家中的LED：挑战与机遇

　　家中的LED：挑战与机遇

　　发光二极管（LED）是非常受欢迎的，而且SSL行业的内部和外部几乎没有问题，它是当今最好的照明技术。与其他类型的照明相比，LED的优越性开始于它在能源效率和使用寿命方面的巨大优势。LED灯泡可以提供大约相当于传统白炽灯和荧光灯的照明，而只消耗能源的三分之一。LED灯泡也有望比基于成熟照明技术的产品寿命长20倍以上。更重要的是，LED灯泡的固态元件比相对脆弱的传统照明技术提供更好的机械损伤防护。总之，这些特性为LED照明解决方案用户提供了一个极具吸引力的投资回报率，特别是在商业和工业应用中，维修和灯泡更换是困难的和/或昂贵的。

　　基于这些原因，美国能源部估计，2030，固态的采用LED照明将减少照明用电消耗的四分之一的国家，相当于约190太瓦小时和150亿美元，同时减少二氧化碳气体排放量相当于2100万辆汽车。

　　不幸的是，住宅用户并不关心商业用户的这些优势。虽然他们可能想要发光二极管，但他们想要的是具有竞争力的价格，而且他们并不急于购买LED灯产品，价格仍然比紧凑型荧光灯高2到三倍，而且比六包白炽灯要贵得多，大约要花费8美元。

　　Research confirms that LEDs are used in a plethora of applications. For example， Fig. 1 shows many of the places you will see LEDs （note especially general lighting）。 But what it does not tell you is how residential lighting’s LED numbers compare to the existing types of lighting （CFL， incandescent， etc.）。

　　Again， while cost is one obvious stumbling block in the residential market， it is not the only one. Premature failure is another hurdle for early adopters， and designers have to figure out what to do to prevent product breakdown. The LED lighting solution is a system and there are many contributing factors that must be mitigated to ensure a long-lived fixture design. LED manufacturers must continue to make in-roads into improved reliability with regard to thermal management， manufacturing variances （reduced binning tolerances）， overall LED package robustness， and lumen maintenance. Inherently， cost and performance are intertwined through engineering design trade-offs at the product level. Therefore， any improvements on performance （flux， efficacy and color quality） have to be leveraged against system costs in order to address the customers‘ needs. Other possible methods for lowering costs and customer price point to a combination of manufacturing efficiency and performance improvement via the use of larger wafers， improvements in LED epitaxy， cost of ownership through yield and throughput， improved packaging technologies （phosphors， optics）， and improved package and luminaire design.