Recently in LEDs 2008 Category

By Matthew Hidderley and Eve Gaut, Aston Science Park

After a long second and final day at the LEDs 2008 event, we decided to make our way into San Diego's Old Town for dinner. The Old Town can only be described as very 'Mexican' and within a minute of arriving we realised that the only food option was going to be Mexican. We headed to Cafe Coyote and sat down for a reflective meal on our visit to LEDs 2008.

Our experience at LEDs 2008 has been a great one. We have learnt a lot more about the industry, including the hot topics of the moment, as well as met with and networked with some key players in the industry. Visiting the show has also allowed us to meet up with many of the existing euroLED exhibitors, which can only be a good thing!

After a reflective dinner, we made our way back to the hotel where we arranged to meet up with some people for an after show drink. Throughout the remainder of the evening, alcohol certainly loosened everyone's tongues and real opinions came out. The general consensus is that the number of delegates this year seemed to be down from in previous years and that the exhibition area was a little quieter, however the quality of visitors were described as 'better' by being serious about the industry and focused.

Now seems a good time to thank the organisers of LEDs 2008, IntertechPira, for being so accommodating to their UK visitors throughout the event. We really have been treated well and felt the event was extremely well organised.

LED Measurement and Standards is taking place on October 2 and 3 at the Sheraton Hotel, San Diego. Topics discussed today ranged from Standards Making and Government Bodies through to LED Components and Manufacturers' Perspectives. There was an insightful talk on ANSI & IEC solid-state lighting standards by Andrew Jackson of Philips Lighting Company as well as others on development of LED performance standards, energy star SSL, photometrics for LED luminaries, SSL standardisation and high-power LED lamp testing.

We're heading back to the UK now so thanks for reading. Watch out for the Photonics Cluster (UK) team's next adventure to Tokyo to the Strategies in Light show! Coverage for this will commence to October 13 on the optics.org blog.

By Matthew Hidderley and Eve Gaut, Aston Science Park

After a well deserved sleep (it seems be getting hotter every day over here) we were up at the crack of dawn again to join in the breakfast sponsored by Dow Corning - again greeted by many bleary eyes. The breakfast was an excellent opportunity to network with conference delegates, who are usually inaccessible throughout the day due to attending and giving presentations.

This morning's conference line-up was very appealing, including topics such as recent developments in luminaire design and powering LEDs for mainstream illumination. Industry speakers included Kevin Dowling, Vice President of Innovation for Philips Solid State Lighting/Color Kinetics and Steven Parker, President at Lightech Electronics.

LEDs 2008 is taking place at the Sheraton Hotel on the Marina, San Diego

Following a rather intense yet informative morning in the conference, we made our way to the outside luncheon, this time sponsored by Seoul Semiconductor. We had the pleasure of sitting with Aristides Wade, General Manager of Seoul Semiconductor, who stimulated some great discussion amongst the rest of the table about when, rather than if, LEDs will move into the general lighting market. The truth is that only time will tell, but our discussions had timescales ranging from 2 to 5 years, so keep watching!

Following lunch, we took the opportunity to catch up with a few more exhibitors, before everything was broken down and packed away. Tim Bushnell from Oxley Developments has accepted our invitation to attend the Photonics Cluster (UK) Breakfast and Photonics Strategy Launch taking place at Photonex08 on 15th October. We also spoke with Mark McClear, Director of Business Development, Cree.

All in all we made many new and exciting contacts today, and after a hard days graft the only way to relax is a night out on the town. So with goodbyes to all of our friends at LEDs 2008, we made our way to the Old Town district of San Diego for dinner.

In tomorrow's blog, we will be introducing the LED Measurement and Standards 2008 event, also taking place at the Sheraton Hotel on the Marina, San Diego, for two days.

By Matthew Hidderley and Eve Gaut, Aston Science Park

Nuventix booth at LEDs 2008

We had our alarm clocks set for 6am this morning and were anticipating an exciting day ahead. It kicked off with a breakfast sponsored by Dow Corning, which was well received even though there were plenty of delegates looking rather bleary eyed. The breakfast was closely followed by a welcome from the Advisory Committee before LEDs 2008 was officially declared open.

After networking, we strolled around the exhibition hall to meet up with some friends in the industry, the first being Mick Wilcox from Nuventix. Last time we saw Mick and the team was in June at euroLED in the UK. It was great to be welcomed on the other side of the pond by a friendly face. Nuventix is already confirmed as exhibiting at euroLED 2009 so it was a great opportunity to catch up with them and to be introduced to some new faces in the Nuventix team.

Following our chat with Mick, we visited the Carclo stand to speak with Ian Bryant, another fellow UK traveller. Ian fascinated us with plenty of 'technical talk' about the new products Carclo is currently launching - so keep your eyes peeled for them.

Al fresco lunch at LEDs 2008

The round-table luncheon was sponsored by Rohm and really was the highlight of the day. We sat outside in the Californian sunshine dining with an interesting group of people, including LEDs 2008 speaker Hank Zabawski, Director of LED Technology for Heatron Inc, and Nuventix newcomer Gary Gay, Vice President of Worldwide Sales (who in fact has only been with the company for one week.)

The conference has covered a good mix of topics including sessions on the market and industry, LED technology advancements and integration engineering: materials, devices and optics. Tomorrow's conference line up, the last day for LEDs 2008, also promises to be as relevant for the industry.

To end the day, we made our way to the Grand Evening Reception, sponsored by Osram, where we met with speakers, panelists and fellow attendees over cocktails and sushi: another great opportunity for networking. We bumped into Tim Bushnell from Oxley Developments and Patrick Le Houillier from Optical Research Associates.

In tomorrow's post, we'll try to give as much insider information as possible....in addition to details of our evening out on the town. Goodnight from San Diego!

By Matthew Hidderley and Eve Gaut, Aston Science Park

Eve at LEDs 2008 - made it to San Diego!

Hearing the alarm clock ringing at 4am? Setting the alarms off at Aston Science Park en-route to the airport? Flying to New York only to wait around for 8 hours for a connecting flight? Sitting on a cramped internal US flight with no edible food? A total travel time of 26 hours from home to San Diego - and what for? All in aid of visiting LEDs 2008, which promises to offer a comprehensive overview of the LEDs market.

We lost track of the number of times we asked ourselves "is it really going to be worth it" during our grueling journey over here. But we can safely say after our first full day here in San Diego - yes it certainly is!

We kicked off the day with a visit to the world-renowned San Diego zoo whilst waiting for the conference to begin. We got to see plenty of rare and endangered species, including polar bears and giant pandas. We certainly recommend it if you are ever in the area with a few hours to spare.

Giant pandas at San Diego zoo

After visiting the zoo, we made our way back to base at the Sheraton Hotel on the marina, which is also the venue for LEDs 2008. An excellent cheese and wine reception gave us the perfect opportunity to meet up with old friends, such as Chris Jolly from Diodes Incorporated, formerly Zetex Semiconductors, and also network with many others.

We are now looking forward to a very busy and exciting day tomorrow as the fun really begins at LEDs 2008. We will be joining the breakfast sponsored by Dow Corning at 7am, followed by the welcome from the Advisory Committee. As for the rest of the day - you will just have to wait until tomorrow's blog to find out.

Matthew Hidderley (left) and Eve Gaut will be blogging from LEDs 2008 in San Diego

San Diego, US, will be the temporary home of many major players in the solid-state lighting industry this week as two conferences and exhibitions roll into town.

For Matthew Hidderley and Eve Gaut of Aston Science Park's marketing and communications team, it's the perfect opportunity to gauge the market and see how UK businesses can exploit any emerging trends and commercial opportunities.

First, over 500 delegates and 80 exhibitors are expected at LEDs 2008 which is billed as the "world's most compelling business meeting and exhibition dedicated exclusively to the high-brightness LED industry". The event runs from September 29 through to October 1 and will bring together players at every level in the food chain to discuss technology developments and emerging revenue streams.

Hot on the heels of this event comes LEDs Measurement and Standards 2008, which will deal with controversial questions such as a common way of measuring quantities such as lifetime and efficiency. No doubt there will be a lot of discussion on October 2 and October 3 as to the best way forward for the industry. Everyone knows that standards are essential to promote wider adoption of LEDs, but finding the common ground isn't easy.

Matthew and Eve will be attending both of these events and sharing their findings on the optics.org blog. It will be a busy and fascinating week but the long-haul flight from the UK will be worth it to hear about new markets, short and long-term opportunities and technical breakthroughs.