Manufacturing LED Modules and Components

Several technical challenges exist when manufacturing solid state lighting (SSL) modules and components. The greatest challenge is in keeping up with the changes in LED technology. LED components, such as LED packages and chips, are improving in lumen output, luminous efficacy, and thermal performance at a staggering rate. A successful LED manufacturing organization needs to keep up with these improvements and allot time for educating its employees on new technologies and incremental improvements to LED packages and LED die. Figure 1 shows the luminous efficacy (lumens per watt) of various lighting technologies and their projected improvement through 2020. As you can imagine, staying abreast of the latest technology when it is improving so rapidly is like trying to hit a constantly moving target.