Top LED Manufacturers

The global light-emitting diode industry is mainly concentrated in Japan, Taiwan, Europe, America, South Korea, China, etc. According to Yano Research 2009, Japan, the largest producer of the light-emitting diode industry in the world, holds 46.6% of the market share.


European and American is the 2nd sector of the world production 18.2%. rest 35.2% is Korea, Taiwanese and Chinese Market. Nichia Corporation is the world's largest provider of the high-brightness light-emitting diodes. Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd is the world's fourth largest and Japanese is the second largest manufacturer of the light-emitting diodes.


Osram Opto, located in the Europe and America, is the world's second largest and Osram is the largest manufacturer of the high-brightness light-emitting diodes in Europe. Taiwan, the global production base of the consumption electronic products, is mainly engaged in the production of the visible light-emitting diodes. Taiwan is also the world's largest downstream packaging and middle stream chip production base. The Rate of growth is from Korea, Taiwan and China for more than 10% on 2008 as comparing with 2007. This growth is still on!

With more than 30-year development, Chinese light-emitting diode industry has formed the basically complete industrial chains, covering the LED inside, epitaxial wafer, chip package and application. At present, China has over 600 LED enterprises specializing in the downstream packaging and application. But the development of the epitaxial wafer and chip is comparatively backward. There are only about 10 enterprises engaged in the production of the epitaxial wafer for LED, as well as few chip manufacturers. So, the yield capacity enjoys a high degree of concentration. Recently Osram has announced the open ceremony of the first LED wafer fabrication in Penang. That has been one of the ways to enlarge their LED production in Asia. And the first step to shift the manufacturing centre and technology to Asia.

With gradual improvement of the luminous efficiency and application technologies, the light-emitting diodes has been transferred from initial indicator lights to screens, such as the landscape lighting, backlight, automobile lights, traffic lights, lighting areas, etc. The application of the light-emitting diodes is now in diverse development. It is predicted that the average compound growth rate of sales of the display light-emitting diodes will be exceeded 15% in 2006 to 2010 and the annual average compound growth rate of sales of the landscape lighting will reach over 35%, with the annual average compound growth rate of sales of the backlight light-emitting diodes at more than 30%.

In 2010, many patents in the light-emitting diode industry will expire. Chinese enterprises are expected to break through the shackles of the intellectual property rights from European, American and Japanese giants. They should make good use of huge market bases and abundant labor resources in order to occupy a place in the Global LED supplier food chain.


As for technology competence, European and American is the leader in term of Lumen intensity, LED efficacy, Package design, thermal management. Taiwan is a close follower and China is the world fcatory for LED of All types including those USA and Taiwan Set-up. European LED giant is also looking for way to set-up a fcatory in China for import tax redeem purpose.

Today we can see that there is almost one new set-up factory in China for LED every week! Not to believe that is not even get a good balance in demand and supply, however this supply of LED will carry on eroding the ASP of LED, an this is the nature of every electronics component life cycle.

These are the Rank of the LED players in the world in term of revenue of LED product in 2007.

Nichia 21%
Osram 18% (European No.1)
Citizen 7%
TG (Japan No.2)
Lumileds 6.8%
Stanley 6%
Everlight 5.3%
Avago 4.6%
Seoul Semi 4.2%
Others

IMAX Comes to SM North Edsa

Is the IMAX Theater in Mall Of Asia too far for you because you are living north of Metro Manila? Then fret no more!On July 16, 2009, after opening the very first IMAX Theatre in the Philippines at SM Mall of Asia, SM Cinema is opening another IMAX Theatre at SM City North EDSA!It would be equipped with IMAX's digital projection and theater systems powered by proprietary IMAX technologies that

A lesson in contrasts

(Even with this post, honeygarlic will only have a total of seven for the month of June 2009, breaking the record held jointly by September 2007 and June 2008. HIP HIP HOORAY!)

Make no mistake, it's fun to rile up the passionate.

Consider winding up an environmentalist by describing in great detail how you idled your jeep for half an hour while your buddy ran into the pollution shop to buy some pollution. Or annoying a human rights supporter by suggesting that human rights are a tool of Western domination and do not adequately reflect the views of all cultures.

(Okay, so there's a vast discrepancy in the sophistication of those examples. Bear with me.)

Perhaps the easiest - and most fun - to pester are the vegetarians and vegans of the world. Their passion is evident to outsiders every day of their life - and making it worse, meat is inherently funny.

Back in April, I drew your attention to passiveaggressivenotes, a website that contains exactly what it says on the tin.

I've been checking it ever since, following along with the more-or-less daily updates. Once in a while I manage a chuckle (although few have come close to the "Daves need to stick together" one that was at the top when I first discovered it), but one from last week was too good not to share:



The best part is how clearly obvious the backstory is - a meat-eater saw the first note, decided to parody it, whipped something up in Publisher, and tacked it onto the board for the laughs. It worked far better than he could have ever imagined.

Sometimes, however, the shoe is on the other foot. While there are many things I love about my new job and my new employer, the unfortunate truth is that Chapters/Indigo has put a number of small, independently-run bookstores out of business - and most of those that still survive are barely hanging on. The people who care about this would generally fit into at least some of the mocked categories above.

For once, these people have something to celebrate - the Coles store in Kitchener's Fairview Park Mall won't be lasting too much longer; they're moving out at the end of August.

Score one for the little guy.

I think that makes the score six thousand two hundred seventeen to one.

---------------------------

Here is a link to the greatest banner advertisement in the history of the Internet. It takes a long time to go through, but it's worth it.

Now I want some Pringles.

--Ryan

Maricar Reyes as Grease Woman on May Bukas Pa (with Teaser Video)

My earlier article on Maricar Reyes commended her for her come-back in 'May Bukas Pa' after the Hayden Kho video scandal issue. It would also be interesting to note a similar parallelism in her guest role in the soap as a grease-woman.In that role, she is despised, humiliated, and mocked upon by the public because of dirty appearance, foul smell and eccentric disposition. Somewhere along the

Using Globe DUO: Convenience of a Mobile Landline in My Cellphone

Staying in two houses alternatively is a hassle, much worse when one of them does not have a landline. Sometimes I stay at QC and at times in Makati. Callers are usually manually redirected to my cellphone in case they wanted to reach me immediately. Hence I got myself another mobile landline service last year from another network.It provided what I need although carrying another phone (aside

High Bright LED Market Overview and Forecast for 2010

Classification of LED by means of Drive Current
20mA is Low power
50-150mA is Medium power
150-1000mA is High Power

The most promising LED growth is the LED for lighting that as CAGR growth of 42% and Mobile application is 35% from 1998-2008

HBLED Market growth is of 2009 is 6.2 times of 1998, with total revenue of exceeding $5,000M in 2008.

Technologic advancement was prominent in year 2000 to 2009, especial the year 2005-2009, a lot of LED has great improved efficacy.

The 100Lm/watt Cool White LED and 80Lm/W warm white LED can be made in volume commercially in 2008. HBLED market continues to grown 11% from 2007 to 2008 to a $5.1B.

Mobile Phone
Mobile phone units continue to drop in 2009 since beginning of 2008 due to the world economic melt down. A senior executive of Nokia told me that that estimated unit produced in 2009 will be around 87% of 2008, (decreases of 13%)
Nokia no long call their product hand phone but handset, as more and more function and feature are embedded on the so called Mobile Phone….GPS, Camera of 8-12 MP…MP3, Radio, TV, office tool, and soon PicoP Projector. The Hi End phone of $600-900 is on one side becoming more expensive and would prolong it life cycle more for 6-12 months. Since end user would need more time to get used to all the functions and it is expensive. Whereas more and more low end phone would be selling at lower cost of $80. ULC hand phone is gone!

White Box Hand Phone
Since 2006, a Taiwanese phone chip maker invented a single MTK chip. Since then it is much easier to make a phone design with the chip that usually took a few years to develop! A lot of White Box business was growing like Spring Asparagus! This has driven the Chinese LED market to supply more the Side View LEDs.

HBLED Growth
As a result of most powerful equipment supplier of LED bonder with Higher production Output per dollar investment over these years since 2003. As other electronics component cycles do, the ASP continuous to drop -12% while mass product makes its tribute to increase at +20% from 2004-2008.
HBLED Unit growth 25% to 48B pieces in 2008.

LED for NB BLU
(Note book back light units) has been commercially available in volume, from the very first prototype display NB unit Cree has made in its Hong Kong regional Office Open Ceremony with an astonishing $700 as cost for a 14” display in 2005. Now the cost is approximately 8% of that!

Net Book Impact
HP, Fujitsu, Acer, Dell, Samsung and Apple all have LED Back Light on its new models. Dell has announced that they will go for 100%.
And yet Net book had created a new market for LED, recently Samsung and LG had announced to go for the Net book market with unconcealed intention of pursue another No. 1 for that market.
The Total net book shipment is 13 million in 2008 and will likely have 26 million this year. End of 2008 and on ward will see a lot of need for Side View LEDs.

Automobile Market
Automobile shipment continues to diminish in 2009, the number vehicles world wide shipment drops 4.3% and for EU, USA and Canada market drops 10%. Though the use of LED is becoming more from 200 to 350 pieces on an automobile, the total LED on Automobile will not be an influenced factor for HBLED growth in 2009-2010. The AFL (auto mobile front Lamp) has been used just for three models of cars in 2008-9, (namely Lexus LS600h, Audi R8 and GM's luxury division, Cadillac has signed on with the German automotive supplier Hella KGaA Hueck & Co., to offer a solution - low glare Light Emitting Diode (LED) headlamps. will be offered on its Escalade Platinum edition SUV. GM has resolved as we do not know if this model will be continue or not or with other name? The only seen successful case is Lumileds who builds the Real Hi Beam LED head lamp for Audi. However due to limited demand at this moment, This AFL impact is insignificant to the LED market as their market demand is too small.

LED Signage and Display
There is growth modestly by LED back light unit LCD TV and monitors and LED projector. LED pico Projector produced but have little impact for the market in 2008. Let’s see how it performs in 2009!

Light Fixture using LED
More than 400 companies are entering this LED light luminaries.
A lot of new application is using LED, both interior an exterior lightings
Volume is small and price is high independent of various product qualities from different supplier. LED is penetrating of niche and general lighting application, growth was 39% but overall volume is still small.
The largest is Architectural market at 43% of market, White LED accounts for 50% of the market. Highest growth market is Outdoor, Replacement Bulb, commercial and industrial and entrainment.
Osram, Philips had introduced their LED light bulbs for direct incandescent lamp replacement. Theirs Price is $40-60 whereas there are numerous Low cost LED lamps using tens of VLED (vertical LED lamp) found in the market at $2-8!. This LED industry is still plagued by these low quality and underperforming LED light fixtures!

LCD TV
Is your home still using Big Glass Bottle of CRT TV? Probably not many!
Many New LCD TV sets from Samsung, LG, Sony, Sharp, are using LED as their back light unit, we have seen a lot of new model in CES 2009. Though there is just around 1% of the TV is using LED Back light LCD display, the upcoming market is Gigantic!
Samsung has launched an aggressive promotional Campaign of $40M. Would continue maintaining its NO, 1 position in LCD TV export world wide. And would differentiatel other with unique thin profile, super picture quality and they would enjoy substantial profitability. Price difference is still high between CCFL ($500 as an average at retail).
Sony is using Hi Power RBG Unit at edge lit configuration to have colour Gamut advantage over CCFL.

Samsung developed the direct back light using low power high enhanced LED for wide colour gamut, enable local dimming and High Contrast on 9 series as top of the line. And a leading adaptor or edge-lit as to trade of full local dimming with thinner profile of 29.5mm on 6000, 7000 and 8000 Series LED TV! In US the model is called Luxia. Edge-lit can have a thin 1” thick, CCFL is 2” thick, and 4” for Direct LED back light. Samsung Claims a reduction of 40% power than CCFL. LG LH 90 Direct back light unit, with a 0.94” thickness using Silicone lenses, Local dimming with 200,000:1 Contrast Ratio, less 73% power consumption using its Smart Sensor system. Sony Bravia XZ1 Series (edge-lit) 0.39” thick.

Other Factors
LED will obtain substantial momentum to grow on Lighting market.
LED will grow 15% in 2009. With the recovery of the world economy, this will have >20% growth in 2010. Direct colour and intensity control plus colour mixing function functionality enhance the broad acceptable by many application designers. Continuous improvement in LED efficacy will further secure the adoption of LED on general white Light market. Maintenance free, long life time plus government body subsidies and regulation (EISA 2007, Title 24 California, EU regulations) are important market Development trigger.

Technical Challenge
Yet a lot of challenge ahead, Human Naked eye is sensitive to see slight different white color changes induce heavy burden for LED Company to product consistent colour, sorting cost becoming higher and handling of logistics in the sorting and binning process an bottle neck for as many as 512 bin Grades. Designing high efficient fixture with simplicity such as AC LED would be a way to reduce the overall installation cost of lighting application. Realistic claims of LED life time, LED fixture efficiency, Life time, quality of light Fixture, heat dissipation rate should be improved to win Customer’s confidence before mass materialization. I have seen a lot of Traffic Lamp, Toll display LED, and Even Hong Kong Express LED light fixture has lot of black out LEDs….
It requires some time to show that the real LED should last. Although I can not deny that some of the LED failure is not just the LED or the associated driver unit!

LED quality
However, as an overall quality, every piece of component should involve good quality engineering design and process optimization and stringent good quality control in the manufacturing stage. Least but not last, the use of proper Good Quality Bonding equipment; die Bonder AD830 and Wire bonder iHawk which are well accepted by almost 80% of the major users in the world.

Overview of 2009 market
The overall market atmosphere is still low until September 2009 that it finds its bottom and will start to grow. We foresee that it will embark a friendlier environment for LED to grow at a higher rate. The major growth is LCD BLU and SSL (solid state lighting) market segment in 2009

Forecast 2010
According to Strategies Unlimited the HBLED market grow will be resumed in 2010 and a CAGR of 19.3% till 2013 with revenue of $12.4B.

Data source: Strategies Unlimited reports

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - What I Love and Hate About It

I expected a lot from the Transformers sequel Revenge of the Fallen. Action wise, I got what I was looking forward to, and even more so. It was action-packed from start to finish.The fight scenes were impressively done and the cinematographer almost went over the edge with all the CGIs and the cameras in full 360 degree swing most of the time. Some may observe that it might have been overdone but

More Display sign boards go LED

Modern Gas Display is now going LED and are completely wireless control for the display input.

Installation within couple of hours will have advantage of great Visibility, Wireless control for 46M, Maintainance Free, Operation for 50,000 hours, Simple Operation...

The NurseCall, Door display, welcome boards, plus numerous application for LED signage display with more and more of them are equipped with remote control.

2 WWTBM Contestants Win P100,000 Each

Two contestants of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (WWTBAM) won P100,000 each in its show last Saturday, June 20, 2009. This is the biggest pot money any contestant was able to bring home since the game show started last May.Winner of P100,000Albert Doceo was ecstatic upon receiving his check with the amount of P100,000.00.He said that it was his son, who was with him in the studio, which brought

J'veux la baiser

Now this is a story all about how my life got flip-turned upside-down I ended up with sleazy French pop on my iPod.

In the summer of 2002, my family decided to go for a vacation in the Maritimes. Renting a motor home, we hit up New Brunswick, Nova Scotia (by mistake), PEI, Nova Scotia (this time on purpose), and then drove home through the States.

But on the way out east, we drove through Quebec - and I, being the curious young lad that I was, took advantage of this opportunity to listen to French music on my Walkman.

I've long since forgotten most of the Franco-pop (truth be told, I'd forgotten almost all of it by the end of the trip), but one song has remained indelibly stamped in my head - specifically, the line "vroom vroom vroom, avec mon Harley".

Fast-forward to (approximately) late 2006. On a whim, I decide to run that line through Google - as I have unsuccessfully a few times in the past - and see if anything comes up. For once, it does - I learn that my mystery Quebecois song is "Avec Mon Harley" by Mario Benjamin.

So I start talking to a fellow from Quebec who knows a thing or two about where to find pirated music. I ask him for some Mario Benjamin, specifically that song. After a good bit of searching, his response is "are you sure this Mario Benjamin person really exists?". I plead my case, but the Internet music piracy community is being of little help.

Suddenly, he comes to the conclusion that "this is just a cover of a Serge Gainsbourg song! Luckily I have the entire Serge Gainsbourg discography. >_>"

A few minutes pass.

"It turns out that Serge Gainsbourg has six songs about Harley Davidsons."

"Including one called Harley David Son Of A Bitch!"

He sent me that one. Not what I was looking for (it was, in fact, NOT a cover of a Gainsbourg song), but it has been on my computer - and iPod - ever since.

That's the end of the story, but it's not the end of the post.

For after a while of laughing at the, well, complete and full representation of the 'sleazy French pop' genre, I delved into a bit more of Gainsbourg's life story.

In the 50s and 60s, Serge Gainsbourg was one of the most well-known pop singers in France - and not particularly insane, yet. He sung a duet with (and dated) Brigitte Bardot, no small accomplishment.

But as time went on, Gainsbourg became more and more eccentric - his music got creepier (singing a duet called 'Lemon Incest' with his then-twelve-year-old daughter), and his public appearances became quite controversial. He once burned a 500-franc note on live television, and also had a relatively well-known encounter with Whitney Houston (warning, foul language).

Let's get back to the music, though. I mentioned that all this started (my knowledge of it, anyhow) with Harley David Son Of A Bitch. Here's the song:



Some time later (I have no idea what timescale we're working with here), an unsuccessful British punk band known as the Bollock Brothers decided to cover this Gainsbourg ditty.

If you listened to the original (above), you'd notice one immediate probably for the Bollock Brothers - aside from the titular line, the song is entirely in French. No problem, they decided, we'll make up some English lyrics! And unlike the French version, ours will rhyme!

Or at least off-rhyme. Sort of. While trying to make the song rhyme wasn't a bad idea...everything else about it was. Their cover was laughably horrible in every way possible. Here it is:



Catchy though, n'est-ce pas?

--Ryan

Michael Jackson Passes Away After Heart Attack

Michael Jackson, famously known as the world's "King of Pop", passed away yesterday after collapsing and suffering from a cardiac arrest and at his Los Angeles home in California, news confirmed.He was brought to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center but hospital authorities were not able to revive the legendary pop artist. Autopsy to verify the cause of death would follow.It is a sad news indeed

Advantage of using LED

You are saving considerable power and money by using LED lighting fixtures.
The efficiency of LED lighting fixtures is almost 8 times higher than those using incandescent lighting and 2 times higher than compact florescent ones.

The LED-based fixtures give out a higher light percentage towards the desired direction due to the high-technology optics they are fitted with. This makes them even more efficient than classic lighting solutions used for both architectural illumination, interior lighting, decorative or ambient lighting.

Unlike incandescent light sources, LEDs generate low heat. The EPA (Environment Protection Agency) constantly encourages us to use innovative solutions for light sources, like LEDs. In normal operation conditions, the lifetime of LEDs is approx. 100,000 hours; considering 24/7 continuous operation, LEDs could very well work for more than 10 years.

LEDs are not sensitive to mechanical shocks, vibrations or sudden temperature variations, which are known to be destructive for incandescent or fluorescent lamps.

Unlike classic lamps, LEDs are not affected by repeated on/off cycles. When turned on, LED-based lighting fixtures provide fast and maximum intensity light. Typical response time for LED to be switched on is 20ms, take for an example, the AFL (Automobile front lamp) for a car running at a speed of 100KM/hour, the sudden turn on of the head lamp can light up 13.5M more distance ahead your Car to avoid an accident than the HID, which may take 0. 5 seconds to be fully turn for intensity.

Even in low temperature conditions. LED-generated heat is much lower than that generated by incandescent lamps, which might even cause fires in numerous occasions.

LED can have different colour, with certain control it can have numerous changes on colour for display purpose.

LED can be used a BLU to LCD display, edge lit or full panel back lit. It can provide local diming for achieving up to 2,000,000:1 Contrast.

LED can be used to detect the Oxygen, carbon monoxide level inside blood instantly by clipping the sensor on your thumb, while the sensor is connected to a handheld analyzer and display.

The applications of LED has not come to an end! With your imagination, we are sure there are many more to come!

Fully Booked Rockwell on Sale

Fully Booked Rockwell Store will be on sale from June 25-30, 2009. There will be a 20% off on regular items and 15% for credit card purchases.S A L E20% OFFon regular items*ROCKWELL STORE ONLYJune 25 - 30, 2009(Thursday - Tuesday)Store HoursFriday & Saturday: 10am - 11:30pmSunday: 10am - 10:30pmMonday - Thursday: 11am - 10:30pm* 15% off on credit card payments.Local and consigned items are not

Samsung IQ 2009 now open: £15,000 first prize

This year’s Samsung IQ competition is now open and full details have been published. At Sammi we’re using Samsung IQ 2009 to promote Samsung Mobile Widgets. These widgets reside in a dedicated widget tray in the Touch Wiz UI and run directly on the home screen area. The list below gives you the basics of these widgets and what you can do with them:

• Install to the widget tray on the home or “idle” screen
• Display iconified in the widget tray
• Can be dragged to the home or “idle” screen, can be launched on-drag or on-touch, and run directly on the home screen
• Can arbitrarily resize, can display multiple views, and can display live data independently of and simultaneously with other widgets
• Multiple widgets run simultaneously
• Are developed using HTML (UTF-8 encoding), CSS, and JavaScript
• Are packaged and deployed as ZIP format file archives (UTF-8 encoded pathnames recommended), with a WGT file extension, and are defined by config.xml, index.html, and icon.png files with arbitrarily many additional HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and image files, following W3C recommendations for directory structure
• Are recognised (on Symbian OS) by the application installer and loaded to a dedicated widget folder

By focusing on widgets we’re hoping to achieve two things during the course of the competition:

1. To get our current members, and the mobile development community generally, to think about the possibilities that the advent of web-runtime technologies on the mobile open up.
2. To reach out to new groups of developers who previously may not have considered developing for mobile, but who with the arrival of widgets on mobile devices, now have the ideal skills to capitalise on this opportunity.

As the entries are submitted this year we are hoping they will come from a range of individuals, including those who may not have considered themselves as mobile developers. For more information on the opportunities that widgets have opened up for developers, have a read of our latest Technical paper from Ben Morris.

While right now Samsung are giving developers the opportunity to Win big with Widgets, I can’t help but think that the widget story has only just begun…

Maricar Reyes Guests on May Bukas Pa

After getting involved on the long stretched issue of the Hayden Kho Video Scandal, Maricar Reyes seems to be moving on as she guests soon on the ABS-CBN leading primetime soap 'May Bukas Pa'.Next to Katrina Halili, almost everyone know Maricar's familiar face as one of the women allegedly in Hayden Kho's other video scandals that have circulated the internet and bootleg CD/DVDs around today.And

Laban Tayo Dyan! - The Paramihan Challenge

Anything that has to do with Paramihan (the most - in terms of numbers). Globe Telecoms launched the Paramihan Challenge last month where you could have the chance to win P100,000 ($2000+) by simply uploading your own creative videos within the Paramihan Challenge theme.Any gimiks about 'paramihan' is acceptable! The most number of kiss-marks on a face, the most number of SMS sent in a day, the

Jack Black can eat no fat

(Dan, I'd like to draw your attention to the poppy post...we have yet another opinion ruling in your favour.)

Last night, I went to the theatre to see Year One. The trick is to go in with low expectations.

I didn't have much prior knowledge about the movie. I'd seen one preview, and read an interview with Michael Cera in the Record. I knew the movie starred Jack Black and Michael Cera as cavemen. That is all I knew, and that was enough to suggest that I might not really enjoy the film.

I like Jack Black. I believe his appearance on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? contained one of the greatest unspoken limericks in recorded history. I think Tenacious D has enough musical talent that it's a disservice to call them a novelty band. I think he made one good movie.

But that's where it stops. Because Jack Black - like Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey - can only play one character: himself. A charismatic loafer who doesn't realize his own selfishness, stumbles into doing the right thing, and in the end gets the girl and the glory.

As soon as the movie finished, I offered my opinion that Jack Black Is A Caveman was roughly on par with Jack Black Is A Mexican Wrestler and Jack Black Teaches Prep School. I think I'm on to something. Since he's already playing essentially the same character, Jack Black should become a series unto himself. Rather than having to come up with confusing titles which only bear a vague similarity to the plot, just call it Jack Black Fights Space Coyotes or Jack Black Rides A Unicycle.

It works in kids' books. Look at the Berenstain Bears, Little Critter, or others I'm forgetting. Build identification with the main character, and it builds brand awareness, which in turns brings in more people and more money. But back to Year One.

I don't understand where the name came from. If it means the chronological year one (either AD or BC), it makes no sense - all the Biblical allusions (or are they too overt to be allusions?) are from the Old Testament and quite some time before BC became AD. The first year of creation makes a little more sense - the first scene is basically the Garden of Eden - except that we're introduced to a flourishing village, obviously not in its first year of existence.

Overlooking that the name makes no sense, and that Jack Black is playing Jack Black (Michael Cera is playing Michael Cera, as well), it's not *that* horrible of a movie, really. There are some laughs (well, some cheap laughs...in my opinion a much better movie to watch with a group than alone), and the premise is genuinely at least a little clever. Jack Black constantly coming back into contact with the same few people, in an entirely different part of the world, gives me a good excuse to bust out a Candide comparison for the first time in years - and I'd obviously put this far ahead of that particular piece of literary excrement.

Although the biblical parallels were fairly heavy-handed and clichéd most of the time, I'll throw in a special mention to the Cain character - he started out primarily as annoying, then a cliché unto himself as the guy who always screws everyone over, but the scene where he reads the charges against Black and Cera (including 'lepresy' and 'puppetry', before finishing off with a quick 'and killing my brother Abel') did actually get me to laugh out loud.

Overall, though? Meh. I've seen Jack Black play Jack Black with a funnier supporting cast, I've seen Michael Cera play Michael Cera with a funnier supporting cast, and the plot made it clear that Black and Cera were supposed to compensate for its weakness. Not quite.

Overall grade: C. If you've got a big group and are looking for something to watch, okay. Otherwise, don't bother.

--Ryan

No One Can escape from the Miserable First Quarter?

According to iSupply Corp., no one is immune in the miserable condition of first quarters 2009 as a continuous dwon fall momentum of market need Q4 2008.
Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue in Q109 declined to $44.2B, 18.8% as comparing with $54.4B in Q408, and a decline of 33.8% from 66.8B in the Q108.

On positive side, Revenue will rise by 7.1%, 10.4% and 4.95 in Q2, Q3 and Q4 respectively.
Amongst the players. We see Osram, one of major suppliers for LED, is in the list; as probably due to change in exchange rate would be an notable impact on the revenue growth when converted to common dollar basis.

Robert Yeh, chairman of Everlight Electronics Inc, Taipei, June 15, 2009 (CENS), said at the Photronics Festival in Taiwan 2009, held June 10-12, that supply of LED chips is expected to fall behind demand until the second half of 2010, with prices to trend upward.

Yeh is optimistic about industrial prosperity in the second half of this year through next year, stressing that demand from notebook PC, TV and lighting sectors has infused strong growth momentum into the LED industry. Particularly, he added, increasing popularity of LED-backlit LCD TVs will serve as major growth drive this year.

I am confident that LED market will keep growing in the next three Quarters! More competitive device will be made in the market in larger scale, the Equipment supplier will have go into this hot market will fast pace or will be erased by their competitors.

Who will win in the LED TV competition?

There is a realistic launch of LED BLU LCD TV in the market beginning of 2009 after numerous attempts for customer test out at Shows from Players such as Sony, NEC, Sharp and Samsung in the past few years!

Though there are different ideas on this market. Even optimistic market researchers would say that will be need a time to see how the market reacts as the price of the LED TV is higher than CCFL or HCFL LCD TV, the Japanese TV makers are keep an eye in their launching out for more portion of LED TV while Samsung and LG is pushing at full scale promotion on this.

I saw full series of LED TV displayed at a renowned electronics store at Ocean Centre, Tsim Sha Tsui with a huge Sharp Aquous LED TV 56” with RGB BLU, the colour was glorious and picture quality is impeccable! That may be a show case for them to participate in this TV Sales competition as the Selling price is over HKD140,000.00. I was in profound shock to see a Sony LED TV with absolutely vivid picture stood up in the TV beauty pageant. Same thing happens in Penang, Hong Kong and Singapore, Samsung is seen having the most aggresssive promotion for the LED TV Series 6, 7 and 8. Series 6 is basic type, 7 wth more feature and 8 with 200HZ Motion plus. Series 9 is Samsung's flagship 2nd Generation HD LED TV with SmartLighting Local Dimming Technology.

From this point, I think of the book "Samsung Vs. Sony” written by Sea-Jin Chang.

Chang made a lot of example and cases studies on these two Electronics Giants;

Prince and Pauper in the Analogue world

There are only two ways for Sony to avoid imitated by others; one is to set product standards on our own and the other is to have mechatronics, embodying our craftsmanship.
-Noria Ohga, former CEO of Sony


Compared to other semiconductor products, the design technology of DRAMs is not so complicated, but the market for DRAMs is fairly large. We decided to focus all our resources in one product where we could do well. We had to take a lot of risks. In addition, fortune was on our side. The timing was great.
-President Yoon-Woo Lee,
Semiconductor Division of Samsung Electronics

In 1987, Samsung’s investment in DRAMs started to pay off. That year, the U.S. government raised an anti-dumping suit against Japanese semiconductor manufacturers. In the wake of this accusation, the U.S. Government and Japanese manufacturers reached a voluntary export restraint agreement to the United States.

Soon afterward, the price of DRAMs began to rise. Demand for the 256K DRAM grew especially rapidly, but Japanese producers had already reduced or closed the 256K production line or shifted much of their capacity to the 1M DRAMs, believing that the 256K production lines were outdated.

In contrast, Samsung’s main DRAM product remained strong on the 256K Chip.

Samsung’s profit surged, in 1988, Samsung’s profit were large enough to offset all its cumulative losses.

In fact, Samsung’s investment in manufacturing facilities in 1987 contributed to its success in the semiconductor boom, which continues into the early 1990s.


This success was possible because Samsung management believed that only by investing during recessions could be the company reaps great profit during the boom period!


The technological and product profolios of Samsung Electronics are very different from Sony’s. Samsung Electronics invests in technologies that have clear trajectories with clear evolutionary progress and industrial standards.

Even the late-comers can succeed in such businesses. Also, Samsung has taken Moors’ law to heart, the principle states that degrees of integration doubles every eighteen months, by doubling its efforts in R &D to develop new products according to this schedule. This effort provided a very simple and unified goal for all Samsung employees.

For example, because the 256M DRAMs would be the next-generation DRAMs within 18 months after 128M DRAMs, the only mandate would be to develop 256M DRAMs within 18 months, having all its employees committed on this single goal.

Similar trends exits in many of Samsung Electronics’ other businesses, For instance, there is a trend called “Hwang’s Law” in the flash memory sector, named after President Chang-Kyu Hwang of Samsungs’ Semiconductor Division. This states that the degree of integration doubles annually.

In other areas, such as Samsung mobile phones, Samsung has become leader at rapidly adding new features (such as cameras and MPS player), miniaturizing technology, and reducing costs, As a result, the life cycle of mobile phones has become shorter and shorter. Just like DRAMs.

Similarly, LCDs have a clear technological development, increasing the panel size while improving its yields.

In short, Samsung has invested in businesses for which it could have the highest return given its resources level, and unlike Sony, it has not hesitated to source technology from other firms and other countries, it has been only in the last 15 years that Samsung Electronics has begun to develop technologies in-house.


Speed is the key to all perishable commodities from sashimi to mobile phones, Even expensive fish becomes cheap in a day or two. For both sashimi shop and digital industry, inventory is detrimental and speed is everything.
- Jong-Yong Yun, CEO of Samsung Electronics

Samsung’s Success story:
A result of focus investment on future product meets the foreseen trend of product cycle!

Sony’s failure story:
Too narrow on vision on the company direction and too slow to react to the market with most of the industry standard and users are expecting. Swimming alone against the tide is tired for Sony!

There is hot topics in the Chinese Bloggers LED “三国演义”as China, Korea and Japan are the Three Countries competing for this market. Give us a couple of years we will see who will be the ultimate winner, and to most of the LED suppliers. They are all the winners!

Watch out that the LED TV is account fo kust 1% of the total LCD TV production in the World., there is a big market for the LED to go into these area… let’s be optimistic on this challenging technology to go into the consumer markets.

No one could not disagree that a 42” TV with RGB TV with a built in PC for colour and dimming control would be selling USD1,000.00 in three year times?


Reference.
iSupply Corp.
Gartner
The Book “Samsung Vs. Sony” by Sea-Jin Chang (ISBN 978-0-470-82371-2)

Microvision Pico Projector

Microvision

Microvision is working with business partners to enable better viewing experiences for mobile device consumers. Sharing photos, watching movies, and giving presentations using the small screens of today’s devices limits our ability to imagine, entertain, and share.

PicoP

Pico P is an ultra miniature projection module capable of producing full color, high-resolution images but small enough and low power enough to be embedded directly into an accessory pico projector that connects to mobile devices.

For manufacturers who wish to bring to market next generation accessory projectors that connect to mobile devices, Microvision provides a PicoP display engine to meet OEM requirements. PicoP display engines are engineered for OEMs and made available through our supply chain partners to meet high volume production needs.

Specification for the Projector
10 lumen 848x480 pixel
16:9 aspect ratio, 60 Hz Refresh rate, 5000:1 Contrast
69 grams 68x68x10mm
Image size 6”to100” depending on ambient light and condition

How it works?
http://www.microvision.com/pico_projector_displays/howitworks.html

Some LED Players

Shuji Nakamura

Lumileds K2 Power LED

Cree XLamp 7090

Avago Technologies

Avago Technologies is an American company which was earlier the semiconductor products division of HP and later Agilent Technologies, before being spun off into a distinct legal entity. It holds more than 2,000 patents.

In late 2005 the semiconductor division of Agilent was acquired by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Silver Lake Partners, and became an independent company. Today it is one of the largest privately held semiconductor companies in the world, with approximately 6,000 employees and net revenue of $1.8 billion in fiscal 2005.

Avago Technologies provides a range of analog, mixed-signal and optoelectronic components and subsystems to more than 40,000 customers. Thin Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator (FBAR) filters are produced for mobile phones and WLAN.

Avago is also one of the world largest LED manufacturers. They produce billions of LED a year for different application. Product portfolio covers through holes LED, Surface mount PLCC, Envisium Surface Mount PLCC-4 LED, Moonstone High Power LED, Moonstone High Power RGB LED and various kinds of indicators and displays.
"Avago" is an Australian slang word. It means, "Give it a try - have a go."

Cree Inc.
CREE is a Durham, North Carolina based, American corporation which manufactures semiconductor materials and devices. It was formed in 1987 by researchers from North Carolina State University. Materials products include silicon, Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride. Device products light-emitting diodes (LEDs) made from their materials for a variety of uses, as well as power supply chips, motor controllers and microwave radios.

The wide band gap semiconductors are suitable for high voltage or high power or high temperature operation. SiC is used for high power electronics, largely due to having a very high thermal conductivity.

Two directors of Cree are John Palmour and Chuck Swoboda.

Cree's high-power LEDs, XLamp 7090 XR-E Q4
Some operations are now located Tai Po Science Park in Hong Kong. The company's silicon fabrication line in Sunnyvale, California is closed, and the company is now focusing on wide band-gap technologies.

The company produced a prototype White LED that can produce 161 lumens per watt while drawing 350mA of current, nearly 10 times what an incandescent (normal) light bulb can produce. As of March 2009, the most efficient white Cree LEDs commercially available, such as the XLamp XR-E R2, achieve 100 lumens per watt. Based on more than 20,000h of continuous testing, Cree estimates that XR-E LEDs will lose 30% of their brightness over a usage period of 50,000h (barring overheating).

Cree bought Cotco Hui Zhou in 2007 with USD$300 Millions , that is another step moving from Chip manufacturing into a highly vertical Integration of Package LED manufacturing.

Cree's competitors include Nichia Corporation, Osram Opto Semiconductors, PhilipsLumiles Lighting Company and GE Lighting (Vio). Cree is also facing increasing competition from low cost Taiwanese LED manufacturers such as Epistar and Everlight.

Everlight Taiwan
Everlight Electronics was established in 1983 and has played a critical role in Taiwan’s LED industry. In 2006 Everlight established itself as number one in terms of market share in Taiwan with second place significantly behind. Liteon In 2007. Everlight Electronics continued to lead the Taiwan market in both total revenue and in revenue growth rate Now. It established itself as the seventh largest LED manufacture in the world.

Everlight Electronics maintains assembly lines in all product series including High Power LEDs, LAMPs, SMD LEDs, Display and Infrared products. In addition to having the complete product series and a large manufacturing capacity, Everlight also integrated vertically by investing in LED optical chip manufacturing in order to maintain a stable supply of chips. Everlight Has factories in Taiwan and China.

Overall, Everlight’s competitive advantage is its manufacturing. The new awarded Product is Dolphin HB LED. Noteworthy is that Everlight unveiled its newest AC LED at the show, which can work without transformers and last for 50,000 hours, and was, scheduled to start shipping the product in the fourth quarter of this year.

Everlight today is a $300 million company headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, with over 4,000 employees and operations in China, Asia, North America and Europe.

I still recalled that I was the one to install the first two Die bonders in Tucheng Taipei when Everlight was still not as big s today in 1988. How this is the Taiwan Largest LED manufacturing.

LedEngin, Inc.

LedEngin, Inc. is a California-based solid-state lighting company specializing in ultra-bright LEDs capable of emitting 2,000+ lumens, delivering extreme flux density and industry leading reliability as well as luminous efficiency >80 lumens/Watt in some applications. The Lux family of replacement lamps and lighting modules provide superior quality light in directional applications equivalent to 35W and 50W halogen lamps. LedEngin also develops LED custom solutions and provides expert application support on optical, electrical and thermal management. For more information, email LedEngin at info@ledengin.com or visit http://www.ledengin.com/.


Liteon Taiwan
Lite-On started producing LED products in 1975 and has steadily grown into one of the world's largest optoelectronic component manufacturers by providing customers with both visible and infrared product solutions. High volume capacities for commodity items and application specific products, combined with strong R&D and vertical integration, have proven to be key distinguishing factors in Lite-On's success. Our broad product line continues to expand to meet the requirements of emerging markets and new applications. Liteon had factories in Thailand and Tianjin of China.

Lumileds USA
In the late 1990's, recognizing the potential for solid-state lighting, HP and Philips, one of the world's leading lighting companies, began exploring how they could work together and deliver a new solid-state lighting solution to the market. In 1999 HP split its company into two, and the optoelectronics group was assigned to the new Agilent Technologies. In November of the same year, recognizing the enormous potential for LEDs, Agilent Technologies and Philips (NYSE:PHG) formed Lumileds and assigned it the responsibility of developing and marketing the world's brightest LEDs and enabling a new world of light.

In 2005, Philips acquired Agilent Technologies’ interest in Lumileds. Today, the company continues to lead the industry in the development an Philips Lumileds Lighting Company is a fully integrated manufacturer of LED dice, packaged LEDs, and high-brightness LEDs

LUXEON®—designed for integration into general lighting products. The company markets LED solutions designed specifically for automotive applications, LCD displays, general lighting, portable applications, signage, traffic signals, and other segments. Philips Lumileds makes the world's brightest white, red, amber, blue and green LED release of increasingly brighter and technically advanced solid-state lighting technology.

Philips Lumileds' LUXEON® technology enables LEDs to match the brightness of conventional light sources and for the first time, makes it possible to replace incandescent, halogen and fluorescent bulbs in many products with smaller, longer-lasting and more energy efficient LEDs.
Luxeon is the trade name for high power LEDs that dissipate 1 watt or more. Models include Luxeon I, Luxeon III, Luxeon V, Luxeon K2, Luxeon Star, and Luxeon Rebel.

Luxeon LEDs produce powerful light, and are a popular choice among flashlight manufacturers. They are available in many colors, including white. Luxeon is in fact the first kind of an innovation design and had absolutely good thermal design LED.

Probably the only one using TFFC (Thin film Flip Chip) technology for LED manufacturing.
Competitors to Luxeon include Cree Inc., Seoul Semiconductor and Nichia Corporation.

Nichia Japan
The Nichia Corporation (日亜化学工業株式会社, Nichia Kagaku Kōgyō Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese chemical manufacturing company that is most widely known for producing phosphors, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

The Nichia Corporation was founded by Nobuo Ogawa (小川 信雄, 1912-2002) in 1956. One of his famous decisions was to support Shuji Nakamura (1954- ) to do research on Gallium Nitride light-emitting diodes when it was generally considered a very risky business. It turned out to be a great success. However, the company achieved a certain amount of notoriety for awarding a bonus of ¥20,000 Yen (US$180) to Shuji Nakamura for his invention of the first high brightness blue-light LED, which was based on Gallium Nitride. Nichia later settled out of court with Nakamura for ¥840 million Yen (US$7 million), in what was then the highest bonus ever awarded by a Japanese company.

After Nobuo Ogawa, the company was headed by Eiji Ogawa (小川英治, son-in-law of Nobuo Ogawa). Nichia Corporation's competitors include Seoul Semiconductor, Cree Inc, and Philips Lumileds Lighting Company.

Osram Germany
The name is derived from Osmium and Wolfram (German for Tungsten), as both these elements were commonly used for lighting filaments at the time the company was founded. OSRAM is a high-tech company in the lighting industry. Around 60 percent of sales come from energy-efficient products. Its was established in 1906, many years before that they have started the manufacturing of Incandescent Light bulb!

Litronix, original backbone and engineering team in Pennag 80’, and Siemens worked with Litronix and used Siemens Litronix since 1989 and then brought all manufacturing equipment from Siemens Malacca to the current Location in Penang with Factory “ Siemens” Then later Changed its name to Osram. Osram has been building LED in Pennag for more than 20 years. Today it is Owned subsidiary of Osram, Lighting manufacturer, a Industrial sector of Siemens. Osram, headquarters in Regensburg, probably the oldest Lighting company in the world. Since 1842.

With its headquarters in Regensburg (Germany), OSRAM Opto Semiconductors is in an excellent position to meet the challenges faced by a global high-tech company. More than 4600 employees throughout the world contribute to the success of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors, producing sales of 529 million Euros in the 2008 fiscal year (as at 30.09.2008). Around 12 percent of the sales of OSRAM GmbH are achieved with semiconductor products.

Major Product is Gold Dragon, Power TopLED for general illumination and Ostar for Hi Power illumination application.

Colour Rendering Index CRI

CIE 1960 UCS. Planckian locus

Colouring Rendering

An object looks whitish under the fluorescent lamp and meanwhile, the same object looks yellowish under the incandescent lamp. The Same object looks different in (or under?) different light sources. You can see light source change the colour of objects by comparing under fluorescent lamp. Incandescent lamp, daylight and etc.
Colour Rendering is the property of the light sources that affects the colour of the object.

Colour Rendering Index (CRI)
CRI is a numerical representation to evaluate the Color Rendering Properties of the light source.
CRI Shows how accurately a sample light source reproduces on object colour compare to The *reference Light Source.

The CRI value of 100 means the sample light sources reproduces the same colour a the reference Light Source does. Therefore the higher the value of CRI, the more it resembles to the reference light sources.

When evaluating CRI, the reference Light Source is chosen to have the same (or within the range of 5 mireds) correlated colour temperature as the same light source.

* Reference Light Source
a) Lower than 5,000 Kelvin: Planckian Radiator
b) 5,000 Kelvin and higher : CIE Daylight

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Poster Teasers

The upcoming Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson and Jim Broadbent will be showing soon.Together with the latest trailer, the movie also comes the unveiling of the four banner artworks which features Harry and Professor Dumbledore, Ron and Ginny, Hermione and Professor Slughorn, and Draco and Professor Snape.Voldemort

Why I didn't stay up past midnight

I learn what I missed thanks to the magic of a Twitter search:

"loris can lick my balls."
"Amen to that! I will never miss LORIS night."
"Tapping out of Loris. I'll live to fight another day."
"And what do I find two scant hours later while struggling with LORIS nonetheless? Another fly!"
"gave up on LORIS"
"Just finished on loris... why does that site HATE me so much? And to top it off, I got rejected by the anthro dept for being a music kid! =( "
"i got a campus restriction error for a class at the campus I go to... how is THAT possible LORIS??"
"Loris deserves a good shanking"
"is glad twitter is faster than her university's class enrollment system. stupid LORIS"
"i hate u so much loris..... "
"LORIS is effing stupid"
"LORIS is too slow... and no journalism classes are showing... how will i graduate now!"
"It's that time again. /cracksknuckes - LORIS course registration website... let's dance."
"One course down...... Nine to go. You'd think Laurier would invest in some cloud server support right now. But, Laurier IT is also the suck."
"One of the classes I signed up for has no name. It's called "TBA". Laurier fills me with confidence."
"picking the courses is taking forever, the laurier servers are over loaded...its going to be a long night.. "
"Next up in WLU's reinvigoration plan should be an upgrade of the tech infrastructure. It's been this bad for years and only gets worse!"

Unfortunately, I'm *also* getting the campus error for a class at my campus, have to fill out forms to take two or maybe three other courses, and two I wanted are full.

But at least I got a full night's sleep.

--Ryan

Your widget on the world’s biggest screen!

Well for a mobile device anyway…

Today we started publicising this year’s Samsung IQ. Samsung IQ has always been an important program for Samsung. Prior to the launch of Samsung Mobile Innovator it was one of the main ways we reached out to the developer community and asked you to show us what you were working on.

With the arrival of Samsung Mobile Innovator, you now have a number of ways to engage with Samsung, including our discussion boards and Market.dev. Samsung IQ is however unique amongst our activities in that it has a competitive element and the opportunity to get cash instantly (provided you win of course).

What’s the theme for 2009?
This year’s competition is all about building Samsung home screen widgets. The only criteria is that your entry is a widget, and that it runs on the Samsung home screen. We’ve even relaxed our terms and conditions so that the IP is owned solely by you. So get ready to get creative.


The target device is our latest Symbian handset: the i8910 HD. This is the first Symbian device to launch since the Symbian Foundation was formed and to celebrate Symbian are co-sponsoring the event with us.


What’s up for grabs?
As with previous SIQs there are valuable rewards for the winning entries. This year, in addition to a large cash prize pool, we are offering a prime route-to-market for your widget. This means your work could end up on a huge number of devices.

How do I enter?
Anyone can enter. You will need to join Samsung Mobile Innovator first (this takes about two minutes and is completely free), and then submit your widget at www.samsungiq.com. Submissions open on Wednesday 24 June 2009.

Can I get started now?
Yes, there are no restrictions on the category of widget you create. Over the coming weeks we will be providing further information on how to target the i8910 HD, and you’ll also be able to perform your own tests in Lab.dev. If you already have a widget that you’d like to submit there is no problem, provided it doesn’t violate the SIQ terms and conditions. These will be published when the competition launches.

Any questions?
If you have any questions about the competition, or the technology behind Samsung home screen widgets, visit our discussion boards. We can’t wait to hear from you.

Find and Be Found: AKA Mobile Directory, Messaging, and More

When Google first came out with a simple-looking web application called the search engine more than a decade ago, it was so ordinary nobody expected it to become what it is today. Now, another unique-sounding application is leveraging on the lucrative industry of search engine technology and messaging systems. It's called AKA.AKA is basically a Short Messaging Service (SMS) and web based mobile

LED Graffiti Throwies

Developed by the Graffiti Research Lab a division of the Eyebeam R&D OpenLab, LED Throwies are an inexpensive no-clean Graffitti to add color to any ferromagnetic surface in your neighborhood.

A Throwie consists of a lithium battery, a 10mm diffused LED and a rare-earth magnet taped together. Throw it up high and in quantity to impress your friends and city officials.


Everything began with a campaign in Manhattan in which LED throwies were handed out and people were encouraged to throw them onto a large metal sculpture called Alamo.


The spread like wildfire on Internet, and just a few weeks later they were spotted in London, Hamburg and Berlin. But not yet in Hong Kong!

How to Choose my TV?

CO2 Emission
HONG KONG, 28 March, 2009 – At 8.30 pm. the city of lights went dark and joined 4,000 other cities and towns in 88 countries in an hour of global solidarity. There were more than 1,800 buildings, 600 companies and 160 schools joined this program to off the light, an equivalent to 5% of electricity that is an equivalent of 170 Tons of CO2 emission. In order to absorb this 170 Tons of CO2, we need 380 trees to breathe for 40 years!

Product Design
As CSR company, we have to design product with minimum operation power, environmental friendly material and non toxic recycled packing material. Scientist and electronics circuitry designer are studying in vigor to reduce the power consumption. Less Power consumption pushed the design towards a stringent components selection, tighter Incoming parts tolerance, use of smart logic to reduce unnecessary operation of component in certain application, thus in turn reduce the use of heavy heat sink, cooling fans and redundant electronics modules. Imagine that almost no TV is using massive power transformer anymore. They use Switching mode power supply for smaller footprint and is much lighter, of course cheaper.

Electricity Bill
Domestic illuminations accounts 22%, Air Con for 34%, fridge for 14%, and TV take as much as 7.3% of total monthly electricity bill amount. As For TV which consumes as much 8% of electricity, we could not underestimate the Green TV would have create much less CO2 emission every night you are watching your huge screen TV!

From iSupply’s recent survey, customers are looking for two factors in buying TV: price, and how Environmental friendly the TV is!

Sharp ran a similar questionnaire on 1,002 Americans in Mar 2009, found out that 72% of them would prefer a good price, Green and Power saver design TV.

Standard for Power saver Product
In Hong Kong, there is Energy Label issued by EMSD by 5 grades with “1” as the best performer, “5” the least. There are EnergyStar saving standard in US, In USA, Energy Label in Europe, and EECJ Energy Saving label in Japan.

TV Review
Now UK TV review will cover these major categories. Take for an example for Sony KDL32S5500 LCD TV
Eco-cost of £22.13 per year, based on being switched on 5 hours a day at average Electricity rates.
Its carbon footprint therefore is around 96.92 kg CO2 per year.

Sony TV
Sony had been leader in Product innovation, technology achievement and trend Creation in the 70-80’s. Still recall that Walkman was the craze in the 80’s a successful creation from Sony, the word “Walkman” entered in the Webster Dictionary. ”Betamax”, another technology yardstick of technological achievement, not a commercial success for Sony on Video Recording, due to an uncompromised dispute between Sony, JVC and Panasonics for video system standardization.

Bravia designed with usage of HCFL backlight help reduce in-use power consumption by Approx 40%. Comparing with Sony three types of TV with different structure of Backlight design namely

Sony CCFL, HCFL and LED back light TV

A). Sony KDL-46W4500 CCFL Backlight with average power consumption 230W ( HKD$23,880.00).

B). Sony KDL-46WE5 HCFL (4mm dia.) backlight which consumes a 40% than CCFL (HKD$24,880.00).

C). Sony KDL-46X4500 using more than 1,000 RGB LED as back light, Available 46 and 52” size available (HKD$39,88.00)

Electric Bill
Tests have been doen for these three types of TV the result is :
A). CCFL has average power consumption 230W
B). HCFL has an average power consumption of 150W
C). LED has an average of 200W

Assuming we turn on 8 hours a day and assume HKD$0.90 for 1KVA/HR

A). Sony CCFL TV is HKD$600.00 a year
B). Sony HCFL TV is HKD$390.00 a year
C). Sony LED TV is HKD$525.00 a year

So LED is not the least power consumption backlight system yet. But the performance in contrast is stunning especially the Darkness interpretation is outstanding as they have local dimming function by running off individual LED spot that is HCFL is no way to achieve.

We used to buy TV from brand name in the 60’ as we have popular brands like Bush, Siemens, General Electric, Philco, Blaupunkt, Saba, Telefunken In the 70’ we started to have Sony Trinitron, Denon, National, NEC, Toshiba… in the 80’-90’ we have those B&O, Philips, Sony, Panasonic (National) in 90’s. Now it is the era of the emerging Korea Giant Samsung, LG take 22% and 13% market share of 2009 Q1 World LCD TV shipment.

We can summarize in tree phases, European as the leader in the 60s, at that time Japanese was leaning how to build radio and after 10 years, they could manage to produce quality TV for humid Asian market with success. Amazingly, Now Samsung could produce best quality and with all kind latest technology embedded onto a TV with LED back light at a thickness of 29 mm!

TV Selection
Compare picture quality by using the same input source
Check power consumption, Check the heat generation at the back top side of the chassis. Cooler is better. Warranty period, some of them has 3 years warranty

Go buy CCFL backlight if you are under budget, through they have mercury in the manufacturing process if CCFL, the price is lowest, but the electric bill is highest.

Middle of the road
If you are looking for certain level of good quality between CCFL and LED, HCFL is the choices. And price is affordable.

Celebrities, movie freak and technology lovers
If you are looking for best picture quality, new technology, and a Green TV LED backlight is not a question the best amongst all but you have to pay for a premium. Forget the CCFL or HCFL, they are not built for you!

Plasma TV
How about Plasma TV? They were made with short life time 10 years ago, but this is already history as they can product a very reliable Plasma Display now. Its power consumption is also outstanding, but the consumer is leading the market a Plasma TV is only aprox. 1% of all the TV. Lesser people will go for Plasma TV.

As for my personal comment Plasma TV is some thing like Leica M6 and LED TV is something like your Leica M8! If you do not have Leica camera, try to compare this way: Plasma is like LD and LCD is DVD… so there you can see the difference? If for say very large panel display, Plasma is still having the brightest and contrast you can see. And at a lower cost. No a bad deal!

My Choice
Samsung UE46B7020
Samsung always ensure all the best features are on board with their TV's and the UE46B7020 has not been overlooked by a long shot. By using mercury free LED lights less energy is required and less carbon dioxide is emitted making it a very environmentally friendly TV. Picture quality is kept to a very high standard and Samsung claim that the three C's are required for this: contrast, colour and clarity. This has been achieved with a Mega Contrast Ratio, a Wide Colour Enhancer pro and 100Hz Motion Plus Technology. The ultra slim depth has been achieved by a single, solid, seamless body rather than separate parts being moulded together creating an amazingly thin and sleek model.

feverip

Vanity URLs: Facebook Username Gives In

"What's in a name?" is a tired question that has been asked for years. And with the modern era's predilection for branding, a name is almost as important as the product in terms of perception and cognizance. In response to this, Facebook has finally made available the feature of customizing profile usernames. Customize your Facebook username now.Also called vanity URLs for the conscious, being

Save local TV, not CTV's profit margins

Major Canadian broadcast television networks such as CTV and Global have of late been running a 'Save Local Television' campaign.

The networks allege that they are losing money because cable companies won't pay them extra money to carry their digital signals, the way they do for specialty channels. If this doesn't change, CTV argues, they will be forced to cut back on local content to the point where local television in this country (save for a bit of CBC programming and Rogers-type community access channels) will become extinct.

Before I start explaining all the ways in which this is a horrible argument and CTV is far more at fault for any death of local television than Rogers or the CRTC or anyone else, I should include a disclaimer. So here it is:

I like local media. A lot. I'm convinced that the best way for newspapers to remain relevant in the Internet age is to put a greater focus on local content. I listen to local radio because they'll tell me if something important is going on while Internet/satellite radio often won't. I think brantford.com is an excellent concept and am frustrated at the essential monopoly status held by three media companies in Kitchener-Waterloo. So this is not some sort of free-marketist "if local television fails it's because local television was meant to fail and that's too bad" point of view.

So let's get into this. Basically, CTV saying "give us more money or we might not be able to afford local television" is like the fifth-grade bully beating you up for the first half of recess and then telling you he'll stop if you give him money.

There used to be such a thing as local television. In Kitchener, CKCO. In Montreal, CFCF. In other cities, other call letters. But these stations have all been rebranded and gutted to the point where they have no local identity anymore.

Take CKCO, for example. Now known as "CTV Southwestern Ontario", and the last time I heard anyone call it CKCO on-air was veteran reporter Art Baumunk, by mistake, over two years ago. Their entire schedule of local programming consists of the hour-long newscasts at 12 and 6 during the work week, 30-minute newscasts at 6 on weekends and 11:30 all week long, pseudo-news shows What's Your Point? and Provincewide, and a Sunday morning church service. Combined, that's 16.5 hours of local programming each week. There are 168 hours in a week, so we're looking at just under 10% of CTVSWO's programming as local.

Every few years, the station will celebrate some sort of anniversary and trot out clips from the past. Even from these brief clips, it's obvious that the then-CKCO was producing far more local content - possibly even the majority of its programming was local.

Now, there's no local content, and people of a certain age don't even recognize the CKCO initials (I hesitate to use them around anybody my age). This is entirely because of decisions made by CTV in the past to slash local content - and now they're the ones supposedly looking to *save* it? "Give us money and we'll stop destroying local television". How is that not extortion?

But let's look at this from a different angle. CTV claims they are being put out of business because specialty channels are taking away too much of their audience. Specialty channels like TSN, MuchMusic, the Comedy Network, the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Bravo, Space, and Fashion Television - all of which (and many more) are owned by CTV. This stage of their argument is "we started new channels and it never occurred to us that people might actually watch them rather than our existing channels at times".

How about the amount of money (often millions of dollars) CTV pays out to acquire American programming? For the cost of the CSI series alone, I bet they could afford a whole lot more local content.

Best of all, the people who most rely on local television - those in remote, rural communities - are inching closer and closer to being completely without it, as a result of the CRTC's mandate for all stations to be broadcasting digitally by September 2011. Once the switchover happens, it is expected that analog signals could be removed in a few years.

The ironic part of all this? I'm in favour of fee-for-carriage. I think all stations/networks should be competing on an even field, at least when it comes to what they're getting from cable companies. I'm just not in favour of conglomerates cutting local television content for decades and then claiming to be the only ones fighting in its interest.

Oh, and Toronto Sun TV critic Bill Brioux has a list of 25 causes more worthy than Save Local TV. So there's that.

--Ryan

A series of unrelated thoughts

Here's a bunch of small thoughts that have burrowed through my mind over the last few weeks. Tonight or tomorrow, I'll put up something that's actually deserving of being at the top of this page until either Dan gets inspiration or I get off my butt.

The WHO just declared a level six pandemic for the swine flu (also that they won't get fooled again). Funny how the media's paying so much less attention now, when a few weeks ago they were acting like level six would be certain doom for all humankind. As I've been saying since the beginning, when the real threat comes, the WHO won't even know about it until it's too late. (On a groan-tastic note, they said a black man would be President of the United States when pigs fly. Barack Obama was only in office a few months and swine flu.)

Game seven of the Stanley Cup goes tomorrow night. I've been a bad hockey fan. Even though I watched quite a bit of the early rounds (Vancouver/Chicago, Boston/Montreal, Pittsburgh/Washington are the first series to come to mind), I've seen maybe two periods of the final. It's good hockey, it's just very hard to cheer for Sidney Crosby and impossible for me to cheer for Detroit. But I'll be watching tomorrow night for sure.

The City of Brantford is considering changing Dalhousie and Colborne to two-way streets. While it would make it easier for me on the rare occasions I drive to Grand River Hall or the library, I'm not so sure it's an avenue worth pursuing. If you find yourself needing to go in the other direction, you're almost always only a block away from being able to do so (the only real problem is between Clarence and Queen), and it's easier for pedestrians to only have to pay attention to traffic in one direction. Can you imagine the intersection of Dalhousie and Market with dozens of students trying to cross AND traffic flowing both ways? Leave them one-way.

Ever found yourself getting annoyed when your earbuds got all tangled up? Not in knots, just winding around each other to the point where they wouldn't rest in your ears? Somebody has invented a solution, and it's really one of the most ingenious things I've ever seen.

Not sure if I've ever mentioned Soccer Manager here before, but the gist is that it's a multiplayer online simulation where you run a soccer team. After a less than impressive season, my Charlton Athletic squad have racked up five straight victories and look like they'll comfortably make the playoffs, with a chance at promotion. Henrik Larsson and Sebastian Viera were great investments.

That reminds me, I should really blog about Toronto FC one of these days.

Things I don't like about my new job: paper cuts.

Things I do like about my new job: discovering the existence of Carpworld magazine.

That's it for now, I'll be back here in the next day or so.

--Ryan

Sandbox Mobile Media Launch a Sandblast

After officially launching Sandbox.com site a month ago as a web portal through a number of print, online, and television commercials, Sandbox is now launched as a mobile platform as well. The media event was held earlier this evening at the Bureau in A.Venue along Makati Ave, Makati City.The party was filled with celebrity guests and personalities like Chris Tiu, Ramon Bautista, Borgy Manotoc,

No Monday-blues next week…

Samsung Mobile Innovator is sponsoring demo night at MoMoLondon on Monday 15 June 2009. If you are keen to speak to us about anything, particularly the i8910 HD, this is your chance. We'll also be presenting briefly on a great initiative we are launching soon in partnership with the Symbian Foundation.

The event is being held at IPC Media's headquarters which is located near Waterloo.

The Blue Fin Building
110 Southwark Street
London
SE1 0SU

Door opens at 6pm with free food and drink and plenty of opportunity for networking with fellow mobile professionals.

Attendance is free, but you need to register. See the link below for more information.

http://momolo.org

Soft Solder Process for HB LED manufacturing

There is numerous ways to mount a die onto the substrates either made of Copper, ceramic, Leadframe, PCB, and Alumina, or a Pre-mould PLCC leadframe material has to go through a series of consideration. Refer to the attached tables. It is self-explanatory!
We can see that we have to first decide what kind of package we want to build, and for what application. Say if that is made for out door illumination, or For AFL (automobile Front lamp) that will be very harsh for the LED package as we require to pass a stringent Stress cycle requirement. The way how we can cool down the chip is the prime consideration.

Of course, the temperature can be made by force air cooling in an automobile, but in the case of a car running in dessert high way, the LED will be very hot. The junction temperature may go up to 125 Deg C. if the heat sink is not ale to carry out the heat, their performance of the chip will deteriorate and or soon burn out.

Seoul Semi new SMD LED package
12th May, there is a novel design of LED from Seoul Semiconductor to launch of its 120lm/W
high-efficiency and SMD type LED (Part No: LCW100Z1) for general purpose lighting.

As an ultra-thin LED with dimensions of 3.5mm x 2.8mm x 1.6mm, the LCW100Z1 is a high efficiency product that delivers up to 7.8lm (@0.06W) at the low current of 20mA and 14.3lm at the current of 40mA, and its viewing angle is 120 degrees.
This is a silver epoxy on Copper substrates. The heat dissipation should be more superior than the other type on ceramic and PCB. However, they can not achieve a very high BLT more than 1.5 mil, so there is still room for certain performance improvement.

Die Bonding Process
Direct Eutectic process is expensive for the 80/20 AuSn layer which has to be thicker than the surface roughness of base material.

Flux Eutectic process has it drawback as the flux will be the trouble they give up in the years to come for Lens Contamination and Delimination.

High Silver Content Epoxy Bonding
Having limitation in void control and not perfect for CTE matching as it is not easy to product a high enough BLT without any epoxy tailing issues with zero void.

Soft Solder Process
On the other hand Soft solder has been widely used for automobile and power device for more than 40 years. Soft solder has excellent heat-dissipation properties, of typically 35W/mK. high ductility, exhibited outstanding robustness against declamation. During thermal stress condition the solder can withstand a great thermal stress caused by asymmetrical thermal expansion of LED material SIC and Copper (SiC CTE is 3.1~4.7W/k-m and copper is 16.5ppm/K). These extraordinary characterizers lead us to consider an ultimate process for LED.

The remain four challenges are to maintain an Solder coverage, zero void, good die bonding placement and die tilting.

There is some challenge on the solder coverage as the LED chip is thin as 6 mil for EZ1000, and that will be some challenge to have both 100% Void free and good wetting for four edges. However that is research that one company has the solution, and they have actually can achieve +/-20 micron die placement with practical Zero void!

Soft Solder LED process
Basically this is a novel bonding process that requires precision, good temperature profile set-up and hest tunnel design with consideration of the formic gas flow, with CAE and proper het insulation material a standard solder dispensing system with accurate amount of solder to be place on the substrates. A high speed bonding head which can sustain a high temperature with minimum controllable thermal expansion or active alignment on every start of bonds using patent optical alignment method. Also there is a Reflow concern, if after two to three time reflow the solder will be softened and cause the die to be lift up, That will kill the process, If using solder haveing lead, that might not be good for the Product. So this is a kind of delimma, yet to be solved!

Solder Void
Since the die tilting and void will create uneven distribution of solder underneath the die, this void will reduce thermal and electrical conductivity and hence heat dissipation will be reduced These will create a higher electronics resistance. Moreover, larger void are often the beginning of an elimination of the die from the solder, which mean life time reduction. The Void has to be close to zero of more than 2% of the total area under the die.

BLT and Die tilting issue
A consistent BLT requires the Centre of the solder dispense dot to be properly aligned with each other. That is to have the vision of other mechanical way to properly align their two centres to be on point. As the Solder will be flowed back a few milliseconds after the collet has placed the die onto the solder, the solder will be squeezed out and once after the collet is move up, the capillary effect would work from four sides of the die bottom to pull in the solder. The smaller the die , the smaller the capillary force and more critical to properly align the die by the molten solder as there will be having insufficient or no flow back of solder material.

If the die is not placed at the centre of the solder lump, one the edge having minimum solder will not be having the same amount if pulling force as their other three edges and hence a tilted die will occur.

Vacuum Delay and timing
The proper control of the vacuum release is critical for controlling the BLT and Tilting of the Die.
The wrong timing for vacuum release will create die tilting issues, either too early or too late of the timing , especially for smaller dies. If the delay is too early the die will lose control as die falls onto the solder without control. I the vacuum release is too late, the collect will suck back the die.

Mechanical alignment
There is perfect coplanarity for the Collet to be level with the bonding pad, as well between the solder wire dispensing head with the bonding pad.

Purge Air
On the other hand there is used to have certain Purge air at the collet such as to break the vacuum aster. That amount of purge air can cause die tilting as well, in any sense, can not set too much, and that purge air should be so adjusted by software to be controller in proportional to the die size.

Conclusion
Soft solder process has been running in the power device for more than 40 years. That is a mature process. However High Power LED using lead free Solder is a novel process, there is a lot of challenge such as reflow issue for major reliability concern. How to control the amount of Solder is the key point. The advantage is cost and zero Void, and highly reliable LED product could be made! Another step jumping into the Replacement light bulb application.

Who can manage to use the low cost process for best final product reliability will be the one who can win the market.