The Advantages of LEDs

Printer-friendly version

With energy-saving LED lamps, new approaches for solar-powered applications and sustainable production technologies, Sharp is showing how progress and environmental protection go hand-in-hand.
 
By Ralf Schäfer, Sharp Microelectronics Europe
 
LEDs are one of the important innovation topics at the  moment. Driven by the increasing need for light efficiency, light diodes offer huge potential for energy saving and today already act as a backlight for LCDs and as luminants for lamps. Sharp will soon be presenting a complete portfolio of fully industry-compatible LCDs with LED backlight in diagonals of 2.5 to 19 inches, as well as innovative LED-based solutions for lighting applications. With a brightness of up to 540 lm, the new Zenigata LED modules already have the brightness of a 60 W bulb but only require 11 per cent of the energy. One thing is clear: the future in lighting technology belongs to LEDs.
 
Also very much in the news these days is the field of networking, which is in the process of leaving PC-based Internet behind. Mobile Internet, with smartphones and wearable micro-computers as terminals to access the World Wide Web while en route, is readily available. But the trend towards networking and interaction does not stop there, although the Web is only one of an increasing number of systems for  the transmission of data and information. Sharp now provides numerous key technologies and products to meet the growing demand for networking. The highlights in digital signage include the world’s largest LCD monitor with a screen diagonal of 108 inches (often used as a screen for interactive games but also generally suited as a display for commercial e-signage applications) plus an approach for dynamic digital moving walkways and escalator advertising, where  the screen content jumps with the movement of the viewer from display to display.
 
Display technologies are also shaping interior concepts and the electronics of future car generations. Sharp is offering an insight into the future with a high contrast automotive display that, with its contrast ratio of 2.500:1, fits seamlessly into dash-boards, where it can depict situation-based driver information as an interactive man-machine interface.