Technology and Innovation Create Value in Lighting Products

By MICHELLE HSU

After three decades of development, Taiwan's LED industry has secured a leading position in the international market in terms of both manufacturing technology and production value. It currently commands a global market share of around 20%, trailing only Japan and equal to South Korea.

The growing application of LED lighting products is expected to bring infinite business opportunities, encouraging LED manufacturers to engage in research aimed at developing products with higher energy efficiency and innovative value.

Lextar Electronics
Lextar Electronics, established in 2008 as a subsidiary of the AUO Optronics Group, is currently the only Taiwanese LED manufacturer whose products cover upstream parts like epis, chips, and LED packaging as well as downstream LED lighting products.

Thanks to this unique vertical integration, Lextar is able to offer a wide range of LED products and has built up a worldwide sales network covering China, the U.S., Europe, and Japan.

After years of research, Lextar introduced its “Smart Lighting” at the Taipei Photonics Festival 2011, a three-day trade show held on June 14-16. Customers using “Smart Lighting” can control lighting tinge and color temperature remotely, using an Android-powered hand unit, and Lextar highlighted this function by installing a Smart Lighting Area in its booth at the festival. There, visitors could experience the intimate interaction between lighting and people by adjusting the lighting ambiance.

Vantenge Technology
Vantenge Technology, a company widely admired as a rising star in lighting design, sees a bumper year in 2011 as its AZOREA Lighting won the Golden Pin Design Award 2011, sponsored by the Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and presented by the Taiwan Design Center.

The company's L Lighting Series also impressed the industry when it made its debut at the Taipei Photonics Festival 2011. The L Lighting Series features light weight and a wide angle of illumination. The creative design of the new series uses a new metal alloy for the lighting shade, allowing the core bulb chip to be attached directly to the shade. This not only strengthens the heat conductivity of the shade, but also makes use of the shade to enhance brightness—an innovative structure that enhances the functional value of the light shade and saves energy at the same time.

Vantenge Technology has been engaged in lighting design for 15 years, accumulating the experience and confidence it needed to introduce its own “Modgen” brand this summer.

The company's innovative product design is mainly generated by its own R&D team, called JJ Studio, which boasts talent from the fields of industrial design, semiconductors, material application & integration, and even architecture. According to chief designer Chao Yi-ching, Vantenge will develop green architecture as its core business, combining green lighting with green construction to provide a more eco-friendly lighting environment.

In pursuit of this goal, Vantenge has teamed up with several partners, including VisEra Technologies, a spin-off from the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) as an independent image sensor foundry, the Holy Group, Kwo-Light Corp., and Sertek Inc., with the aim of expanding its LED lighting business.

　　

Iovision Photoelectric
Iovision Photoelectric, established in July 2007, is another Taiwan-based company which has received several awards for its lighting products. Last year it won Golden Prizes from the ROC Fine Manufacturer Association for three innovative products—a headlight with zoom focus, an LED light with changeable fixture, and a changeable LED steel frame. All three products feature eco-friendly design and high energy efficiency.

Iovision Photoelectric, which was originally set up as a manufacturer of opto-electronic products, entered the field of LED lighting in 2008 and developed the green lighting business based on its on its expertise experience in the opto-electronics field.

Iovision's president Shen Feng-rei is a prominent opto-electronic expert, and he has led his company in developing innovative LED lighting products by using its opto-electronic know-how and experience. The award-winning items, for example, are all LED products featuring opto-electronic functions—they are all highly energy efficient, and are easy to assemble and disassemble. The company claims that they are 40-55% more energy efficient than traditional bulbs, with a life cycle up to ten times longer. In addition, these products have a special design that allows them to replace traditional bulbs without changing existing lighting fixtures.

According to Shen, the company's headlight with zoom focus incorporates a high-factor LED bulb, and its zooming focus is a patented design—users can simply turn the headlight to expand its focus up to 10 times. The new waterproof lighting fixture is suitable for indoor or outdoor use. The aluminum light shade is a highly efficient heat conductor, which extends the lighting product's life cycle; the product also offers three lighting modes—string light, weak light, and flashing light—for users to choose from.

Shen believes that the application of LED lighting in daily life is bringing on a new phase for the lighting industry, and he intends for Iovision Photoelectric to develop even more innovative and energy-efficient lighting products in the years to come.

Ecolumina Technologies
Ecolumina Technologies was established in 2008 and concentrates on the design and production of highly energy-efficient lighting products. Its Haiperion HGD outdoor lighting series was recently named by LIGHTFAIR International (LFI) as a winner of the Innovation Award.

According to the company's president, Kuo Chien-chih, the Haiperion HGD boasts three major characteristics—high energy efficiency, light weight, and ease of maintenance—and is suitable for both indoor and outdoor use. It also incorporates an intelligent electronic ballast with patented extendable functions. Compared to traditional bulbs, the Haiperion HGD is claimed to provide energy savings of 80% and to reduce Co2 emission by 80% as well. .

Confident of its product quality, Ecolumina Technologies uses a variant of its name, “EcoLumina,” as the brand name of its products in the international market.

LFI is an international lighting show that was held in Philadelphia for the first time on May 17-19 this year, attracting nearly 500 exhibitors and over 20,000 visitors, making it the biggest LFI ever. Ecolumina was there, for the second time, and its innovative lighting products again caught the spotlight—especially the Haiperiod HGD, which took the Innovation Award.

Ecolumina numbers several prominent companies among its customers. One is Taipei's Grand Hotel, which uses the company's down lights in its Golden Dragon Hall and parking lot. According to the hotel, Ecolumina's down lights make its parking lot much brighter, and their wide-angle illumination covers dead corners that the past lighting equipment missed.

LemTech Holdings
LemTech Holdings is the first China-based Taiwanese-run enterprise to list its stocks on Taiwan's stock market. It also offers a prominent example of a company from another industry that entered the field of lighting because of optimism about the prospects of LEDs.

LemTech is one of the leading metal stamping and precision press tool manufacturers in China, selling mainly to the auto and construction industries there. It recently expanded into the emerging fields of intelligent mobile phones and LED lighting; it announced its first LED lighting module at a presentation in May, one month after its IPO (initial public offering) on the GreTai Secuirties Exchange (Taiwan's over-the-counter stock market) in April. At the presentation, chairman Hsu Chi-feng expressed optimism about the company's LED lighting venture, saying that the LED lighting module would become a major force for growth in the future.

LemTech is positioned as a full-service metal stamping company which, Hsu says, needs to diversify its customer base in order to spread risk. Currently its main products are auto safety systems, auto transmission systems, and engine parts; very soon, the lineup will include LED lighting modules and key parts for intelligent mobile phones. “With our metal stamping and precision press tool manufacturing technologies,” Hsu said, “we have unique advantages in the LED lighting industry.”