Strategies in Light 2008 pulls the crowds in Santa Clara

Strategies in Light 2008, held on February 11-13 in Santa Clara, California, attracted over 1500 participants from a total of 28 countries. The figure of 1500 includes conference attendees, exhibitors and those people who came just to look around the show floor, which had 52 exhibiting companies.

The conference itself was opened by Bob Steele of Strategies Unlimited, who gave his annual update and forecast for the HB-LED market – see LED market to grow by 12% in 2008.

IMS streetlights and MR16 The keynote presentation was given by Bas van de Kieft, Executive Vice President of Philips Lighting, who described Philips' ongoing commitment to solid-state lighting. "There is a very different business model for solid-state lighting versus conventional lighting, we [Philips] need to change but we are committed," said van de Kieft. "SSL won't wipe out CFLs any time soon – it depends on how quickly we can get costs down and efficiency up."

Bob Smith, director of Innovation and Advanced Engineering with Cooper Lighting, said that LED penetration in the lighting market is expected to grow significantly. However, he said, "the customer must not be over-sold or under-supplied." Smith estimated that the lighting fixture market by source would show an increase for LEDs from 2% in 2007 to 11% in 2012.

The more interesting presentations from Strategies in Light will be discussed in detail in an extended article in our April 2008 issue. Among the subjects will be; should LED makers pool all their patents and create a licensing program that everyone can benefit from? and; why does the industry need a trade association when many of its proposed activities are already happening?

Oakland street lights The event provided a good opportunity to visit the LED street-lighting installation in Oakland, which uses fixtures from Beta LED – see DOE releases Oakland LED streetlight demo report. The adjacent photo, courtesy of Pete Strasser of the International Dark-Sky Association, gives a very good representation of the street under LED lighting – very different from how adjacent streets appeared with conventional street lighting.

Lynk Labs Among the exhibitors, Lynk Labs was particularly pleased with the response to their XyLite AC LED modules. "We had a good deal of traffic in our booth and many lighting OEMs responding to XyLite as a result of the show," said Mike Miskin, Lynk Labs' CEO. The XyLite is built around a 1.1-watt hybrid AC module measuring 13.5 x 15 mm, and is scalable in x and y directions (see photo).

ROAL demonstrated its SignLINQ power management approach for LED signs. Generally, signs require multiple class 2 power supplies to convert AC into DC power. ROAL's approach has a Class 1 remote DC power feed that eliminates AC wiring to the sign as well as removing the need for power supplies within the sign. For more details, see SIL 2008: ROAL launches new MultiLINQ DC Power Splitter.

On the Seoul Semiconductor stand, and using Seoul LEDs, IMS Lighting showed a street lighting product using its Light Bar concept, as well as an LED MR16 lamp with patented optics that produces up to 210 lm at 4.7 W at a color temperature of 5700K.

Other product highlights unveiled at SIL 2008 included:

Osram Opto creates 120 bins for white LEDs

Heatron offers custom power solutions for high-power LED assemblies

Everlight XcelLED high-power LEDs with up to 90 lm/W in variety of packages

See the April issue of LEDs Magazine for our comprehensive review of the whole event.