家中的LED：挑戰與機遇

　　發光二極管（LED）是非常受歡迎的，而且SSL行業的內部和外部幾乎沒有問題，它是當今最好的照明技術。與其他類型的照明相比，LED的優越性開始于它在能源效率和使用壽命方面的巨大優勢。LED燈泡可以提供大約相當于傳統白熾燈和熒光燈的照明，而只消耗能源的三分之一。LED燈泡也有望比基于成熟照明技術的產品壽命長20倍以上。更重要的是，LED燈泡的固態元件比相對脆弱的傳統照明技術提供更好的機械損傷防護。總之，這些特性為LED照明解決方案用戶提供了一個極具吸引力的投資回報率，特別是在商業和工業應用中，維修和燈泡更換是困難的和/或昂貴的。

　　基于這些原因，美國能源部估計，2030，固態的采用LED照明將減少照明用電消耗的四分之一的國家，相當于約190太瓦小時和150億美元，同時減少二氧化碳氣體排放量相當于2100萬輛汽車。

　　不幸的是，住宅用戶并不關心商業用戶的這些優勢。雖然他們可能想要發光二極管，但他們想要的是具有競爭力的價格，而且他們并不急于購買LED燈產品，價格仍然比緊湊型熒光燈高2到三倍，而且比六包白熾燈要貴得多，大約要花費8美元。

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

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