Posted on 01/30/2009 11:39:15 AM PST by PapaBear3625
Winchester, UK - Cambridge University's Centre for Gallium Nitride has developed a new way of making GaN which could produce LEDs for a tenth of current prices and may see household lighting bills reduced by up to 75 percent within five years.
[snip]
Currently GaN LEDs can only be grown on 2-inch sapphire wafers. Following the Cambridge innovation nine times as many LEDs can be grown on a 6-inch silicon wafer compared with a 2-inch sapphire wafer. In addition, edge effects are less, so the number of good LEDs is about 10 times higher. The processing costs for a 2-inch wafer are essentially the same as for a 6-inch wafer. A 6-inch silicon wafer is much cheaper to produce than a 2-inch sapphire wafer. Together these factors result in a cost reduction of about a factor of 10.
(Excerpt) Read more at eetimes.eu ...
ping from an electronics engineer, to read later...
Can I get a Tech ping?
“...lighting bills reduced by up to 75 percent within five years.”
I am all for energy savings and reduced cost of lighting. But can any FReepers advise me of ANYTHING that we have now that was predicted to happen five years ago? Hopefully this is not another “flying car” that will soon (5 years?) be appearing in your neighbors drive way.
This is good news because CFLs are are flop and I won’t buy them.
Well, I can tell you this: If demand drops that much, power companies will be “forced” to raise rates to remain profitable, so savings will be be nil. And the same for local utility taxes.
Use less gas, Stupid...and when Stupid did, we “have to” raise the gas tax to compensate for “lost income”.
It’s a drought, Stupid; conserve water...and when Stupid did, water rates had to be “reluctently” rasied to compensate for “lost income”.
There are plenty of other examples.
This should happen, although it might be a bit over 5 years. It's a change in existing LED technology, not a completely new technology. The cute thing is that Obama wants to spend billions to force everyone to convert to fluorescent just before LED becomes the better option. That's the joy of central planning - it forces everyone to make the same mistake instead of allowing them to decide based on their individual circumstances.
Socialism?
Nah, this one is real. The LEDs are already available, but are very expensive.
I had one blow up in my house last week. Sparks, smoke.....they are all gone now.
Ok, you got me! Eh...
I predicted on this forum around 2001 that in five years it would be hard to find film because digital cameras would replace film.
I predict that Blu-Ray will never really take off the way DVDs did. By the time Blu-Ray is ten years old it will be as forgotten as Beta tape.
These are not my original predictions. I just pass on what I read and think is likely.
Among the things I didn't see coming are dirt cheap disk drives and memory chips.
“But can any FReepers advise me of ANYTHING that we have now that was predicted to happen five years ago?”
3g network.
1 terrabyte hard drives.
Full computer power that fits in a pocket.
12 megapixel cameras.
etc
I love CFL light bulbs, especially when I am driving home and I can see that the kids have every light in the house turned on.
The beauty of this invention is that I changed over to CFL about 4 years ago. About the time I need to start changing them out, the LEDs should be cheap.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that has had this has happen to. Did it blow up in the same place as this one.
LEDs are at the stage where they are widely enough used that it pays to invest money in figuring out how to make them cheaper, and making them cheaper results in more applications. They've pretty much replaced incandescent bulbs in flashlights, and are now cost-effective for under-counter lighting. Their long lifetimes will make them increasingly cost-effective for lighting in places where it's a pain to replace a bulb.
And none of that pesky mercury (GASP! Did I say the M word) that CFL proponents bother to tell anyone about...
Very nice.
I’d love to see LEDs lighting reach a point where it’s on par with incandescents in price.
Since florescent lights give me headaches, LEDs are one of the last remaining electric option.
Geezer Geek ping.
This is a very low-volume ping list (typically days to weeks between pings).
FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this list.
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