New LED Rear Projection TV - The final of the ARC-Lamps ?

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New LED Rear Projection TV

The final of the ARC-Lamps ?

By John Dodge, Editor-in-Chief -- Electronic Business, 7/25/2006

When Samsung wowed show-goers with 56-inch rear-projection TVs based on LED technology, most people on the floor had no idea that the solid-state light source inside was provided by Luminus Devices, a three-year-old startup in Woburn, Mass.

But Luminus, housed in a modest, low-slung building resembling a strip mall, could be one of next year’s hottest small companies. The company’s goals are ambitious: it wants to replace virtually all the arc lamps used in rear-projection TVs with LEDs during 2008 and capture a quarter of the market next year. If it succeeds, Luminus would go from marginal revenue today to several hundred million dollars in two years, according to Christian Hoepfner, the company’s vice president of products.

Hoepfner contends that other LED makers like Cree, OSRAM and Philips Lumileds are not the competition because they cannot replicate the brightness of Luminus’ PhlatLight technology. At the same time, he claims that most, if not all, major rear-projection TV makers are “working with” PhlatLight. Eleven TV makers showed six different rear-projection designs at CES in January, he says.

“The competition we are concerned with are plasma TVs. Our customers are interested in using our light source to compete with plasma,” Hoepfner says. “We are working with all the makers [of rear-projection] TV makers.”

Not so fast, says Matt Brennesholtz, a senior analyst at Insight Media in Norwalk, Conn., who is familiar with PhlatLight. “Doing it by 2008 is not realistic. The lamp people are not going to take this lying down, and there are less expensive lamps coming in the next couple of years,” he says. “I don’t expect their penetration will be that high.”

For certain, Luminus will face competition in LEDs and in the overall TV market, which is roiling with new and established technologies that are evolving quickly. LCD sets that use LEDs for backlighting are beginning to challenge rear projection and plasma in the larger screen sizes. And while expensive, laser-based TVs boasting better color and reliability will likely debut next year.

Indeed, a company called Novalux in Sunnyvale, Calif., just showed a laser-based rear-projection high-definition TV that it says produces heretofore unprecedented clarity and colors. And Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America has also shown a laser TV that it claims exceeds the already spectacular picture produced by Luminus’ LEDs.

But if PhlatLight is as good as the company is saying and lives up to the reviews it has earned so far, Luminus will almost certainly be a major player in rear-projection TVs. The technology offers several benefits.

Brightness, according to Luminus, ranges from 400 to 2500 lumens in red, green and blue, obviating the need for the color wheel used in lamp-based sets (one has to don eye protection to view a PhlatLight demo). This level of brightness, which has long been a challenge for LEDs, is achieved through more uniform collimation of light through the LED chip’s top surface as the result of the company’s photonic lattice technology.

Although yet to prove itself, a PhlatLight chip set promises 60,000 hours of continuous use versus several thousand for a lamp, says Hoepfner. It also doesn’t use the hazardous materials in lamps such as mercury, xenon, argon, sodium and metal halide. And it’s instant “on” versus the warm up time of a lamp.

The first rear-projection set will debut in September from Samsung and is already in production, according to Dan Schinasi, senior marketing manager at Samsung Electronics. Hoepfner says an unspecified Japanese maker will also unveil one in September.

“By September, they should be widespread. We’ll offer them in specialty retailers such as Tweeter and Magnolia, and they’ll carry a $700 premium,” says Schinasi. “Luminus’ technology is as good as it gets.” Samsung is promising 20,000 hours of use with the LEDs, and without the degradation over time that comes with lamps.

However, Samsung won’t put all its eggs in one basket and, like many big TV makers, has stakes in plasma, LCDs and lasers, whose barrier now is high cost. And its deep existing relationship with Philips–a huge player in both LEDs and conventional lighting–will hardly go away.

“Just because we don’t have a product now does not mean we won’t be there. In each case, there’s a lot that will happen in rear projection and LCDs,” says Steve Landau, marketing communications manager at Philips Lumileds. “You will see a lot of changes over the next couple of years.”

On June 28, Philips Lumileds announced it had shattered LED brilliance records with devices that could be used in rear-projection TVs. Discounting the entry of a $38 billion giant would be foolhardy.

OSRAM, another European lighting giant, apparently will square off against Luminus with a planned “market entrance” with LEDs in rear-projection TVs, according to Marion Reichl, an executive at OSRAM Opto Semiconductors. She did not elaborate, but said a paper was recently published on its entry. However, a survey of OSRAM’s Web sites indicates its LED efforts are heavily tilted toward general lighting applications.

“We know the PhlatLight technology, but do not comment on a competitor’s activities,” Reichl added.

For its parts, Cree is betting on LCD TVs and will bypass a confrontation with Luminus in rear projection.

“Our primary play is backlighting LCDs. Rear projection will remain, but primarily as a niche. At this point, we do not have an active program for rear projection,” says Mike Dunn, Cree’s vice president of solid-state lighting, who adds that he sees the plasma market falling off as LCDs get bigger. “We’ve chosen to pursue the LCD market.”

Perhaps Luminus, whose products are in production and are well known at this point, has awakened the giants. It will be first to market in rear-projection TVs, and all other things being equal, that might be all it takes.

For now, the company is heads-down on production, having just raised $38 million in venture funding to expand manufacturing and build a second fab to offload its facility in Woburn.

“Marketing is not a difficult task for us,” says Hoepfner, implying that plenty of customers have already signed up for PhlatLight, although the only one he will name is Samsung.

Could an IPO be the next funding event? “That’s quite possible,” he says.

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