"Solid State Lighting, GaN LEDs and Lasers"

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  • About the author of this report
  • Executive summary
  • Agenda
• The solid state lighting revolution
  • What drives the solid state lighting revolution
  • Moore' s law for semiconductor electronics
  • Tokyo' s market situation for lamps today, prices, lifetime, efficiency
• Dramatic changes for today' s established lighting industry
  • today' s lighting industry, the status quo: market segmentation, energy consumption, environmental impact (incl graphics and quantitative analysis)
  • today' s lamp industry: key players and their market shares and their strategies
  • the global energy bill for lighting
  • operating costs, lighting efficiency, and ratios for LEDs, compact fluorescent lamps and kerosene lamps
  • lighting efficiencies for the most important lamp technologies as a function of time (graphics: 1970 - 2020)
  • luminous efficiencies for different light sources
• General lighting, "Ban the bulb", political and government actions
  • energy efficient lighting legislation
  • California
  • USA
  • developing countries
• Physics and technology
• Blue LEDs and lasers - key points
  • Why are blue and white GaN LEDs important?
  • Why are blue GaN lasers important?
  • Who invented GaN blue LEDs and Lasers?
• Physics and technology
  • Light spectrum of an LED, a light bulb and a laser
  • Blue lasers for optical storage
  • What is a blue light emitting diode (LED)?
  • What is a laser diode (LD)?
  • Surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) vs edge emitting lasers
  • What is a light amplifier?
  • What is a resonant cavity?
  • Why Gallium Nitride?
• The three steps to commercial GaN devices
  • Three key difficulties had to be solved
  • Lattice mismatch
  • High growth temperature
  • P-type doping
  • Some remaining issues
• White GaN based LEDs
  • the basics of white GaN LEDs for general lighting
  • the three ways to make white GaN LEDs
  • color composition of white LEDs
  • color temperature
• Long-lifetime GaN lasers
  • Development of long-lifetime GaN lasers
  • Schematic structure of Nakamuras blue laser
  • Schematics of ELOG for defect control
• Why did Shuji Nakamura at Nichia succeed where many much larger corporations failed?
  • Management structure for Nakamuras work
  • About Nichia Chemical Industries
  • Nichia sales, profits and number of employees (data for 1983-2004)
• Markets for GaN LEDs
  • main application sectors for GaN LEDs
  • traffic signals and specialty lighting
  • street lighting
  • displays and signage
  • archhitectural lighting, interior design, shops and retail
  • automotive applications, LED roadmap of a major Japanese car electronics maker, LED head lights and fog lamps
  • mobile phones
  • backlights for laptops, PCs, and TVs
  • general lighting
• Market for GaN Lasers
  • Applications and markets for GaN lasers
  • Blu-ray disc and HD-DVD
• Patent issues
  • “The Club of Five”
  • Selected US Patents issued during 1993-1995
  • overview of some licensing relationships in the "The Club of Five"
• Emerging new lighting industry structure
  • disruptive innovation for the lamp industry
  • Not all incumbents have equally strong positions
  • newcomers enter the lamp market
  • business models change
• Nichia
  • origins and structure
  • Nichia' s recent new share allocation
  • Nichia' s sales and profits (graphics for 1985 - 2010)
  • Nichia' s number of employees (graphics for 1985 - 2010)
• Industry structure
  • the front line LED makers
  • equipment makers and other supplies
  • trends and projections
• Summary
• References