A 15-centimetre silicon wafer costs just $15 and can accommodate 150,000 LEDs making the cost per unit tiny. That levels the playing field with CFLs, which many people only ever saw as a stopgap solution to the lighting problem.
Humphreys reckons that the UK government encouraged consumers to drop tungsten bulbs too soon. "We should have stayed with tungsten for another five years and then switched to LEDs," he says.
Humphreys's team was funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The UK government's Technology Strategy Board will now provide the funding to turn the new technology into a commercial process.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wooo!
Super-cheap LEDs! I like this bit:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
>"We should have stayed with tungsten for another five years and then switched to LEDs,"..
Why? This way you start saving five years earlier. And it is not like running CFL for five years uses up a ton of capital. And we don't know this will be commercial in five years. Why not use the best available now, now. We can switch to the new best when it is ready. That generally is the right answer to calls to delay implementing improvements because new technology is around the corner.
Post a Comment