The innovative technology, which developed white light from LED, has changed the lifestyle of the people to a great extent. With the Indian Government switching to LED for all street lamps and public-space lighting, the market is gaining pace. LED-lighting focused companies have recognized the abundant opportunities in the Indian market and are strategizing to tap into them optimally.
Key factors that are expected to boost the LED market include declining LED prices coupled with favorable government initiatives to provide LED lights at subsidized cost and LED installation projects for streetlights. In addition, growing awareness among consumers on account of awareness programs by manufacturers and regulatory bodies is expected to play a vital role in shaping the country’s LED market over the next five years.
Comments on LED industry and growth..
Steve Kennelly, Senior Manager, MCU8 Marketing, Microchip Technology Inc., “LED lighting is growing globally, in a large variety of applications. In residential and commercial lighting, the main pressure is from energy conservation, as LED lights use much less electrical energy than incandescent or fluorescent lights. As more of the world becomes industrialized, the growth of lighted spaces for working and living is placing an increasing demand on electrical generation, and distribution facilities and infrastructure. LED-based lighting provides a responsible way for this growth to be managed.”
Devansh Gupta, System Application Engineer, Infineon Technologies India & Youvraj Chandrakar, Country Head – Power Management & Multimarket (PMM) Division for Infineon Technologies India comments, “LED lighting is becoming increasingly popular. It offers numerous advantages over conventional lighting. Our LED driver ICs with smart over temperature protection helps to increase lifetime and optimize system costs of LED lighting systems. Key challenge in implementing high quality and durable LED lighting systems is managing the heat emitted from the LED components and electronics. But with our smart thermal management technology used in the latest LED driver generation, the lifetime and cost of LED designs can be significantly improved.”
Puneet Shukla, CEO, Saison Components comments, “LED is the future!!! The LED market in India has been constantly growing over almost 50% for the last five years and is expected to sustain this growth rate in the coming five years as well. Although late, the government of India has announced a lot of incentives and measures in order to prioritize LED manufacturing in the country.
According to the reports, India’s LED market is forecast to reach $1,457.8 million by 2019, at a CAGR of 35.9%, during 2014-19. Government initiatives to replace incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs, increasing energy demand supply gap, declining prices are the factors driving the growth of LED lighting in India.
Street lighting application is accounting for majority of the market revenues in Indian LED lighting market.
As projected, the turnover of Indian lighting industry by 2020 will be Rs 35,000 crore and LED will account Rs 21,600 crore on the back of government’s decision to switch to LED for all street lamps and public space lighting.
Furthermore, applications of LED are increasing day by dayand thus are the quantities, and the above figures say it all.”
LEDs in Automotive
Many vehicle drivers are always upset by the insufficient light from their headlights or taillights, which will provide poor visibility on the road, making the driving more dangerous. Especially at night, the strong glare from the other vehicles coming from the opposite direction will make the drivers feel nervous and difficult to see the road ahead. Accidents often occur in this case because the drivers have some difficulty to judge the distance and see clearly the vehicles ahead. However, with LED lighting being used for automotive application, the safety on the road has greatly increased as the road ahead gets well lit by LED headlights and the drivers feel eased when driving at night.
LED lights have been produced for commercial lighting and industry lighting for a long time ago, but LED lighting for vehicle was first introduced in 2003. With the increasing LED technology and improving performance of LED lights, many customers begin to buy LED lights for vehicle over fluorescent lights and halogen lights. What’s more, many manufacturers realized that there will be a huge potential LED lights market for automotive lighting applications and have started producing the kind of lights.
Compared with all other types of automotive lights, LED lights have some very distinct advantages. Their features of longer lifespan, great performance, lower power consumption, high light output and lower heat dissipation make them become the perfect solution of automotive lighting. Slowly but steadily, LED technology will be applied on rear combination lamps, brake lights, turn signals, interior reading lights, daytime running lamps, fog lights, position and market lamps, etc. Over the year, LED lights are now being used for many vehicles, such as off-road vehicle, 4*4 vehicles, military and trucks. In the future, LED lights will be produced to be more suitable for different types of vehicles, such as bicycles, trains and emergency vehicles.
Cars manufacturers are selecting LED lighting over other types of lights due to their ease of assembly, reliability, longevity, and competitive price. They believe that LED lights will have a bright future for automotive lighting applications because they have more advantages than conventional lights. LED lighting is adaptive to different environmental and traffic-related requirements, the dynamic bending of light or adaptive front lighting systems will help the driver see the obstacles on the road clearly. Many lamps have a defect that the lights will move together with the cars, but LED lights are resistant to vibration generated by a moving vehicle. They react very quickly to be full light intensity, but standard incandescent car lights usually take a lot of time to get switched on. The most attractive feature is that car maker can have an innovative design of LED lighting and design a unique LED light depending on the vehicle models.
With the rapidly-developing lighting technologies and the introduction of new technologies, LED lighting manufacturers will produce even better comfort and homogenous light and more types of LED lights to meet a wide variety of vehicles. LED lights will have a bright future for automotive lighting application.
Today, LED lighting solutions are being used by all major car manufacturers, and it is being seen as the future lighting for automotive applications. Slowly but steadily, LED light sources are replacing all other types of automotive lights. They are available for high and low beam headlamps, rear combination lamps, brake lights, turn signals, interior reading lights (map lights), daytime running lamps (DRLs), dome lights, fog lamps, accent lights, center high-mount stop lamps, position and marker lamps, etc. They are also replacing other conventional lights for ambient lighting, dashboard and cabin, etc.
Steve Kennelly, Senior Manager, MCU8 Marketing, Microchip Technology Inc.
“LED lighting is a good fit for a broad range of automotive applications. For many years, the only lighting technology bright enough for headlamps was incandescent. High Intensity Discharge lamps provided an alternative, but at a high cost. Recent advances in LED manufacturing have made them viable for use in front lighting. Electronic controls allow LED headlights to adapt to road conditions by changing direction and brightness, providing maximum illumination without blinding other drivers. Other exterior-lighting systems in the automotive world include turn signals, marker lamps and brake lamps. All of these are also converting to LEDs.
LEDs are also used in interior lighting, where the light from differently coloured LEDs is mixed to produce any colour the customer wants. Even in monochromatic interior lights, LEDs last longer and are more rugged.
Many newer automotive-lighting systems are using data-communication networks that allow both interior and exterior lighting to be centrally controlled and coordinated.”
Devansh Gupta, System Application Engineer, Infineon Technologies India & Youvraj Chandrakar, Country Head – Power Management & Multimarket (PMM) Division for Infineon Technologies India
“Major application areas in automotive are Head lamps, Tail Lamps and interior lighting. But the amazing flexibility of LEDs will pave way for newer and newer applications in the future.
Main Motivation to move towards LED is higher luminance for the same power. Hence, LEDs are replacing bulbs in all applications in some capacity. But LED also enables additional functionality to these applications
The Rear Lights is an application where trend of LEDs is because of the great design capabilities they offer. Besides using dynamic and animated LEDs for STOP and Indicator Lights, OEMs are also using LEDs to design the Rear Light Assembly into aesthetical shapes. Infact, Headlamp and Tail lamp design are becoming Signature designs for OEMs and helps in building their brand value. Thus, LEDs are becoming a part of the OEM design language. Two wheelers in India, especially, are approaching LEDs in a similar way.
Besides all this, LEDs are also used in interior lighting of a car again to scale up aesthetics. Mood lighting is a featuring that is gaining prominence wherein the colour of the interior lights can be changed as per the mood by a touch panel/knob.
Besides the above, LEDs also offer a lot of opportunities in other aesthetic design due to it’s modularity and flexibility. After market LED fixtures can be seen in innovative and customized STOP lamps and CHMSL in cars. Also, two-wheelers are not far behind with custom-made LED strings lining up the rims of the wheels and fancy pilot lights as an example. Two wheeler OEMs are also approaching aesthetic rear lamp assembly design as an opportunity to use LEDs additionally as a design language. This is common especially in the Sports Segment motorcycles which are using introducing Tail Lamp LEDs mainly as a design differentiator and brand identifier. As an example, the newly launched Bajaj RS series motorcycles can be easily differentiated by their tail lamps.”
Puneet Shukla, CEO, Saison Components
“The global automotive lighting market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 7.95% from 2015 to 2020.
Increasing vehicle sales and production and technological advancements triggered by growing safety concerns and stringent lighting regulations are the key drivers of the automotive lighting market.
Asia is estimated to be the largest consumer of automotive lighting in the world. China, India, Japan, and South-Korea are the main contributors to the automotive lighting market in the continent. Owing to the increasing sales of premium vehicles, low manufacturing costs, and favourable government policies, several automotive companies are expanding their facilities in Asia-Oceania.
The global automotive lighting market size, in terms of value, is estimated to be $20.1 Billion in 2015. Emerging countries such as China and India are witnessing high growth during the forecast period.
The Automotive Lighting Market is projected to reach $29.5 Billion by 2020 from $20.1 Billion in 2015.
LED light sources are replacing all other types of automotive lights. They are available for high and low beam headlamps, rear combination lamps, brake lights, turn signals, interior reading lights (map lights), daytime running lamps (DRLs), dome lights, fog lamps, accent lights, centre high-mount stop lamps, position and marker lamps, etc. They are also replacing other conventional lights for ambient lighting, dashboard and cabin, etc.
In fact, the market for LED lighting for vehicles is increasing as the consumers have recognized their benefits, including the fact that the colour of LEDs is very similar to daylight. Besides the fact that it enhances safety and comfort on the road, LED lights offer many other advantages.”
Infineon LED Solutions in Automotive
The Selection of LED drivers depend on the required current and the setup of LEDs. LEDs are usually set up in one or more chains, each of which can have a string of LEDs. IFX has solutions covering most of these combinations. IFX has a product family called LITIXTM of LED Drivers which targets all such combinations of LED chains and output current.
The First of these product family is the LITIXTM Linear family of products. These are basically constant current sources especially suited for small single LED chains for current ranging upto 1A.
Then we have the LITIXTM Basic family of products which are targeted also for multi-channel short LED chains . These are Linear current sources whose output current can be set externally thus providing more flexibility in design.
Then we have the LITIXTM Power family of products which are basically DC-DC Converters. These are the most flexible family of products that can target any combination of LED chains and output current and can be used in various configurations such as Buck, Boost, SEPIC etc.
Microchip LED Solutions in Automotive
Microchip’s products are being used in a wide variety of automotive applications. Our AT9933 is a high-brightness LED driver chip that meets automotive requirements. For applications requiring digital control, the dsPIC33FJ16GSxxx family of digital signal controllers combines MCU peripherals and programming architecture with DSP instructions for high performance. Networked control of integrated RGB colour-mixing LEDs can be achieved with the PIC12F1572, which has three independent PWM channels in a compact package.
