auger well for what you’re doing.
What’s so interesting about LightCell is its simplicity and effectiveness. It’s not a brand new semiconductor technology so it doesn’t have the growing pains associated with that. Instead, it uses Epistar’s chips, which it then packages with micro-optic techniques and technologies that turn that LED-based point light source into an ultra-thin uniform surface with excellent thermal qualities.
Fig. 1: LightCell combines off-the-shelf LED chips with advanced micro optics to eliminate the tradeoffs between uniformity, efficiency and thickness.
While many LED-based area lighting sources depend on an array of closely matched LEDs that are driven by advanced LED drivers that ensure constant current through each to keep that light uniform across the surface, LightCell instead uses a passive approach, with a polymer-based waveguide with micro-optics for inserting and extracting the light efficiently and uniformly from the entire surface.
A continuation of this micro-optic treatment also works to prevent light from naturally bleeding from the edges, so it stays focused on the surface. In essence, the light guides control the incoupling, outcoupling and boundaries.
In total, LightCell is encompassed by 26 patents, all of which relate to either the packaging of the light source, the integration or, “the way we create the white light, through either phosphor or single source,” said Fine.
The end application is area lighting for both ceilings and desk lamps, and other applications . “We are a light source for fixture makers,” said Fine. Like I said, they’re currently sampling, but plan to be in production by year’s end and in fixtures by mid 2011.
Fig. 2: The target application for LightCell is lighting fixtures, where Oree's CEO Eran Fine promises quick and efficient replacement and lower overall system cost.
The lamps measure 6 mm thick, and come in RGB with an output of 40 Lumens. The warm white version is also 40 Lumens, with a color rendering index of over 85 % (vs. 82 % for CFL) and the full-white at 100 Lumens/W will emerge in Q2 2011 with a CRI of over 82%.
Interesting launch in a market that’s set to explode. What say you?
Fig. 3: The 100 Lumens/Watt version will emerge in 2011.
The company is Oree Inc., taken from the Hebrew for light (or) and which translates to ‘my light’. It has developed a new way of packaging off-the-shelf LED die with state-of-the-art micro optics to realize a low-cost, thermally stable, uniform LED area light source that can produce up to 100 Lumens per Watt.
“That’s twice anything else that’s on the market today,” said its CEO, Eran Fine, who managed to turn my few minutes into a really fast full-hour conversation.
Catch a quick synopsys of that conversation in the video here, where Fine shows the LED lights in action and summarizes the key attributes, characteristics, performance specs and innovations. In essence, he makes the case that its planar light sources eliminate the tradeoffs between thickness, uniformity and efficiency.
The technology is called LightCell and while the company has been quietly sampling for a few months now, it is still so new that Fine went through permutations of the spelling and format of the name as we were chatting.
The site launched this week (www.oree-inc.com) and that launch was quickly followed by the announcement yesterday (August 12th) that the LED chip supplier to Oree, Taiwan-based Epistar Corporation has invested in Oree and its technology.
According to BJ Lee, chairman of Epistar, Oree’s is a ‘game-changing’ technology. I have to side with him on this, and to have one of the largest LED die makers in the world first partner, then invest, in your LED-based innovation has to auger well for what you’re doing.
What’s so interesting about LightCell is its simplicity and effectiveness. It’s not a brand new semiconductor technology so it doesn’t have the growing pains associated with that. Instead, it uses Epistar’s chips, which it then packages with micro-optic techniques and technologies that turn that LED-based point light source into an ultra-thin uniform surface with excellent thermal qualities.
Fig. 1: LightCell combines off-the-shelf LED chips with advanced micro optics to eliminate the tradeoffs between uniformity, efficiency and thickness.
While many LED-based area lighting sources depend on an array of closely matched LEDs that are driven by advanced LED drivers that ensure constant current through each to keep that light uniform across the surface, LightCell instead uses a passive approach, with a polymer-based waveguide with micro-optics for inserting and extracting the light efficiently and uniformly from the entire surface.
A continuation of this micro-optic treatment also works to prevent light from naturally bleeding from the edges, so it stays focused on the surface. In essence, the light guides control the incoupling, outcoupling and boundaries.
In total, LightCell is encompassed by 26 patents, all of which relate to either the packaging of the light source, the integration or, “the way we create the white light, through either phosphor or single source,” said Fine.
The end application is area lighting for both ceilings and desk lamps, and other applications . “We are a light source for fixture makers,” said Fine. Like I said, they’re currently sampling, but plan to be in production by year’s end and in fixtures by mid 2011.
Fig. 2: The target application for LightCell is lighting fixtures, where Oree's CEO Eran Fine promises quick and efficient replacement and lower overall system cost.
The lamps measure 6 mm thick, and come in RGB with an output of 40 Lumens. The warm white version is also 40 Lumens, with a color rendering index of over 85 % (vs. 82 % for CFL) and the full-white at 100 Lumens/W will emerge in Q2 2011 with a CRI of over 82%.
Interesting launch in a market that’s set to explode. What say you?
Fig. 3: The 100 Lumens/Watt version will emerge in 2011.
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patrick.mannion
8/13/2010 9:41 PM EDT
The combination of stable technologies repackaged in an innovative fashion to solve a real-world problem in a hot market is hard to ignore. Add to that the backing of on of the world's largest suppliers to that market and it seems Oree and its planar lighting technology would seem to have a good future. What do you think?
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jg_
8/14/2010 12:41 AM EDT
100 lm/W (on the light guide) is a little hard to decode, but note that Cree recently claimed 208 lm/W for a single LED.
http://www.cree.com/press/press_detail.asp?i=1265232091259
This pushes LEDs well ahead of fluorescents.
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Iain Kyle
1/19/2011 12:00 PM EST
Absorption within the light guide mean that any "light guide system" lm/Watt figure is going to be less than the LED source.
Keeping optical path lengths short, Coupling of light from the LED into the light guide and re-cycling any light that would otherwise escape from the wrong part of the light guide are all important.
Maintaining efficiency and uniformity over larger light guides becomes exponentially more difficult!
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kdboyce
8/14/2010 1:35 AM EDT
This Lightcell technology is really very interesting. However, I would like to have further information about the possible bigger sizes of these panels. It is clear that multiple LED's could be placed anywhere along the panel provided the optics for spreading and keeping the light uniform could be maintained per LED group, as well as the thermal management of the whole panel. How much "interference" would there be between 2 or more groups of LED's?
There is no info on the Oree site about the driver complexity, although the video Patrick refers to indicates simple drive electronics. Still it would be nice to know now.
There is additional info at:
http://www2.electronicproducts.com/Fundamentals_of_LED_planar_lighting-article-farc_oree_may2010-html.aspx
But the questions still remain.
Anyone know how well Oree is positioned to do the manufacturing, or will they have to outsource somewhere?
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info@Oree
8/16/2010 5:50 AM EDT
The LightCell products extracts a uniform light from a panel that is 50x50 mm. Building large surfaces is done in a modular approach, placing several LightCells together to create a large panel of any size. The LightCell is designed to maintain the uniformity between all LightCells in the fixture and create a large and uniform lighting surface. Our unique on-board sensing mechanism will assure that this uniformity will be preserved through changes in temperature and over time.
The electrical interface is indeed simple and can be operated by standard drivers available in the market.
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hm
8/14/2010 9:28 AM EDT
LED light source looks to be very promising future. I hope the light they emit is good to our children’s eye and do not have any other short or long term side effects. I suggest there should be some standards, certifications, approval authorities and vendors should mark their products accordingly. I may like to introduce few embedded intelligence to this optoelectronic device. At many places in office, mall and home we can have considerable savings of energy by automating on/off control of this LED lamps. Can vendor introduce motion detection and possibly ambient light sensors along with semiconductor switch to these lamps? This will automate switching of lamp and saves energy. Also, is it possible to have these LED lamps with tiny embedded CCD camera and power-line or wireless Ethernet communications to help in introducing security features to places without any additional installation expenses? The communication can further automate the switching and also control variable output intensity. The total cost of lamp should not exceed $5 each.
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UdaraW
8/14/2010 5:05 PM EDT
Yes, I do agree with “hm” over there on the safety concerns. While I appreciate the Oree Inc. for bringing out to marketplace an efficient technology and for being a remarkable new venture that it is, I can not under-emphasize the importance the requirement of some kind of standardization framework for LED-based lighting.
LED-based light products is a hot market, and players emerge with interesting innovations in an economic sense. However, on an eye-safety standpoint, all these innovators might not measure up adequately. For an example, most LED-based light sources used in advertising industry, seems to have little care for the safety of the eyes of the by-standers, while they aim for visibility and clarity at audiences at longer range. Further, even some of the domestic light products aimed to produce ‘warm-white’ seems to have poor control of the emitting angle of the light. These are some of the issues I have observed about LED-based products.
Now that LED-lighting industry has been around for few years and gaining strength, it is good time that a global standardization organization steps up. Control over the emission angle, uniformity of the optical-energy distribution, intensity levels suitable for each application areas (i.e., domestic/industrial, advertising: hoarding-height from nearest by-stander, hoarding distance from the nearest by-stander) are some of the parameters and standardization organization must look into.
At the present moment, LED-based domestic-lighting industry has not been around for long enough for an extensive study of the long-term eye-safety issues of LED based domestic lighting to be given consideration. However, if we ignore these health concerns now, when the actual health-effects surface in a decade or so on from now, we would be too late to remedy the damage done. Therefore, in my view, it is high time that an industry-wide standardization of optical sources on a health stand-point is given thorough thought.
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GREAT-Terry
8/16/2010 2:33 AM EDT
Agree with the health concern that LED industry has brought along. We need some more medical advice especially it is not difficult for LED/semiconductor to emit "unseen" radiation. A well controlled LED manufacturing standard should also imposed so that no harmful emission can be found.
Anyway, LED is still a very promising technology that people can enjoy the benefit of better energy efficient at the end of the day.
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goafrit
8/16/2010 7:45 AM EDT
Interesting article on what new innovative startups can do to the industry. The reality is that when the startup industry is healthy, the nation is better off. However, this industry does not have any standard benchmark. We need to develop one so that we can handle the health and environmental issues associated with LED. This is important as new innovations are expected to flood the market as we transition from lab to market.
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LarryM99
8/16/2010 12:29 PM EDT
This has the potential to be a real shift in the way that lighting is used. I am curious if the lighting designer community is aware of this and what they think of it. Uniform lighting from a surface would do very strange things to shadows, for example. This is the kind of change may take some time for people to get comfortable with. On the other hand, put it in the hands of a designer that can do interesting things with it and it could take off very quickly.
Larry M.
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Bob Lacovara
8/16/2010 12:49 PM EDT
A) Somebody tell me about the "unseen" radiation that one would get from an LED or LED/phosphor system. These things are so useful that if they gave off UV A they'd still have a use. Of course, I don't want to sit at home reading with sunglasses on. ;-)
B) Oree: make some with polarizers in the upper layer. Large sheets of light are great for product photography, and better still, polarized light give the photographer some interesting options. At the moment, I have to buy 17" wide sheets of polarizing film. Sure, not the largest market, but...
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Peter Aleff
8/20/2010 4:49 PM EDT
It is encouraging to see how many of the commenters here are concerned about the safety of the light emitted by LEDs. This is particularly important for young eyes because our lenses become yellowish only as they age. They let through most of the most damaging wavelengths in the "blue-light-hazard" region until our late teens or early twenties.
Virtually all fluorescent lamps emit their strongest radiation spike at 435.8 nanometers which is in the blue-violet region and right in the middle of the wavelength region between 430 and 440 nm which the U.S. Occupational Safety Guidelines have determined to cause the most damage in all mammalian eyes.
For a discussion of these risks, see "Is fluorescent light safe for children's eyes?" at http://retinopathyofprematurity.org/maculardegeneration.htm.
These dangers have been widely ignored for fluorescent lamps, but the concerns raised here about the safety of light from LEDs justify the hope that this dismal blindness to the blinding potential of fluorescent light will not carry over into the evaluation of LEDs where the offencing wavelengths may be easier to avoid.
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patrick.mannion
8/21/2010 12:46 PM EDT
From the market opportunity for Oree's planar technology to the potential dangers of LED lighting, the feedback here has been fantastic, thanks guys.
I'm moderating an Ask The Experts virtual panel (go to www.eetimes.com/lighting) this coming Thursday (August 26th.). The focus is on LED selection, design and implementation challenges and solutions, and the panelists will be experts from Digi-Key, who deal with these issues every day and are primed and ready to answer all these questions, and more.
Thanks to the feedback here, I'll be adding LED safety and the potential for planar lighting and other emerging technologies, to the list of up-front questions. If you have more, let me know here, or better again, log in this Thursday to the panel and them there, first hand.
'See' you there!
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lifewingmate
8/31/2010 2:13 AM EDT
I wonder how Oree's products, especially LightCell, will catch on in the green energy market. This is fantastic technological advancement. Congratulations to your team! Do you partner with Cree?
My colleague who works at a similar company tells me the following..."Cree, is a medium-size company that is quickly expanding with the green energy boom. Last quarter the company hit 3/4 billion dollar revenue mark and is well on its way to be the leader in the LED industry, that is estimated to grow 5 fold in the next 5 years. Cree manufactures 40% of the public lights in Las Angelos, 100% of the public lights in Alaska, and 80% of the lights in North Carolina. In addition Cree's LED lighting was used to light the Olympic Cube in the Beijing 2008 Olympics. That displayed alone used 440,000 of our lights!"
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twk
9/8/2010 5:53 PM EDT
I recently completed a home shop building and illuminated it with 26 two tube T8 fluorescent fixtures. These were chosen based primarily on cost. They cost me less than $30 each including lamps. I note that Cree is selling where the initial cost is not a problem both because of extremely high maintenance cost as well as relative insensitivity to cost in the overall sense. I see no comment here about the cost of this approach. I would love to install this or some other LED based illumination and am capable of even building the fixtures if industry has not yet done so. Thus far I have not discovered ANY LED approach (either fixtures or parts)that comes closer than about ten times the basic fluorescent. I think you folks have a very long way to go to begin to displace long standing illumination types but I cheer you on with enthusiasm while you get your market from those with big pockets hoping someone finally brings the cost in range for plain old folks.
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Bob Lacovara
9/9/2010 8:20 AM EDT
twk's comment is quite appropriate. LED lighting is pretty expensive right now. I built something vaguely similar to twk's project, and I suspect that we made similar cost projections. I do some photography of costume jewelry: I wanted large, uniform lighting fixtures. LEDs are fabulous: easy to control brightness, and to control the change in brightness across the 17" by 24" fixture; color can be modified, runs (relatively) cool. But the final design consisted of 3 dual tube 24" fixtures with T12 bulbs. Several color temperatures are available, and there was no other way to get the intensity levels that I wanted at a cost I could afford. LEDs are on my menu, but I have to wait until they are far less expensive. That time is coming, I suspect.
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agk
12/26/2010 6:49 AM EST
Light cell technology mentioned here uses 50 mm by 50 mm panels. For larger sizes multiple panels need to be used where as with organic led technology larger size panels are available.
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ReneCardenas
5/31/2011 7:54 PM EDT
But what about tunable color light sources?, is that still in the horizon that LED lighting fixtures may be able to tune room lighting according to user preference?
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takenmark
4/7/2013 5:18 AM EDT
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