Lighting is often taken for granted, but it forms an integral part of our daily lives, impacting enormously both on us and our environment.
Global lighting consumption is estimated to account for the output of 1000 electric power plants, and costs £100 billion a year, so the drivers for a more efficient light source are both commercial and environmental. This is where the High Brightness Light Emitting Diode (HBLED) comes in, replacing the old incandescent lightbulb technology. Theoretically, HBLEDs could use less than 20% of the power needed to produce incandescent light bulb equivalent levels of output for lifetimes up to 50,000 hours - a great leap forward.
Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology is playing an increasingly important role in the manufacture of HBLEDs, enabling huge changes in the global lighting industry. Our systems are used by a number of leading HBLED manufacturers to perform this function. As the industry moves on to the larger 4” substrates, it becomes a much more attractive proposition to process single wafers at a time rather than batches.
Oxford Instruments already has the technology to perform high yield, high speed processes, and the company is ready to progress to the next stage.