Osram Opto Semiconductors Wins Innovation Prize

2007-Jul-17 |   Osram Opto Semiconductors has been honored with the Best Innovator Award 2007 for its consistently high level of innovation. The Siemens subsidiary was the overall winner in all five categories of innovation management. The annual prize is presented by the corporate consulting firm AT Kearney and the publication “Wirtschaftswoche”. With more than 3,000 patents for optoelectronic semiconductors, Osram Opto Semiconductors is one of the world’s leaders in lighting technology. The company recently introduced a new light-emitting diode suitable for motor vehicle headlights, for example. The semiconductor specialists have developed the Ostar Headlamp LED to the point where it can serve as a high-performance light source. Within only a few months, they succeeded in more than doubling the brightness of the LED. Already available as samples, the latest LED will be launched on the market in late 2008 and has an output of 620 lumens at 700 milliamperes of operating current. The predecessor model, which was introduced in the fall of 2006, had an output of 250 lumens. The required output for motor vehicle headlights is 1,000 lumens.

Each LED consists of five individual chips, which are connected in a series circuit and generate light with a color temperature of 6,000 Kelvin. The human eye perceives this light as the equivalent of daylight. The developers benefited from the experience they gained with Ostar Lighting, a 1,000-lumen LED intended for general lighting applications. With LEDs, the object is to tap the maximum amount of light from the luminous element and to minimize reflections directed inward. This is done with a special thin-film technology that makes it possible to achieve an emission value of 90 percent. Unlike bulbs with filaments, LEDs only radiate light in a forward direction. Further improvements include work done on the LED’s housing technology and converter. The latter is needed to convert the blue light produced by the semiconductor chip into white light, by means of yellow coatings.

Osram Opto Semiconductors is working with several automakers and suppliers on the use of LED headlights. Osram LEDs are already being used as standard in the daytime running lamps of Audi R8 vehicles.