Partnership for Solid-State Lighting: Report of a Workshop (2002)

Thomas Alva Edison’s 1889 invention of the first commercially practical incandescent bulb continues to light the public’s imagination of the brilliant but lone innovator working long hours in the laboratory. Edison is credited with inventing a better filament as well as an improved vacuum seal around this incandescent material. Today, we recognize Edison’s bulb as a “disruptive technology,”¹ one that not only upset traditional lighting customs² but also created the power industry. Indeed, it has transformed how people the world over live and work.

Yet, Edison was not the first to invent the incandescent bulb; some 20 groups had worked for 40 years to develop a brighter and more reliable light bulb before Edison’s eventual success.³ Edison’s genius, in retrospect, lay more in develop-

ing his vision of an electrical supply system—involving a grid of generators, transmitting wires, etc.—to produce and provide the power to light his bulbs for practical use.⁴ This vision took time to realize; Edison’s bulbs did not enter widespread use until the 1920s. Their acceptance required, among other things, the development of new manufacturing techniques, the standardization of the common bulb and socket, and the construction of a power production and distribution infrastructure.⁵

As with Edison’s incandescent bulb, realizing the full potential of solid-state lighting technology will take vision. Today’s solid-state lighting technology already illuminates the NASDAQ billboard in New York’s Times Square. However, to realize the broader energy savings and environmental benefits, solid-state lighting technology must first come into widespread use. Mass-market accep-tance of solid-state lighting involves reduced costs and improved ease of use and practicality in common applications. For widespread adoption of this technology to occur common standards will need to be developed on sockets, electrical supplies, and control interfaces.⁶

To achieve these common objectives, some form of cooperation is necessary. One approach would be to encourage further cooperative research among universities, government laboratories, and private research centers as a cost-effective means of expediting this development and encouraging additional research and collaboration on industry standards.⁷ With this objective in mind, a National Academy of Sciences report recommends a national initiative in lighting. (See Box A.) This workshop report builds on this previous analysis and highlights a

variety of specific technical, infrastructure, and marketing challenges that many experts believe must be overcome before societal benefits of solid-state lighting can be realized.

In the past, government incentives, in the form of awards and procurement, have helped bring new technologies to market. Government-industry partnerships can help overcome these challenges if they are properly structured and effectively led.¹⁰ Previous elements of a multi-year, program-based study by the Committee for Government-Industry Partnerships have suggested that consortia can be an effective means to reduce costs, share information, and help accelerate technological innovation by coordinating pre-competitive research and collaboration on the development of common standards.¹¹ Collaborative efforts to bring solid-state lighting to the marketplace may help U.S. industry achieve international leadership in this and other new technologies.

Many participants at a March 2001 Solid-State Lighting Workshop noted that Solid-State Lighting represents a new generation in lighting technology— one that presents new ways of purchasing, installing, using, and replacing lighting. They observed that Solid-State Lighting has the potential to expand the lighting industry and create new concepts in lighting, and that it promises to be longer lasting, more versatile, safer, more environmentally friendly, and more energy efficient lighting technology than today’s incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. According to Charles Becker of General Electric, widespread use of solid-state lighting can bring a 50 to 90 percent reduction in lighting-related energy use in the United States. In turn, this suggests up to $90 billion in gross yearly savings, with related reductions in power plant emissions possible as well.¹²

This report summary brings together the central themes of the presentations and discussions at the workshop. These relate to:

• The current and potential applications of solid-state lighting,

• The current and potential operational advantages of solid-state lighting,

• The potential advantages of widespread uses of this technology,

• Three core challenges facing the solid-state lighting industry in bringing this technology to the market, and

• The potential use of a consortium-based organization to help overcome some of these challenges.

Experts in attendance at the workshop cited numerous current and potential applications of Light Emitting Diodes (LED) and Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLED) as examples. Current applications of LEDs include:

• Traffic Lights: The long lifetimes and efficiency of LEDs make them particularly well suited to the job of regulating traffic.¹³

• Automobile brake lights: LEDs improve auto safety because they turn

on in less than a microsecond; tungsten lamps, in comparison, require tens of milliseconds to light up. This means that at highway speeds, a driver following another car will be able to react about one car length sooner to a car with an LED brake light. Small and lightweight, LEDs also help reduce the overall weight of the vehicle, allowing for higher gas mileage.¹⁴

• Large Video Screens: LED video screens have all but replaced cathode ray tubes for large presentations, especially outdoors.¹⁵ The construction of the eight-story NASDAQ wall of light at Times Square in New York City is a harbinger of a new era of display lighting.¹⁶

• Retail signs and lighting: Retailers are experimenting with LED lighting designs.¹⁷ Channel LED systems are beginning to replace neon signs for lettering. They promise a rapid return on investment because of their very low maintenance costs and higher energy savings.¹⁸

OLEDs—which are a newer, more rapidly developing solid-state lighting technology—have moved in just a decade from scientific curiosity to selected commercial application.¹⁹ OLED devices have the added benefit of being flexible. Their pliability means they can be patterned, printed, and fitted to surfaces of any shape. For example, an organic display on a substrate of thin plastic can be bent around a diameter of less than a centimeter, offering many new possibilities in architecture and industrial design.²⁰

Several workshop participants referred to the operational advantages of solid-state lighting over conventional lighting:²¹

• Energy efficiency: Solid-state lighting devices lose little energy in converting electrical energy to light. ²² The internal efficiency of some devices is about double that of a standard 60-watt incandescent bulb.

• Cool operation: Solid-state lighting devices today convert approximately 25 to 35 percent of electrical energy to light with the rest dissipated as heat.²³ By comparison, the efficiency rate for incandescent bulbs is only about 5 percent.²⁴

• Long Life: A typical incandescent bulb lasts about 1,000 hours; a red or yellow LED can last more than 100 times as long.²⁵

• Small size: LEDs and OLEDs do not require bulky sockets or fixtures. They can be embedded directly into small spaces in appliances, automobiles, or buildings. This allows for more flexibility in designs for lighting spaces, instruments, and buildings.²⁶

Broader impacts that widespread use of solid-state lighting technology may bring were also highlighted.

• Energy savings: Dr. Ginsberg of the Department of Energy noted that about 18 percent of all electricity in the United States is used for lighting, primarily commercial, residential, and outdoor applications.²⁷ Wide-

spread use of solid-state lighting, he noted, has the potential to reduce consumption of electricity for lighting by 50 percent. This could imply a gross savings of approximately $10 billion per year in the near future, rising by 2020 to some $30 to $70 billion annually.²⁸ Of course, additional and non-trivial analysis would be required to determine the net economic benefit to the nation of widespread use of solid-state technology.²⁹

• Environmental protection: Dr. Al Romig of Sandia National Laboratories provided estimates that widespread adoption of solid state lighting by 2025 has the potential to decrease total global consumption of electricity by 10 percent, free over 125 GW of global generating capacity (the approximate equivalent of 125 large power plants), and reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by 200 million tons a year.³⁰ Relatedly, Dr. DenBaars noted that widespread use of solid-state lighting technology could help bring the United States into compliance with the Kyoto environmental protocol. As noted by Dr. Duclos, widespread use of OLEDs also has the potential to reduce mercury related pollution associated with fluorescent lights.³¹ It is important to bear in mind, of course, that there may also be potential environmental concerns arising from the increased

manufacture, use, and resulting disposal requirements of solid-state lighting itself.

• Economic opportunity: The first companies to bring products to the general illumination market will help set standards, create jobs, and establish market share in the solid-state lighting industry. The global market for lamp products is valued at some $12 billion, including incandescent, fluorescent, and halogen technologies.³² The display market in solid-state lighting is alone thought to be worth some $50 billion a year in the near future.³³

• Enhancement of national security: Solid-state lighting devices offer major advantages to military systems because they are small, safe, lightweight, reliable, cool, and resistant to heat and ionizing radiation. Dr. Romig of Sandia National Laboratories noted that researchers are already applying solid-state optics in chemical and biological weapons sensing, detection of missile launches, and in a new generation of radar.³⁴

While some solid-state lighting devices already have successful niche applications, solid-state lighting manufacturers must address the requirements of the market for general lighting if wider adoption of this technology is to occur. Users in this broader market expect LEDs and OLEDs to have similar properties as existing light sources in terms of light distribution, flux density, lifetime, color, ease of use, and other properties. Participants at the workshop discussed the research and development, infrastructure development, and consumer acceptance challenges to bringing solid-state lighting to the marketplace.

Many workshop participants noted that both LED and OLED modes of solidstate lighting must overcome a gamut of technical challenges to reach full commercial application.³⁵ These technical challenges relate, inter alia, to enhancing energy efficiency, improving light extraction and color rendering, reducing manufacturing defects, and extending lamp life.³⁶

In addressing the technological and cost challenges for both LEDs and OLEDs, engineers need new, accurate standards to measure light and color, as well as non-destructive methods to measure and monitor other properties of semiconductor materials to reduce defects. For example, a definition of “good” white light must be developed based on customer requirements for different applications.³⁷

Dr. Gebbie of NIST pointed to need for common standards in coordinating research on white solid-state lighting. Human subjectivity, she noted, poses particular challenges in measurement and standardization; NIST is developing innovative strategies to overcome this problem.³⁸ She noted that NIST could help

reduce such problems by working with manufacturers to address their measurement needs and to coordinate standards internationally.

Some workshop participants noted that a prospective partnership in solid-state lighting faces the mission of developing and advocating standards for a new lighting infrastructure. Addressing this point, Dr. Chipalkatti noted that Edison’s main contribution to a new and revolutionizing generation of electrical illumination rested less in inventing the incandescent bulb than in his vision of an infrastructure to support its widespread use. This involved developing new manufacturing techniques, common bulb sockets, and electrical distribution techniques. If solid-state lighting is to achieve its potential, with corresponding social benefits, a similar vision of the lighting goals and directions for a system underpinning this new technology is required. Indeed, as Dr. Chipalkatti concluded, there is still need to develop the “glue” that holds the elements of the LED distribution system together.

Industry roadmaps, which can be developed through public-private partnerships, can play an important role in this respect. As Dr. Becker indicated in the Proceedings, individual firms such as GE already possess their own technology roadmaps for specialty applications in solid-state lighting, “but what is less clear is how to make the leap to the system level: How can the industry move from small lamps and demonstrations to practical systems that are part of the real world?” To penetrate the general lighting market and to realize potential energy savings, noted Dr. Becker, it is necessary to drive the entire system and to promote the acceptance of solid-state lighting not only by the lighting industry, but also by architects, builders, and ordinary consumers.

Gaining marketplace acceptance for a new technology can be challenging. Perceived high costs and consumer preconceptions about what a lighting device is supposed to be can pose barriers to consumer acceptance. As Dr. Chipalkatti noted in his workshop presentation, the perceived inhibitive expense of LEDs is “almost a psychological factor.” Although the energy savings over the long lifetimes of LEDs are expected to far outweigh their higher initial costs, recent studies of consumer acceptance of compact fluorescent lighting, thought to be more broadly indicative, shows that consumers, in comparison shopping based on the retail cost of a lighting device, are likely to choose the cheaper light bulb, even if it is the overall less efficient option.³⁹ Such a mindset, noted, Dr. Chipalkatti, has

inhibited the adoption of compact fluorescent lighting even though they, like LEDs, are far more economical than traditional bulbs over the lifetime of the lamp. This tendency is likely to pose a barrier to the entry of solid-state lighting to the market for general illumination.

In addition to perceptions of cost, another psychological barrier to market acceptance may rest with how consumers conceive of artificial lighting and lighting fixtures.⁴⁰ Most of us think of lighting in terms of light bulbs placed within mounted fixtures. Such fixtures, however, often reduce the effective light output of the bulb, often significantly. In addition, lighting fixtures can take up considerable room. To illustrate this point, Dr. Chipalkatti noted, that ceiling fixtures for fluorescent systems require 8 to 12 inches of overhead space. Illuminated LED embedded ceiling tiles, by comparison, would require no extra space. This means that tall buildings using solid-state lighting technologies would have room for an extra floor for every ten to twelve floors. Part of overcoming the barriers to market thus rests with educating consumers about the thinness, versatility, and overall savings potential of solid-state lighting.

In this regard, Dr. Kennedy of Harvard University described two demonstration projects—one in Boston and the other in New York City—designed to build public awareness of the potentials of solid-state lighting. She advocated the use of such public projects as one element to encourage further consumer education.

The technological and economic hurdles slowing the progress of solid-state lighting technology, coupled with its environmental and energy-saving appeal, have persuaded many leading figures in the field that the potential benefits and structure of an industry-led partnership between the lighting industry and the federal government should be considered. This was one of the key points of workshop presentations and discussions.

Dr. Haitz of Agilent Technologies noted that while the solid-state lighting industry is approaching its fourth generation of systems, the technical complexities of moving from one generation to the next are significant. He further noted that costs are high, rising each time by a factor of three. He cited the need for a common effort to develop breakthroughs in order for solid-state lighting technologies to become competitive and have an impact on national energy savings. Citing those factors as well, Dr. Chipalkatti of OSRAM-Sylvania underscored the resulting need for a more formal mechanism for cooperation among industries, government, academia, and lighting industry organizations to further technical advance.

Several participants stated that a solid-state lighting partnership among academia, industry, and government would have the advantage of drawing on the relative strengths of each. Robert Karlicek of GELcore noted that the overall R&D effort to produce white LED light requires breakthroughs in chip design and manufacturing, improved packaging design, and improved phosphors. These advances will require large contributions from government laboratories in collaboration with industry before commercial development by industry. In other cases, e.g., phosphors, which affect chip performance, the major effort must come from industry, with smaller contributions from academia and probably minor input from government laboratories.

Several speakers suggested that a major advantage of a government-supported collaboration is its ability to marshal diverse expertise from different locations. Steven van Skyle of Eastman Kodak noted that particular national laboratories have expertise in lighting design and lighting engineering, while industry and academia are conducting much of the work on materials and device research. Achieving low-cost manufacturing technologies will require collaboration among these three players.

One stimulus for a government-industry partnership in Solid-State Lighting is the perception that U.S. industry risks falling behind its global competitors as an important new industry gathers momentum. The United States faces strong competition from Europe and Asia. Japan already markets the lion’s share of LED devices worldwide.⁴¹ Nonetheless, Japan initiated its own government-in-

dustry consortium in 1998, led by the Ministry of Economics, Trade, and Industry, to develop efficient LED for general lighting. Similarly, Taiwan’s government has also made a large commitment to LED technologies.

At present nearly all major participating firms in the global solid-state lighting market benefit from partnerships with their national governments. American firms are the notable exception. Unless U.S. actors move promptly to collaborate more strategically in this field, other nations may take an early lead in commercializing new solid-state lighting products and dominating an important young industry that originally took shape in the United States. In his presentation, Mark Ginsburg of the Department of Energy noted that a U.S. solid-state lighting initiative, similar to those already launched by other countries, is needed to coordinate the funding for the long-term research necessary to bring the U.S. industry forward.

Drawing on the Japanese experience, Dr. Arpad Bergh of the Optoelectronics Industry Development Association noted that Japanese government-industry cooperation in electronics has been very successful. Aided in part by this support, the Japanese industry has already captured about 70 percent of the market share in solid-state lighting. Dr. Bergh stressed that a key role of government in such a partnership is to set strategic directions and to promote networking. Without such cooperative efforts, he warned, individual U.S. firms will have to move toward niche applications. For the U.S. LED industry to grow, cooperation is likely to prove essential. In particular, the development of common standards and platform technologies will be required to reduce costs, encourage widespread commercial use, and thereby capture the societal benefits of the technology.⁴²

Another stimulus for a lighting consortium comes from considerations of energy efficiency. Dr. Mark Ginsburg of the Department of Energy observed that, as part of its objective to promote efficient uses of energy, his department has taken a leading role in working with manufacturers to create a comprehensive, industry-driven solid-state lighting initiative. In the Department of Energy’s view, the purpose of such a consortium would be to:

• Educate the public and Congress about the potential of this technology;

• Reduce the electric lighting load of the United States;

• Capture the associated environmental benefits;

• Develop an important new industry sector; and thereby

• Exploit previous U.S. R&D investments to capture this industry’s high potential for technological leadership, employment, and export revenues.

Dr. Ginsburg pointed out that a Department of Energy advocacy program conducted a series of overlapping activities in 2000, including the commissioning of five-year technical roadmaps for both LEDs and OLEDs and an energy savings analysis conducted by Arthur D. Little, Inc.⁴³

While current LED and OLED technologies have been proven at the basic research level, history shows that some 95 percent of the research dollars are spent in moving new technologies from the lab to the commercial marketplace. As M. George Craford and coauthors have written in Scientific American, “[L]arge-scale replacement of lamps for general-purpose illumination are not expected for a decade or two because of the difficulty in making white LEDs efficient and cost-competitive.”⁴⁴ Roland Haitz estimates that the U.S. lighting industry, left on its own, will advance LEDs only enough to control about one-tenth of the lighting market by 2025. With government help, however, he estimates that the devices could well account for half the market.⁴⁵

In short, despite its promise, continued progress with this technology is not inevitable. Some technical challenges may prove insurmountable at acceptable cost. Most experts in the field appear to believe, however, that meaningful progress in solid-state technology is a question of time, resources, and market acceptance—the latter two being particularly important. While experience with other consortia (such as SEMATECH, and its roadmap) suggests that the rate of technological progress in solid-state lighting can be accelerated through publicprivate partnership, the rate of such improvement cannot be known a priori. Participants at the workshop made no forecast as to the likely pace of this improvement. To address these issues, better information is also required. Developing a roadmap with the requisite information to move elements of the technology forward from the laboratory to the market would be a major contribution. At present, reliable data on energy use for illumination and market data on lighting products is difficult to obtain at the national level. As Vorsatz and others have argued, policies that more effectively support solid-state lighting could be developed if comprehensive data on U.S. lighting energy use were more regularly gathered and analyzed.⁴⁶

Given the worldwide emulation of SEMATECH, many speakers at the workshop referred to the SEMATECH experience.⁴⁷ In his workshop presentation Bill Spencer, Chairman Emeritus of SEMATECH, listed some of the main lessons for a successful consortium based on SEMATECH’s experience.⁴⁸

• Ensure quality leadership, including key leaders of the major participating industries.

• Convey your message publicly to leaders in the government and private sector.

• Focus the program on key sectors and build on this developed strength, rather than approach the entire industry.

• Set measurable objectives for advancing generic or pre-competitive knowledge.

• Set uniform requirements of participation so that support is not fragmented.

• Plan first, spend later: Roadmaps are needed before consortia can be properly launched.⁴⁹

More recently, important collaborative work among national laboratories and universities has emerged in the printing of computer chips using extreme ultraviolet lithography.⁵⁰ The lesson of this and other public-private collaborations is that any future consortium for solid-state lighting must be an industry-driven process. The great range of R&D needs (from basic science to manufacturing infrastructure to whole new industries) are arguably best understood by the industry in close cooperation with universities and government research laboratories.

As recommended by the previous Academy report by the Committee on Optical Science and Engineering, enhancing the efficiency and efficacy of new lighting sources and delivery systems to realize broad-based societal benefits will require a cooperative, cost-shared approach to public-private R&D support. This report of a workshop builds on this previous analysis and highlights a variety of specific technical, infrastructure, and marketing challenges that many experts believe must be overcome before the economic and social benefits of solid-state lighting can be realized.