Thin, Flat LEDs

An anonymous reader writes "Here's a story about how a company called OMRON has developed a totally flat light source which might give traditional LED's a run for their money." And reader ekarjala points to an article in the EE Times about thin, organic LEDs.

Comments

Sheesh..

[grub]

It seems they put all their money towards the R&D for these neat sounding devices. Too bad they didn't save a few bucks FOR THE BANDWIDTH TO HOST THEIR SERVER!

Re:Sheesh..

[sparkhead]

Too bad they didn't save a few bucks FOR THE BANDWIDTH TO HOST THEIR SERVER!

The article linked is not their server. I provided a link to the article on their site in another post.

Re:Sheesh..

[Alan Partridge]

how impatient are you people? A site is NOT slashdotted just because you have to wait 20 seconds for the server to fill your request.

Oh yeah - this isn't a "flat LED", it's a neat little package of LED light mixer and reflector - it looks like a really nice product.

Re:Sheesh..

[Alan Partridge]

how did you know about the gerbil?

Re:Sheesh..

[Alan Partridge]

thanks for that, I'll sort it out

how do you make time to do so much posting on Slashdot? You must be working really hard over there, or is it just school holidays?

sooo close

[cheeseSource]

Perhaps this will bridge the gap between roll up screens and the current lcd displays? It seems like it will still be awhile before oleds will be available for solid viewing. Any thoughts?

Re:sooo close

[deglr6328]

Sanyo thinks its oled's will be ready for production in a year. Here is their prototype 15 inch oled display made with >a href=http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/display/sanyo Flat.jhtml>Kodak's technology.

Re:sooo close

[Anonymous Coward]

there is considerable interest and excitement over large-area organic LED systems for area illumination. If you think about it, almost all curren light sources are either point sources, or at best, line sources, which are then dispersed using various optical tricks to get diffuse area illumination. the prospect of having large ceiling tiles which simply *glow* (possibly even the entire ceiling) is quite an interesting prospect and potentially a *huge* engergy saver.

Re:sooo close

[cmorriss]

If you read the article, you'll see that these are not meant for computer displays. In fact, their important because they can more cheaply provide illumination over a large area, but still be thin. It just uses reflective surfaces in a very thin enclosure to spread the light out from an LED chip or chips in the center.

This will be useful for things like traffic lights, brake lights, and home lighting.

Re:sooo close

[Skyfire]

Electroluminescent Lighting (EL) is a currently available area illumination. It's often used in watches and pda's (Indiglo, the green backlights on palms)

Re:sooo close

[SubtleNuance]

these have NOTHING to do with display tech. They are LEDs -- nothing more. The article says they are likely to show up in room lighting as a consumption reduction effort...

Re:sooo close

[gilesjuk]

Hopefully it will help solve the viewing angle problem with LEDs, that's the reason we still have filiment bulbs for some indicator purposes.

Re:sooo close

[greenhide]

Uh...

In soviet russia, there's some sort of article about oleds.

There wouldn't happen to be an English version of this page, would there?

Re:sooo close

[dcmeserve]

This will be useful for things like traffic lights, brake lights, and home lighting.

One problem: one of the useful things about the cluster-of-bullet-LED's we have now for traffic/brake/etc. lights is an additional fault-tolerance aspect: you could have a substantial number of them malfunctioning and still be useful. I have actually seen this -- a big truck in front of me had a really annoying one, where 1/3 of them were out, 1/3 on, and 1/3 flickering randomly. Annoying, but it still performed its function.

If you just have one LED chip in the middle, if it goes out, you gotta replace the whole thing.

Oh, it also seems that it'll be harder to get sufficient brightness for the really demanding applications (e.g. a traffic light with the sun behind it).

Though for home lighting -- yeah, baby!

Re:sooo close

[dcmeserve]

Hopefully it will help solve the viewing angle problem with LEDs, that's the reason we still have filiment bulbs for some indicator purposes.

Doesn't look like it -- from the diagram, it's looking very directional (the angles of the backplane reflectors are set up to reflect light from the emitter at the center to a line perpendicular to the panel).

Re:sooo close

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Viewing angle problems? I'm aware of that with LCDs, but not LEDs? Care to explain?

Re:sooo close

[aaarrrgggh]

NO

We don't need another area source... we need better point sources for lighting! Needing 4" of depth to diffuse light isn't a problem...

Have you ever been in a space with all indirect lighting? It's terrible! There has to be some direct component for shadow/visual interest...

Re:sooo close

[Anonymous Coward]

thats only assuming there is no good contrast and the blacks will not be rich and deep..

Re:sooo close

[gilesjuk]

Look in an electronics catalog, most high brightness LEDs quote a viewing angle, anywhere from 8 degrees to 30 normally.

This renders them useless for some applications, bulbs have a much better viewing angle since the light comes out of the bulb in most directions.

Re:sooo close

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I think I know what you mean. But it must only be for a small amount of applications.

Re:sooo close

[gilesjuk]

Bulbs have a shorter life, tail lights on cars for example would be better using LEDs, however the limited viewing angle combined with the brightness is a problem. Clusters of LEDs are required as a result of this.

Slashdotted already

[arvindn]

Here's the text:
----------------

Omron Corporation (Headquarters: Kyoto; CEO: Yoshio Tateisi) has announced the development of "flat light source" technology aimed to become a new form of LED illumination.

Employment of LED's in such applications as train car brake lights, signals, and displays began in recent years from the viewpoint of energy consumption and in the not-too-distant future they are expected to displace current lighting sources in the average household. The challenges of this kind of LED illumination are considered to be further improving LED brightness and realizing performance comparable with the price.

Incorporating characteristics of low-profile/large surface area/uniformity not found in lighting sources up until now (light bulbs, fluorescent lamps, present LED's), Omron has developed "flat light source" technology. Taking full advantage of its small size/long service life, features inherent to the LED, the "flat light source" will be positioned to realize future unrestricted illumination such as "wall-mounted light" and "portable light."

Using light wave control technology of the currently marketed DR-LED as a base, a precise optics design was implemented for optical beam dispersement to compartmentalize more space, and by doing so increasing the amount of surface area. The light emitting surface area is 30mm x 30mm with a thickness of 6mm, giving it about 50 times more illumination surface area than a typical bullet-type LED of the same thickness. If a bullet-type LED were to be created to match the same amount of illumination surface area, the thickness would have to be between 1/10th and 1/5th greater. Moreover, this technology mixes three colors (blue, green, red) into a single "flat light source," thus making any color possible, something that has proven to be very difficult for light bulbs and fluorescent light.

The scope of applications for the "flat light source" include those which the LED has already advanced into such as train car brake lights, signals and displays. Combining several "flat light source" units together creates enough illumination for wall-mounted light or portable light and its compact size makes it ideal for narrow locations like walls and columns. Plus, color can be freely adjusted making it a truly full color lighting source.

Hereafter, Omron will accelerate the move toward illumination by the low energy consumption contributing LED, and with this newly developed technology as a base, strive to bring the "flat light source" to commercialization.

Re:Slashdotted already

[GlassUser]

The second link is going fast, too.

Proprietary coating to yield thinner OLEDs

By Nicolas Mokhoff

EE Times
February 25, 2003 (2:18 p.m. EST)

MANHASSET, N.Y. -- Samsung SDI Co. has partnered with Vitex Systems Inc. to market displays based on organic light emitting diodes that the two companies claim are 50 percent lower in weight and thickness than any other commercially available display.
Samsung, which has been pursuing OLEDs volume production, will provide funding for the specialized design and engineering activities of Vitex's Barrier Engineering Program. Samsung said its goal is to explore whether the technology can be produced for encapsulation of full-color, active-matrix OLEDs.

Vitex's proprietary Barix thin-film coating is designed to enable manufacturing of thinner, lighter displays for the mobile device market, said Ho-Kyoon Chung, Samsung's senior vice president. "We believe that Vitex's Barrier Engineering Program holds the potential to be the fastest, most cost-effective way for Samsung SDI to achieve a thin-film encapsulation solution for our OLED displays," he said.

Broad adoption of OLEDs has been impeded to some extent by a key manufacturing challenge: the organic matter's sensitivity to moisture and oxygen, which can quickly destroy an OLED display if unprotected.

Vitex's thin-film technology creates a moisture and oxygen barrier that is potentially as effective as a sheet of glass, without the added bulk, according to the company. Using Vitex's Barix encapsulation, display manufacturers can deposit, in situ, a thin-film coating directly on top of the OLED material on a glass substrate.

The procedure would eliminate the need for a glued-on-metal can or extra sheet of glass. The resulting thinner, lighter display is expected to deliver higher reliability at a significantly reduced manufacturing cost.

"The Barix technology developed by Vitex has significant potential to help further propel widespread industry adoption of OLEDs, which have emerged as a promising candidate in the production of zero-border, super-thin displays," said Ross Young, president of DisplaySearch (Austin, Texas). The market research firm projects that global sales of OLEDs will grow from $112 million in 2002 to $3.1 billion by 2007.

"Working closely with Samsung SDI will enable us to create a customized solution that best suits their production needs. This will in turn allow Samsung to cost-effectively provide mobile device OEMs with extremely thin, lightweight, high-quality OLED displays," said Michael Sullivan, president of Vitex (San Jose, Calif.).

Vitex, a spin-off of advanced research laboratory Battelle Memorial Institute, has been involved in the development of Barix encapsulation for the past three years. Through its Barrier Engineering Program, Vitex said it could customize the Barix coating for the specific performance requirements of an individual manufacturer's OLED displays.

Re:Slashdotted already

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this guy down, he's violating a patent!

Re:Slashdotted already

[unicron]

For just basic home lighting scenarios, this would be really cool. Imagine your light switch now has 3 knobs, ones for red green and blue, plus an intensity switch. You could set up some nice mood lighting using rgb values. Maybe have it so you could save some values and call them when you wanted to. Would be a cool little toy to have.

Re:Slashdotted already

[Matey-O]

Imagine your light switch now has 3 knobs, ones for red green and blue, plus an intensity switch. You could set up some nice mood lighting using rgb values.

OOO yeah! And 802.11b for access from my PDA! And X10 so I can turn on my lights using my Garage opener...finally a use for the other two buttons on my sunvisor!

Um, it's a light. On, off and dim are pretty much the limit of what 99.999999% of the world wants. That other .000001% can't get laid and thus don't NEED mood lighting.

(I hope I didn't just make a 'foe' there)

Re:Slashdotted already

[unicron]

Well, I'm the % that does get laid, and having all the colors of the 'bo fluxuating while I'm getting my swerve on would be the shit. You just sound like a little angry kid that forgot to get his ritalin refilled.

Re:Slashdotted already

[Anonymous Coward]

It really isn't slow at all, you karma whore.

Re:Slashdotted already

[Matey-O]

Alrighty, what would you propose such a light switch would look like? Keeping in mind the usability of a lightswitch. (at most, you've got a touchpad that brightens or dims based on time spent on the pad, a slider or an on/off switch)

So now you've got, what, three sliders? a switch and three knobs? A switch and three holes you've gotta put a screwdriver in to adjust intensity?

But that's just one plate, what if you want do adjust the ones in the kitchen as well as the ones in the living room?

Being able to set an 8-bit value for R, G, B and what-the-hell Alpha transparency would be a non-starter.

Of course, your lightswitch could have an Adobe colorwheel and an intensity slider, but then your _lights_ might cost you $20, but your light SWITCH will cost ya $250.

Ritalin? Nope, I'm not on Ritalin. I DID neglect to take my Zyrtec 'tho.

Re:Slashdotted already

[Prong_Thunder]

It's easy - your lightswitch now becomes a joystick. The x,y plane controls RGB, and z is a push/pull control for off/on/intensity, like a dimmer switch.

Don't throw out your CRT

[Anonymous Coward]

It was surprising news when Rockwell Collins announced that CRTs would become obsolete in 2003. Nobody expected that this soon. But there is no way back. Let's hope that the transition to LCDs will not be too painful and that LCDs will perform much more reliably. If the mean time between failure of the LCDs is two times or better than CRTs, we will have a win-win situation. It will cost money to invest in LCDs, but if the new displays are fit-and-forget types of LRUs, many people will be happy.

Nobody is considering whether to invest one penny in inferior display technology. Therefore, my message to the vendors is, if you stop production of CRTs and require the aviation community to switch to LCDs, make sure that we all get some benefit, both from the pilot viewpoint and the maintenance side. Vendors and airlines of course realize that there is no way back. There is no aircraft manufacturer that is even thinking about going back to mechanical or electromechanical technology. It would be a gigantic step backwards.

For me it would be equal to returning back to Austria in the year 1889 to help my great-, greatgrandfather repair mechanical church clocks.

Re:Don't throw out your CRT

[Sgs-Cruz]

So I was thinking, why would an AC post such an insightful comment, and yet so oddly out of place? (The discussion wasn't about airplane CRTs specifically...

Oh. He stole it from here.. Give credit next time, dude.

Re:Don't throw out your CRT

[anethema]

In its current state, LCD seems to be a horrible technology. I go to futureshop or its equivelant and look at the flat screen lcd tvs. There is a dvd playing on it, but it looks fuggin terrible.

LCD monitors generally have less viewing quality, and of course the horrible response time, bad viewing angle, poor contrast, and fixed resolution. I havent seen that many desks that were in such dire need of desk space that they needed to settle for LCD. A guy will buy a lcd tv or monitor and tell himself that the ghosting really isnt thaaat bad, or the viewing angle doesnt bother him thaaat much. These people are just fooling themselves because LCD is really the only real flatscreen tech on the market right now.

I believe when OLEDs hit the market LCD will pretty much be useless obslete technology. OLED has a fixed resolution, true, but suffers from none of the other disadvantages.

Look at this picture.

After seeing something that amazing from a prototype, i really dont see a future for LCD in the computing world. Maybe somewhere in the embedded arena where a non-backlit LCD would suffice, but other than that, where?

Plus if these things hit 40-60 inches..that pretty much boots plasma out the door too.

I am only worried that since OLED will junk such a big area of displays, manufactuerers will be hesitant to deploy it, or will deploy it expensively and with low supply. The good thing is i guess it only takes one company to do it right, and the prices will come crashing down.

I guess as long as the manufacturers dont jack the prices up too much, i dont see a barrier to wide spread acceptance.

Re:Don't throw out your CRT

[dcmeserve]

I am only worried that since OLED will junk such a big area of displays, manufactuerers will be hesitant to deploy it, or will deploy it expensively and with low supply. The good thing is i guess it only takes one company to do it right, and the prices will come crashing down.

From what I hear generally, the main barrier for OLED's is the longevity of the devices. That might be what'll take it a while to get going, because it's still kind of a fundamental engineering problem. Though -- if it's cheap enough, it might not be so bad to junk your monitor after 1 year, and buy another. Though that'd be bad environmentally, etc. Plus it'd be a pain. Ah, well.

Re:Don't throw out your CRT

[jcr]

Umm, have a look at a DVD playing on an Apple Cinema Display.

-jcr

Re:Don't throw out your CRT

[Anonymous Coward]

Rockwell Collins is still supporting radios built with gas-discharge displays. That by itself shows that they are no geniuses when it comes to cockpit information.

Imagine the impact...

[TechnoLust]

This will have serious effect on all facets of life. Imagine less intrusive instruments for orthroscopic surguery, saftey lighting on floors that isn't a trip hazard, thinner gadgets, etc. And of course the most important impact... NEW CASE MODS!!!! ;-)

Re:Imagine the impact...

[chunkwhite86]

I was thinking more along the lines of "case mods" to battery operated sexual devices. No more scratchy protruding LED's! Yay!

Re:Imagine the impact...

[DCheesi]

Yes! The perfect case badge light! It even comes in one-inch squares! (or close enough.) Ah, the wonders of modern technology :-)

Better Link

[sparkhead]

Here's a Better link to the story on Omron's web site.

And, "a company called Omron"? Have you not heard of Omron? They're just one of the biggest companies in controllers and industrial automation.

Re:Better Link

[poot_rootbeer]

Yeah, but the name is so STUPID-sounding!

Who was the omron that came up with that one???

Re:Better Link

[Anonymous Coward]

heh, contrary to what you may think, not everyone has heard of industrial automation companies.

hey kids, want to learn about the exciting world of automation? Here's a few links! Offtopic? Who cares!?

Omron
GE Industrial Systems or GE Fanuc
Rockwell Automation
Phoenix Contact
ABB
Nachi
Wieland

In case you're wondering, this is what I do for a living... And right now I'm very bored... Time to go home soon. Soon... soon...

Re:Better Link

[devnull17]

Yeah, and That Guy That Wrote That Regular Expression Book used to work there. He wrote the Japanese dictionary server that I use, too.

totally flat?

[gid13]

wouldn't that be 2-dimensional? what is this, star trek?

Re:totally flat?

[Rew190]

Doesn't "flat" refer to the curvature of a surface?

Re:totally flat?

[gid13]

aye, that it does... my apologies for my continued inability to get humour across online :) btw i find it very disconcerting how quickly people reply on slashdot... it's practically IM

Re:totally flat?

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Doesn't "flat" refer to the curvature of a surface?"

No, duh. It refers to the LACK of a curvature to a surface.

Re:totally flat?

[Bill Currie]

"flat" means the surface has an infinite radius of curvature, so you're both right :)

Re:totally flat?

[Anonymous Coward]

We call them "men"

Re:Totally flat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thinner than the wavelength of light? I think not.

Re:totally flat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's think of some examples of flat things that aren't 2 dimensional...

A pool table, the earth (damnit, Magellan was a fraud), Julianne Moore's chest, Anna Korkovina's abs...

OMRON

[winston_pr]

"A company called OMRON" the article says in a distant tone. But please let me add that OMRON is a rather well known consumer brand in Japan. It is a small KYOTO based company that has done many innovations with consumer network products during the last decade. It's exciting to see a middle-sized company come up with something this promising. Proves that size doesn't matter as much as will...(Don't pull that last sentence out of context will you)

Re:OMRON

[zx-6e]

OMRON = MORON? Hmm... only time will tell....

Re:OMRON

[Anonymous Coward]

"Proves that size doesn't matter ... Don't pull ... out ... will you"

Re:OMRON

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a small KYOTO based company

Nuff said. It's small, and it's in another friggin country. (Okay, so another country if you don't live in Japan)

Re:OMRON

[VTVond]

Hey, go us! I work in Omron's patend department here in (looks out window) cloudy Kyoto, and this is the first time I've seen us in the US press since we released NeCoRo, our robot cat thingy. We're not that small by the way, thousands of employees just here in Japan, and overseas operations in the US, Canada, Europe, and China...

We also have a factory called the "House of the Sun" which exclusively employs people with various handicaps, from the lowest level up through management.

Re:OMRON

[winston_pr]

Sorry for calling you guys (OMRON) small. But I meant that in the relative sense as in that you are not Matsushita... Kyoto seems nice by the way. A lot of interesting innovative companies. KYOCERA for example. I guess the culture differs a lof from Tokyo where I work. Even Procter & Gamble (also relatively serious with their corporate citizenship) chose Kyoto for their headquarters... quite interesting.

Re:OMRON

[VTVond]

Heh, no problem. Yeah we're no giant - maybe "mid-sized" would be a fair way to call it.

Kyoto is pretty nice. Definitely a different environment than Tokyo or Osaka, but still very much a city, rather than the historical town people seem to expect. Anyway...

A Better Link

[mofu]

How about a link without MySQL and PHP . . . .

Try Japan Corporate News Net

Coutesy of Google News . . . .

Totally flat

[oniony]

It says they are '50% lower in weight and thickness' than other devices. This doesn't equate to 'totally flat' which I imagined to be a matter of a few molecules thick or perhaps as thick as an organic cell. A light emmitting device as thin as 1 organic cell would be pretty impressive stuff as one would be able to layer it onto pretty much anything and I imagine would be pretty much transparent -- like the thin membranes in onions.

Re:Totally flat

[gid13]

as has already been pointed out in a series of jokes above, it's not referring to the thickness, but rather the curvature... like a flat screen monitor... although i'm sure everyone would love to have a monitor a few molecules thick if it wasn't ridiculously fragile, i don't see that happening in the near future

Re:Totally flat

[Pieroxy]

Yes, but for the fact that onions doesn't emit light... even though you're still crying when peeling one, like when your eye doctor put a light in your eye... Twilight zone ?

Let's have flat *reflective* LEDs

[paj1234]

Then our screens could be used in direct sunlight, like a newspaper. And we could open all the blinds again, at last.

Re:Let's have flat *reflective* LEDs

[chrishan]

I think it may be too late for us geeks to be directly exposed to sunlight, the day we feel content to walk among men is over. The Light!!!

Re:Let's have flat *reflective* LEDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Then it'll be like having a big overpriced Gameboy Advance....
It would be better if you could turn on front lighting on and off with the flip of a switch. That would be more useful than just a plain reflective screen.

Re:Let's have flat *reflective* LEDs

[JPRelph]

Didn't the GameBoy Advance use a reflective LCD though? They're going to have to make them a lot better than that though if you want to read them like a newspaper, unless you regularly spend half an hour rearranging your lighting, room, pets friends and family just to ge the light right in order to read a paper. Honestly I used to give a little cheer when I actually could see the screen on that thing, it was nuts. I'm sure my nephews had started evolving into Lemurs after a few weeks gameplay...

JP.

Re:Let's have flat *reflective* LEDs

[akhaksho]

Do you know what LED stands for? Light Emitting Diode. *Emitting*. A reflective emitter makes about as much sense as dry water. You clearly have no idea about how LEDs work and the fact that you've been modded up means no one else does either.

Re:Let's have flat *reflective* LEDs

[paj1234]

Akhaksho, thanks for the correction. Yes I did know what LED stands for but I forgot that point!

Re:Let's have flat *reflective* LEDs

[akhaksho]

No problem, dude. I didn't mean to rip into you, but there's just so much bad info on Slashdot these days...

Finally...

[Palshife]

Attractive and affordable ground effects for my case.

Omron?

[Czernobog]

If this is the same Omron hat has been making blood pressure measuring equipment and thermometers (among other things) then this is not just yesterdays news. It's last decade's..
These folks have been making top notch equipment featuring the LEDs in question for ages now...

Re:Omron?

[bheerssen]

Uh, they just announced this particular device on the 18th. This is not just another LED application, it's a whole new way of using LEDs that results in smaller more powerful light sources.

I think it's way cool.

Correct link?

[grub]

I don't think that link is correct:


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Nowhere on that page does it mention flat LEDs!

Re:Correct link?

[Anonymous Coward]

D-uh... if you don't know that the parent's poster is a dry witted, sarcastic bastard then you should lurk more.

Re:Correct link?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because these LEDs are so flat they get mentionned between the error lines.

[ The Applications Thread ]

[cybermace5]

I submit:

1. New aerodynamic automobile turn signal, running, and brake lights. They'll be smoothed right into the paint surface.

Re:[ The Applications Thread ]

[cybermace5]

Perhaps the moderator could remind me why this is offtopic?

Re:[ The Applications Thread ]

[Hadlock]

if he replies then the modding is nullified and his mod point is wasted

Re:[ The Applications Thread ]

[cybermace5]

Not if they reply as Anonymous.

Any clue? I mean, seriously, that was a good application idea for ultra-bright, paper-thin LED elements.

Re:[ The Applications Thread ]

[Hadlock]

honestly i have no clue what your original thread was about; your modding down put you below my threshold of 3, although your response was high enough due to your friend of a friend modding for me to notice.

actually...

[gid13]

...unless i'm very confused, people were complaining about the OTHER link being slashdotted... and it's already posted, so don't bother :)

More information

[arvindn]

NE asia online

omron technics

Nice

[j_kenpo]

Very interesting. I am currently working on a project with a company that is using LumiLeds for a portable light. Being that these LEDS are very small and have about 120 Lumens a piece (not sure how many are in one bank on the light since Im not doing the engineering portion of the development, only the software for the control). If these things are as small as the Lumileds (the picture shows a scale compared to some coin/button, which is a little smaller that the Lumileds with the optics in place), or as bright, this might be a nice alternative. The companies web site was /. already, anyone have any information on this?

Re:Nice

[egomaniac]

If you're using a 120 lumen LumiLeds LED, it's a 5W Luxeon Star. The 5W model actually has 4 emitters packaged into a single case.

Totally flat?

[Anonymous Coward]

At extreme viewing angles, the damn thing just disappears.

Offtopic

[MrLint]

Omron : We're in control :)

were they expecting to be slashdotted?

[frankmu]

from the omeron.com site:

---Information---
Due to system maintenance of our corporate web site, the search engine will not be available between February 25 and March 3. We are very sorry for the inconvenience.

Re:Imagine the impact... well maybe not so much

[mofu]

Its a tile barely over a square inch and still a 1/4 inch thick, hardly ready to change lighting tech as we know it.

I was personally hoping for something that would come of the production line by the roll and be applied like wallpaper to my walls or ceilings. Hide wiring in the baseboard moldings. Room not bright enough or the wrong color? Just turn it up . . . .

New technology?

[BWJones]

Well, looking at their technology, it appears that it is basically a Fresnel type mirror that disperses the light from a single LED source. If I recall my undergraduate physics, this sort of thing could result in uneven light distribution and chromatic aberration in lighting surfaces making this less than ideal for displays, especially for those users where color is critically important.

Re:New technology?

[winston_pr]

They'd better make it APO. Perhaps Flourite crystalline could help ;).

Re:New technology?

[Thoguth]

You're right, the Omron picture looks a lot like a Fresnel lens, and it is distorted. Cool, but it seems more useful for car headlights or room lighting than for computer displays.

The EETimes article OTOH is all about Organic LED's, and looks to be the real next generation for display tech.

Re:New technology?

[Alan Partridge]

don't be a dingus, mirrors don't suffer from chromatic abberation due to dispersion. fresnel lenses/mirrors are segmented, and therefore always imperfect at light distribution. With an appropriate diffuser, it might be good enough for your application though.

Re:New technology?

[BLuP1]

It really doesn't seem to be for display-purposes. OMRON makes industrial controls, &c-- they said their primary use would be replacing signal lights. Here in California, most of the traffic lights are now arrays of LEDs, this seems to be proposing to (once they're bright enough) replace the array with a single unit. Stadium displays could benefit-- most of them simply spread out the 'pixels' when the display is viewed from further.

The innovation is simply to redesign the LED reflector design to reflect current trends in use.

Re:New technology?

[AnotherBlackHat]

Well, looking at their technology, it appears that it is basically a Fresnel type mirror that disperses the light from a single LED source. If I recall my undergraduate physics, this sort of thing could result in uneven light distribution and chromatic aberration in lighting surfaces making this less than ideal for displays, especially for those users where color is critically important.

Currently, the backlight on most LCDs is one or more fluorescent tubes, which are also subject to "uneven light distribution and chromatic aberration".

This technology holds the promise of paper thin backlights. Even if light distribution is
bad, they could still end up with more even light than current technology at about half the thickness.

Frankley though, I have doubts about how viable it really is.

-- this is not a .sig

Re:New technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must not even know what chromatic aberration is.

Portable light? I think I've seen that before ...

[SlightlyMadman]

... the "flat light source" will be positioned to realize future unrestricted illumination such as "wall-mounted light" and "portable light." ...

Wow, science never ceases to amaze me! Maybe next, they'll find a way to put lights on the ceiling, too, and, OOOH! Maybe attach a fan to it, to increase air circulation in my house! I'll have to see if Omron is developing a "flat fan technology" to make this possible.

thin led

[qoncept]

Just wait till the case modders get ahold of these. I can only imagine the attrocities..

Totally Flat?

[dmomo]

OK.. I can not "read the article before posting"; It's down. Big time.

I was just wondering what it means for something to be "totally flat". Does that mean that there is nothing "unflat" about it? Does it mean that it can be no flatter? Or, is that like "Totally Phlat, (with a - p h, man)"? Or, might it be that in this "totally flat light source" it is the light itself that is totally flat, which says nothing about the source?

Flat is relative. I have seen some "flat" leds before. You can always make a led flatter, when does it become "totally" flat?

Ok, I have beaten this to death. I started out 70% serious.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

They should be using Debian. Red Hat Linux is inferior because too many people have heard of it. Debian is better.

MORON?

[noitalever]

Did anyone else read that post as "Here's a story about how a company called MORON has developed a totally flat light source"

and I'm thinking Holy Crap their marketing team has a tough road ahead

Re:MORON?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read that as dickless-sick. Like, not just a little sick, or way sick, but dickless sick.

Re: MORON?

[jedinite]

Dyslexics of the world, untie !

auto industry

[EEgopher]

Anything that could make the bezel (display face) of radios and instrument panels slimmer and less space-demanding might save cost and even allow for more informative (or at least decorative) dashboard components. You could make your car's interior look like the Enterprise if you wanted.

the U.S. needs more phat car mods.

Re:auto industry

[Luyseyal]

and then there are us luddites who look for electronic gadgets with displays that actually TURN OFF. screw "dimming"... I want the damn thing OFF. Nothing uglier and distracting than your car stereo's screensaver when you're trying to sing and drive through hail at the same time!

-l

Re:auto industry

[Alan Partridge]

I totally agree - I've actually taken to fliping mine down at night...

Re:auto industry

[driverEight]

I totally agree - I've actually taken to fliping mine down at night...

Saabs actually have feature to that will kill all interior lights other than the Speedometer. Other guages light as they hit an error condition (low on gas etc.). It is a wonder that other car companies haven't copied it.

Re:auto industry

[trout_fish]

All except for the steering wheel...

Re:auto industry

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is up with the trend in recent years where all the after-market car stereos look like they were designed by an overactive 12 year old?! Fuck, I just want something that has good features, and won't render me blind every time I glance towards it driving at night.

Re:auto industry

[jcr]

You could make your car's interior look like the Enterprise if you wanted.

I don't know about that.. An aircraft carrier's bridge is far too large to copy on a car's dashboard.

-jcr

Re:auto industry

[Peter Harris]

...and the seatbelts. :)

An even better link

[srmalloy]

The press release on Omron's web site gives more information, including a diagram that shows how the device functions. It appears to be a central LED device surrounded by a Fresnel mirror, with the mirror cavity filled by what I would presume to be a material similar to fiber-optic cladding. Light emitted from the LED is reflected off the surface of the cavity-fill material, then bounces off the Fresnel mirror, which focuses the light into a reasonably unidirectional beam; a single unit is 30mm on a side, with a thickness of 6mm.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

They should be using FreeBSD. Linux is inferior because too many people have heard of it. Before you know it, even Joe Sixpack (boo, hiss) will be using Linux. I feel superior because I use FreeBSD.

Re:Imagine the impact... well maybe not so much

[Oculus Habent]

I'm with you. While this is certainly thinner than most light sources, the "totally flat" suggested is a little much.

Damn . . .

[Idou]

"Proves that size doesn't matter as much as will...(Don't pull that last sentence out of context will you)"

So size DOES matter more than will in some cases? This really ruins my plans . . .

automotive uses

[timothy]

OK, I'm presently a bit car-crazy ;)

Flat LEDs (heck, current LEDs would be fine, really, but flatter would be better in a space-starved environment like a car) are what I want in a couple specific places in my car:

1) dashboard lights. Mine dashlights died a long time ago, and I'm using a clip-on LED flashlight to illuminate my speedometer etc. This is clunky and ugly in a way that many kids find themselves yelling at their dads for inflicting on the world, but a) dashwork is expensive and b) no joke, my LED flashlight clipped on an airvent does a *much better job* than the dashlights ever did. Granted, it's a cheap car, but still. Dashlights are lousy in most cars, though they've gotten better. But -- and I'm serious about this -- dashlights should NOT be incandescent bulbs any more. They should be LEDs, OLEDs, or some other basically permanent light source. Silly to have such a vital piece of equipment be something as outdated as an incandescent bulb, *and* be so difficult to replace (in most cars).

2) Domelight. Same deal -- domelights are generally lame anyhow, sort of like lighting a candle ... three feet overhead. I would much prefer several LED clusters (with diffusers) as my dome light.

3) Overhead reading lights. (For your navigator, lights that don't blind the driver.) Bright LEDs with a shade so they can't be aimed at the driver's face accidentally. (Breakable shade, so you *could* aim them intentionally when you're kidnapped for ransom and are being driven away in your own car ... I guess.)

4) Map light -- Think of the LED "stalk" lights for notebook computers. A thin gooseneck with an integral LED for pointing at your book / map / sketchpad (not for the driver).

Bring on the flat LEDs, and send some to the car maker's *design teams* please.

timothy

Re:automotive uses

[DJ FirBee]

So. Your car dash lights don't work and that sends you to thinking...

Your quandry sends me to thinking. Why don't you do something about it ? Take it apart and fix it. Add extra lights, build a web page about your little adventure. Do something instead of being just another /. nerd whining about something.

Stop playing quake or dreaming up stuff long enough to do something. Ideas do not change the world, the application of them does.

Be an active nerd. Much more fufilling.

Peace.

Re:automotive uses

[Lumpy]

Most cars above the $9500.00USD mark have Electro Luminesent dash lighting. at least all the pontiacs from 2001 > do.

Heck the Pontiac econo-car they are currently selling has the coolest dash lighting I have ever seen.

Personally I want to know why the hell do we still have the mechanical pointers that are obviousally driven by the digital systems.. Give me a digital dashboard and call it done, but even today in the year 2003 it's damned hard to find any car with a completely digital dashboard.

I guess it's based on the stupidity level on the general public and their inability to comprehend numbers compared to pointy things.

Re:automotive uses

[Bitmanhome]

a) dashwork is expensive

No, not at all. Just grab a screwdriver, and take out the dash yourself. Easy as pie, though there are usually lots of screws, and sometimes several interlocking pieces. I did it for one of my old cars, and the bulbs were cheap.

I don't see a problem with incandescents in the dash; there are a bunch back there lighting up the same two dials, so if one dies, I don't even notice. Besides, in my experience, those lights have been exceptionally durable, even if the car itself wasn't.

2) Domelight.

Depends .. my current car (Toyota) has the light right in front of the mirror. Just enough light for getting in and out without ruining my night vision, but too dim to do anything else.

Gooseneck or clip-on lights are really the only way to get enough reading light without spilling too much light everywhere else. And you can get gooseneck lights that plug into the cigarette lighter.

Re:automotive uses

[Bitmanhome]

The best way to read speed and tach really is an analog guage. A digital guage would have to be a simulation of an analog one. So count yourself lucky that your car maker put in a real analog guage, instead of a chunky digital one.

Re:automotive uses

[toddestan]

Digital readouts instead of gauges have been done, and overall people hate them. You can find them in some GM cars from the 80's. I've driven them, and they don't really annoy me that much, but I would take analog over the digital anytime. And cars with digital odometers that can't be read with the engine off annoy me to no end. Atleast the GM engineers in the 80's had enough sense to stick with an analog odometer.

Also, most cars still use incandescent bulbs in the dash. Even if some of the illumination is done with other things, you still find incandescent bulbs in things like switches, the radio etc. About the only thing to do is to use the dimmer switch (they will atleast last a lot longer).

Re:automotive uses

[timothy]

a) dashwork is expensive

No, not at all. Just grab a screwdriver, and take out the dash yourself. Easy as pie, though there are usually lots of screws, and sometimes several interlocking pieces. I did it for one of my old cars, and the bulbs were cheap.

OK, it's true -- I have not even looked into the difficulty of replacing them myself, and I should. I've been assured by people smarter than me that this is something best left to professionals with little tiny fingers, not my own blunt pokers. Your comment has inspired me to at least figure out how to do it myself.

In my car (which I bought used 60 thousand miles ago), the dash lights started out dim and have gotten dimmer. There's still a certain quantity of light (one way I can tell I'm driving my car and not my dad's). I'm not sure how many bulbs are back there, but I steadfastly maintain that incandescents are a bad idea for dashlights. Now, they beat candles, captive fireflies, dung lamps, or quantities of radium, but for localized moderate lighting, I really would prefer LEDs. I have recieved pointed complaints lately from a frequent and desired passenger about the lack of dashlights, the sketchiness of my clipped-on flashlight, &cetera, so it's time to fix regardless of the grumbling I have about the nature of the fix. Horse and buggy time.

Gooseneck or clip-on lights are really the only way to get enough reading light without spilling too much light everywhere else. And you can get gooseneck lights that plug into the cigarette lighter

Yes; so far though I have not found any gooseneck lamps for the cigarette lighter which use LEDs. Maybe they exist, but when I've been in auto parts stores looking, the question has always drawn shrugs and blank looks. I used to have a plug-in little rechargeable flashlight, but incandescent, with the usual wilted-yellow light circle, poor battery & bulb life, and so on. I recommend an LED headlamp (mine is made by everready or energizer, forget which) in the glove compartment, since in a real flashlight-needing emergency, it might be very important to have both hands free.

What I'd basically like for interior lighting is the ability to flip a switch and have the equivalent of real room-style light levels. Dimness is fine when driving, but there have been times when it would have been nice to be able to turn on a *real* (bright, blazing) overhead light, not a wimp photon-pinching dome light that tends to call attention to its very dimness by sitting there faintly aglow.

timothy

Re:automotive uses

[bluGill]

Obviously you have never driven a car with a digital dash. Sure it sounds good, the speed limit is 55, and the numbers say 54, but in practice you have to think to realise that 54 is just less than the speed limit so you could speed up a little. (we all know you never speed, so needing to slow down isn't a problem) With a analog display you learn where the mark that indicates the legal speed for 55 is, and you can tell at a glance how far under/over the limit you are without thinking. The mind just understands it better.

As a final nail in digital's coffin, if implys more accuracy than you have. Sure the display say 55, but because of tire wear and misadjustment you are doing somewhere between 50 and 60, just based on the speedometers I've checked myself (against a GPS). With analog you learn that the pointer is a little high or low, and automaticly compensate for it, with digital it turns out you don't do that as easially.

Re:automotive uses

[uspsguy]

Gee, my '92 Cadillac has a full digital dash, not a gage or needle to be seen. For the longest time, I thought digital was useless in a car. Then I got one and have become convinced that it's just fine. There is a huge amount of resistance from the more mature drivers to any change in the norm and that's why you haven't seen a huge influx. Like a lot of others, I thought it took more time and effort to read a number than notice the position of a needle but experience has convinced me otherwise. After a little reflection, it occurs to me that reading a conventional gage, we actually have to visually process a complex image but the number is sent pretty directly on to the brain for action. Another nice function is being able to read all the computer codes and values right from the dash - no blinking lights or special equipment required. Just push a couple of buttons and read the data right off the display. If Cadillac could do it over 10 years ago, it's clearly demand and not technology that is the controlling factor.

Re:automotive uses

[uspsguy]

I think it's been mentioned already but existing LEDs are not a very good way to get white light. I haven't seen a LED flashlight yet that can hold a candle to my Craftsman 18 volt rechargable incadesent. Most auto interior lights are a compromise. They exist mainly to help people get in and out of the car when it's dark. My Suburban has a bunch of lights all over the interior and includes a couple that can be aimed for reading. There fine for a map but I wouldn't want to tackle
Gone With The Wind. Right now, LEDs are not the magic solution to everything.

more toys for ricers

[trefoil]

now the street racers have yet more ways to mod their vehicles... I wonder how the gov't will regulate them to keep them away from the lights reserved for service vehicles...

When, How Much, and How Hard?

[jmichaelg]

When will these devices be available, how much will they cost and how hard are they to use?

They're not worth much if they're not available, need lots of support circuitry or cost 100 times more than what's currently out there.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

[silvakow]

Perhaps this technology could also be used in computer displays? At this point, the backlight behind a flat screen display makes up for most of the bulk. The Apple 23 inch display is something like 8 inches thick where the the backlight is. This technology could be used to create flat panel displays that are even thinner than the ones we have now by providing a bright, flat backlight.

Re:The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

[Anonymous Coward]

The Apple 23" Cinema Display is not 8 inches thick at ANY point of the display. The depth rating on their site refers to the monitor PLUS the foot on the back of the monitor.

http://www.apple.com/displays/acd23/

Thin != Flat

[ehiris]

You can put a bulb in a very high diamater reflector which makes it thin in relation to how long it is but it doesn't make it flat!

the companys website says:

[Anonymous Coward]

Omron develops "flat light source"
technology aimed at LED illumination
~Envisioning the realization of place unspecified wall-mounted lighting~

February 17, 2003 - Omron Corporation (Headquarters: Kyoto; CEO: Yoshio Tateisi) has announced the development of "flat light source" technology aimed to become a new form of LED illumination.

Employment of LED's in such applications as train car brake lights, signals, and displays began in recent years from the viewpoint of energy consumption and in the not-too-distant future they are expected to displace current lighting sources in the average household. The challenges of this kind of LED illumination are considered to be further improving LED brightness and realizing performance comparable with the price.

Incorporating characteristics of low-profile/large surface area/uniformity not found in lighting sources up until now (light bulbs, fluorescent lamps, present LED's), Omron has developed "flat light source" technology. Taking full advantage of its small size/long service life, features inherent to the LED, the "flat light source" will be positioned to realize future unrestricted illumination such as "wall-mounted light" and "portable light."

Using light wave control technology of the currently marketed DR-LED as a base, a precise optics design was implemented for optical beam dispersement to compartmentalize more space, and by doing so increasing the amount of surface area. The light emitting surface area is 30mm x 30mm with a thickness of 6mm, giving it about 50 times more illumination surface area than a typical bullet-type LED of the same thickness. If a bullet-type LED were to be created to match the same amount of illumination surface area, the thickness would have to be between 1/10th and 1/5th greater. Moreover, this technology mixes three colors (blue, green, red) into a single "flat light source," thus making any color possible, something that has proven to be very difficult for light bulbs and fluorescent light.

The scope of applications for the "flat light source" include those which the LED has already advanced into such as train car brake lights, signals and displays. Combining several "flat light source" units together creates enough illumination for wall-mounted light or portable light and its compact size makes it ideal for narrow locations like walls and columns. Plus, color can be freely adjusted making it a truly full color lighting source.

Hereafter, Omron will accelerate the move toward illumination by the low energy consumption contributing LED, and with this newly developed technology as a base, strive to bring the "flat light source" to commercialization.

About Omron
Headquartered in Kyoto, Japan, OMRON Corporation is a global leader in the field of automation. Established in 1933 and headed by President Yoshio Tateisi, Omron has more than 25,000 employees in over 35 countries working to provide products and services to customers in a variety of fields including industrial automation, electronic components, social systems (ticket gate machines, ticket vending machines, cash dispensers, and traffic control), and healthcare. The company is divided into five regions and head offices are in Japan (Kyoto), Asia Pacific (Singapore), China (Hong Kong), Europe (Amsterdam) and US (Chicago). For more information, visit Omron's Web site at www.omron.com

For further information please contact:
Omron Corporation
Corporate Brand Communications Department
Christopher Udell
Takayuki Nakamura
Tokyo
TEL: 81-3(3436)7139
christopher_udell@omron.co.jp
tak ayuki_nakamura@omron.co.jp

| Home | News | IR | Products | R&D | About OMRON | Site Map |

oLEDs still have too many problems with area

[JWyner]

They just can't fabricate them any larger than about 6 inches, I believe (cannot recall the exact figures right now).

However, this particular technology is not a bridging technology -- it's for a completely different application: large, uniform, LED-based light sources.

The only relationship would be that an oLED in the center of this device would allow for a *very* thin, flat surface.

Re:Ask Slashdot:

[Anonymous Coward]

strawberries

How many lumens per watt?

[dpbsmith]

It's disappointing that the article doesn't say anything about luminous efficacy (lumens per watt). Is it greater than or less than traditional LED's?

From the fact that it's NOT mentioned I'm guessing that it's less, meaning that these are more useful for decorative applications than as a serious source of illumination.

Re:How many lumens per watt?

[Smidge204]

Assuming the LED chip is pretty much the same as any other LED semiconductor, then it's probably the same efficiency.

But the real trick here is that this device sends ALL of the light out over a fairly wide area and in ONE direction, using a fresnel-type reflector. That makes the device flat and relatively thin, but puts out a good deal of light over a large area. Somethingf you'ld probably need an array of standard LEDs or a (relatively) bulky parabolic reflector to do.

Of course, it's not exactly broundbreaking research. The geometric properties of Fresnel lenses has been known for a long time. This is just an example of a good, easy idea that everyone has just overlooked until now.
=Smidge=

Nice find!

[JWyner]

I've never seen oLED technology so far along. I hope they can handle production problems -- I WANT ONE!!! :D

so has...

[g4dget]

a company called "Kodak". In fact, lots of people have been working busily on commercializing this, and there are probably some OLED products on the market. It's not quite competitive with LCDs or CRTs yet.

odd (offtopic -1)

[sckeener]

a totally flat light source which might give traditional LED's a run for their money."

I had to reread the begining because I thought totally flat was 2d and my mind couldn't wrap itself around 2d light. How am I going to see it?

Re:Ask Slashdot:

[Anonymous Coward]

one word: pineapplejuice. make your partner drink it the day you want to swollow and his jiz will taste great!

I like to fuck sheep!

[Anonymous Coward]

BAA!BAA!BAA!

LCD's

[dmaxwell]

The parent is probably thinking of reflective LCDs. And yes, it would be nice if LCD monitors had reflective elements so they could be used in brightly lit rooms.

Anyhoo, you're right as well, IF these things are bright enough then they would do as well in brightly lit rooms as CRTs. Come to think of it I wouldn't care for any screen that had an overly bright light shining directly at it but it would be better if none of these things washed out in bright indirect lighting.

Re:LCD's

[akhaksho]

Right, these are called transreflective LCDs. My Ipaq has one. The problem I see with them is that you need a lot of light from the front it order to get a good image. Indoor lighting is usually too dim. A few years back I saw a rugged tablet-pc like thing with a VGA transreflective screen. Never seen one with higher resolution, but there's probably no technical reason it couldn't be done.

Wow

[Giggles Of Doom]

Wow, a led based fernel. We've been using this sort of stepped lens/mirror technology for decades in theater. Just didn't put a LED in it I guess.

emagin

[bigpat]

emagin is alrady making micro oled displays for gaming and other applications.

Re:emagin

[Dylan Zimmerman]

Well, yeah, they're selling them, but only at $6500 each. That might just be the price for the developer's kit, but I could find any other price listed on the website.

Re:Imagine the impact...Lower Taxes

[twert]

Imagine the impact of cheep light.

City governments spend millions in electricity every year to power streetlights and traffic lights. LED's use significantly less power than sodium vapor and other light tech. The city I live in is already testing some of the traffic lights with LED versions. It's just a matter of time before cost savings starts.

Yes, barely

[Anonymous Coward]

They better come up with a better name for sales in the US. Otherwise, people will say, "I ain't buying a 'moron' monitor"

If I ever vacation in Europe, it'll be in Denmark

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'll be sure to patron Aage's Pizza.

no more on OMRON, or?

[drjzzz]

OMRON is unfortunately close to
MORON for some readers (like me).

Re:no more on OMRON, or?

[ashitaka]

You'd prefer the original name?

Omlon.

Seems like just a lens....

[Wubby]

I don't know about you, but these things look like its just a freznel lens over it. Sure, they put it facing the opposite direction and not over it, but other than that I don't see anything spectacular. It's doing essential the same job: redirect light from the angle out in the desired direction.

Am I missing something?

Re:Seems like just a lens....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a fucking MIRROR!!! Lenses and mirrors are not the same thing!!!

Re:Seems like just a lens....

[Wubby]

No fucking duh! Still not that spectacular. Looks like a freznel, acts like a freznel... but its a mirror - ooooooo, aaaaaaah, wow

old concept, new package

[mickcim]

The reflector is an implementation of a fresnel lens, invented in 1822 by a French Physicist named Augustin Fresnel. Initially used in lighthouse lenses, and more recently used in things like overhead projectors and thin magnifying surfaces you see on the back of RVs. The fresnel shape comes from taking the original lens or reflector and cutting it into concentric rings. Then making each ring thinner, but leaving the original curve so that most of the light is reflected in parallel beams.

Re:Imagine the impact... well maybe not so much

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

applied like wallpaper to my walls or ceilings

Maybe they can design them in 1/16 or 1/8 inch sizes to snap together in a way that can be multiplexed. Run your lines on the horizontal and vertical edge and individually address each element in any color.

Maybe a 640x480 grid (expensive, I'm sure) of these things will be useful enough for simple gaming. But only if they change color fast enough. I'd hook a PS2 to it if I could.

so i was thinking...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm gonna buy a bunch of these flat leds and fashion them onto clothes. Stay with me. Then I write this program that lets the owner "wear" photos made by the leds. Give it to the girlfriend to wear, load the Jessica Alba module....then BAM. She looks like Jessica Alba all the time. Atleast from the face down, but thats all that really counts anyway. heh heh.

interesting. But nothing revolutionary.

[zymano]

Reflector behind the led. It's an ok idea but might cost more than organic thin film led's.

Re:Imagine the impact...Lower Taxes

[rtstyk]

In New York almost all traffic lights and pedestrian crosswalk likghts have been converted to be led based.

I think they're going to be pissed when this technology proves cheaper...

Re:Imagine the impact...Lower Taxes

[TechnoLust]

Yeah, where I live now has several traffic lights whith LEDs instead of bulbs. They did it where I used to live because people kept shooting them.

White Light LED's

[twert]

I hear that white light LED's are actually more difficult to make than color LED's. Does anyone know why?

Re:White Light LED's

[nickclarke]

I think it has something to do with the chemicals used to make it. They have the same problem with blue LEDs. That's why white and blue LEDs are more expensive than red, green and yellow ones.

Re:White Light LED's

[cybermace5]

The white LED is actually a blue LED.

Blue LEDs only came around when the right formulation was engineered.

They emit some ultraviolet light, which finds them an application as white LEDs when surrounded by flourescent material that fills in the rest of the spectrum.

Re:White Light LED's

[ephemere]

I work for Gentex Corporation, a company that makes white light LED's, among other things. Actually, they are a mix of two colored LED's.

Re:White Light LED's

[cybermace5]

That's how your company makes them. Most other white LEDs use the phosphor mechanism.

Wearable Displays...

[drenehtsral]

These guys are already notorious among wearable developers. Here's why. The bought the patents and designs for the Private Eye HUD from the previous manufacturer, and put it and all of it's relatives out of production. Never mind that they were higher resolution, cheaper, and lower current than any of the competing display solutions, and STILL ARE!

The display technology involved a single strip of extremely high density LEDs packed together in a line, and a vibrating mirror that would scan back and forth as the LEDs blinked to make a picture. Neat technology. Very high contrast, readable in high light conditions.

I spent a year or two hoping they'd come back, but no =:-( They're gone, and _just_ before I managed to get my hands on one.

Re:Wearable Displays...

[British]

Isn't that how the display for the Adventurevision console worked?

OLED problems

[Anonymous Rockstar]

The problems with OLED is the shelf life of the colors. I heard that red and green last about 10 years, but blue lasts only 4. They have been working hard just to get the blue to last even 4 years. Let me know if you have heard anything else about that.

Re:OLED problems

[bagofbeans]

getting more than a few thousand hours (operation before half-life) out of the blue is a problem at the moment. And a year is 8760 hours.

PDPs have similar problems with phospor lifetimes differing for RGB, which is why any unused portions of a PDP are sent the average of the rest of the screen's intensity so it all wears evenly.

Electroluminescent are flat. This isn't.

[Animats]

This isn't a flat lamp. It's a LED with a lens. This is a flat lamp.

a company called 'Omron'

[Anonymous Coward]

not to mention the readers that take your boarding pass at the airport, and even home medical equipment like thermometers and blood pressure meters...

Re:Imagine the impact...Lower Taxes

[AnotherBlackHat]

LED's use significantly less power than sodium vapor and other light tech.

No they don't.
If you want red light, then red LEDs are more efficent than creating white light and throwing away the non-red parts,
but as of 2002, low pressure sodium was still the most energy efficent lighting source known to man.

I haven't checked recently, but last year the break down was something like this;

Lumens/Watt Light Source
100-190 low pressure Sodium (HID)
50-150 High pressure Sodium (HID)
60-140 Metal Halides (HID)
20-60 mercury vapor (HID)
85-95 32 watt T8 fluorescent
60-65 standard F40T12 cool white fluorescent
48-60 compact fluorescents
45-55 Super bright Red/Orange LED
35-45 Super bright Green LED
20 T3 tubular halogen
15-25 bright white LED
5-25 Halogen
17 standard 100 watt incandescent
6 incandescent night light bulb (7w)
6w incandescent flashlight bulbs

Of course, LEDs have a lot of other nice features, like toughness, long life, and a better failure mode. (They get dimmer with time, rather than suddenly burning out.)

-- this is not a .sig

Re:Imagine the impact...Lower Taxes

[twert]

Huh, My bad. I thought that I heard they where better on the lumens/watt than other light devices. Thanks for your insightful reply.

"Omron"

[ashitaka]

One of the company's first products in the 40's was a home hair curling iron sold under brand name formed by a typical Japanese contraction (e.g. Pasocon = Personal Computer) and the inability to differentiate between "L" and "R" in written Japanese:

"Omlon". (hOme iLON)

Later they discovered this name really sounds stupid in English so it was changed to Omron.

Shooting lights?

[nlinecomputers]

They did it where I used to live because people kept shooting them.

Ok but aren't they more expensive to buy? Wouldn't a shotgun blast destroy an array of LEDs just as easy as a big light blub? Cheaper costs per kilowatt hour of power I can see but how are they bullet proof?

Re:Shooting lights?

[TechnoLust]

They weren't being shot by a shotgun... mostly kids with BB guns and the occasional drunk with a .22. A BB or .22 will get one LED, but it would take a lot of time and ammo to pick them all off.

Thickness...

[jimmer63]

Did anyone notice it's 6mm thick? That's huge for a laptop. That doesn't include any of the other display layers/components. Looks like this needs some time to develop. This design would be fine for a flat light source, ie wall mounted or ceiling mounted, which is what it was designed for.

Re:Imagine the impact...Lower Taxes

[Pieroxy]

They _are_ better for a single color. If you compare RED lights, LEDs are the most efficient source, but that is mainly because all the other sources don't know how to produce red light. They just produce white light and then you apply a filter that block all non-red radiations.

For white lights, LEDs are not the most efficient light source.

Cool, but..

[jcr]

This is just an LED and a mirror. Sure, the Fresnel-lens concept applied to a mirror is a cool idea, but this is hardly a breakthrough.

-jcr

not the modder, but

[Anonymous Coward]

if you can get the real article not just the text, you would see the diagram of the device. It is not paper-thin. It uses an LED and a modified frensel style mirrored surface to spread the light out instead of the plastic lenses that typical LED's use. It looks to be about 2-5 mm thick, and can't be painted on or anything like it.

Re:not the modder, but

[cybermace5]

I knew that...but they are still very thin and flat, and lend themselves to an array large enough to make a brake light. Instead of a deep wiring and reflector pocket, the LED array can be set just a few millimeters into the skin and sealed flush with the car's finish.

Summary of some recent Slashdot stories

[locknloll]

"Hi, we're a company that produces 'Perfumed, Glowing Cloth. In order to make it glow, we're using 'Thin, Flat LED's'".

What's next? 'Soviet, Russian Beowulf Clusters'? 'Evil, Evil Tractor Beams'?

"truly full color"

[nmg196]

How can it be "truely full color" and "make any color possible" when it's only got normal red green and blue LED technology to work with? Although you can mix up quite a lot of colours with these three, you're still fairly limited in what you can produce in terms of the full gamut of the eye. For example, monitors (also obviously using RGB) can only display a certain set of colours that you can see in real life. It can't display a shade of red that's verging on infra red for example, or an extremely deep purple that's almost ultra-violet. It can only display colours which it can "mix" out of red green and blue ie colours which have a wavelength higher than the wavelengh of the red channel and lower than the wavelengh of the blue channel - and even those will be limited by the quality of those individual colours.

Nick...
PS: I speak English English from England, so sorry if me spelling colour correctly offends you :)

Re:"truly full color"

[KillerBob]

How can it be "truely full color" and "make any color possible" when it's only got normal red green and blue LED technology to work with?

I would wager that this "true full colour" that they're talking about would be the same "true full colour" that your monitor and TV are doing. 16.7 million colours, isn't it? AFAIK, that's far more colours than the human eye can distinguish.

To put things in perspective... I doubt very much that you can distinguish between 520.5nm and 520.55nm light. Green is green. It doesn't really matter that the thing can only display colours in increments of 0.001nm, because you'll never be able to tell the difference.

I understand your points about the extremes of the spectrum, but that's a comparatively small amount of the visible spectrum that doesn't really occur often enough to discount it.

Besides... this "true colour" they're advertising could just be in comparison to existing technologies. ;)

light sources vs. display styles (mostly offtopic)

[timothy]

I'm happy to hear that EL dash lighting is becoming more commmon. I've been car shopping a little bit lately (not as the buyer, just along for the ride), and am impressed that a lot of cars now have much better display systems than they used to.

However, I disagree on the digital v. analog displays -- analog displays have IMO certain advantages that no digital display can top, though (as another commenter pointed out) they can sometimes come close ... by simulating analog displays.

When it comes to "inability to comprehend numbers compared to pointy things," in a well designed analog display, the pointy things are conveying part of the information, and the dial itself is conveying some more, with its shape, differing coloration, integrated idiot lights, etc. (And I think that typical modern speed guages and tachometers are actually pretty well designed. Not perfect, but not bad.) It's sometimes useful to be able to tell at one glance where *in a range* a particular measurement falls -- oil temperature, engine speed, battery charge, remaining fuel, etc ... just like a map with a marked location is more useful than raw coordinates, generally.

There may one day be a great dashboard style that overcomes my objections by infallably offering guages and warnings that do an efficient job of conveying information, allow folks to redesign their display to their own tastes, etc, but I think that's a long way off (decades).

And (also as mentioned by another commenter) a physical, analog odometer is useful (though that's certainly something which could be mostly worked around, say with a button to activate the odometer display even with the engine off ...) My car doesn't even have a tachometer, never mind one with a useful display, and I would not trade my analog odometer for one ;)

I don't mind certain displays being highly computerized (like that always-on GPS overview of location which my car ... also lacks), but I like most of the basics (fuel, speed, tach, engine temp, oil pressure) being analog -- and mostly being round :) Have you ever driven a Caddy (surely some others, too) with the speed shown on a humongous horizontal bar that underlies the whole dashboard? It's *sort* of neat, but robs space from other things.

timothy

Re:Imagine the impact...Lower Taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

...17 standard 100 watt incandescent...

I'm betting that the lights of the future will be made of the same stuff as the lights of today.

Re:Imagine the impact...Lower Taxes

[Ryan Amos]

Houston and Austin, TX (maybe more, houston and austin are all I ever go to) are replacing all their traffic lights with LEDs. Ditto for city bus brake lights/turn signals. The savings are bigger than you might think. Used to be they'd replace the bulbs in traffic lights every year or two, now they can wait ten. That means that they don't have to hire as many people to change the bulbs, they use less power AND they're totally compatible witht the old systems. Any city not seriously considering LED traffic lights is wasting your tax dollars.

Not True...Look at...

[mustangsal66]

Check out your local Firedept or Rescue squad.. Or a new Caddi. All have LEDs as siganls. New LEDs systems are testing brighter then regular strobe packs.