Solid-state “White” light, the many ways to create it and deliver it via LEDs, for a variety of applications and uses, are not well known. Many people, companies and designers are familiar only with traditional analog “White” lighting, with no real appreciation of the beneficial alternatives that LEDs can provide. InGaN/Sapphire and AlInGaP/GaAs LEDs are the key technology required for “Solid-State White [Multicolor &Polychromatic ]LED Lighting”and its many manifestations.

Most everyone understands the benefits that can be obtained with “Solid-State” LED lighting (energy, lifetime, extremely rugged, etc., etc.). LEDs not only possess these attributes, but are also a new kind of “White” light. A White light source that embodies many application specific attributes:

• Ultra--low Voltage/Power
• Fast Response (<100 ns)Read/Write Time
• No DC--AC Inverter/Power Supply
• Full Digital Control (Strobe, Pulse, Color Field Sequential (CFS) and Full Range Dynamic Dimming (15,000:1)
• No Warm-up or Over Voltage Start-up
• No UV Radiation
• No Hazardous Mercury Disposal
• No ELF,RMI
• Addressable Individual or Alternating Component Colors (Red, Green & Blue - RGB = 256 Million Hue Color Pallet)
• Full Spectrum Lighting or Specialized.

“Black” is the absence of all colors. When light from all parts of the color spectrum overlap one another (i.e.the presence of all colors), the additive mixture of colors appears “White”. This is referred to as “Polychromatic White Light” - RGB full color spectrum lighting, as the Primary Colors from which all hues are derived are Red, Green and Blue. Secondary Colors - also called “additive” - of light are: Magenta (mix Red &Blue); Cyan (mix Green & Blue); and Yellow (mix Red and Green). Any additive Secondary Color and an opposite Primary Color also = WHITE Light (Yellow &Blue, Cyan &Red, Magenta & Green), in other words, Binary Complimentary or “Multi-Color White Light”.

Implementation of either Polychromatic White or Multicolor White light with LEDs enables a product specialist to not only produce “White ” light, but also allows for the mixture of hues of light by drive address and control to create various color effects: Multicolor or Polychromatic hues, Monochromatic hues, and a very wide range of continuous, blended or pulsed effects impossible with traditional lighting methods.

“White” lighting, with LEDs, takes on a whole new meaning for many far reaching applications, including: outdoor signs and architectural; night-vision and safety; “entertaining” lighting for the home or mall; general lighting for off the grid applications; “healthy” lighting that eliminates some of the physiological and psychological effects caused by fluorescents; RGB color field sequential lighting for nonemissive LCD displays required for untethered portable electronic appliances; “White” vehicle lighting with built-in safety features, and others.

Implementation of solid-state lighting can be conducted in a muti-chip (polychromatic or multi-color) approach or by utilizing an LED in conjunction with a phosphor (conversion) layer such as Yttrium Aluminium Garnet, added to the emitting surface(s) during discrete component packaging.

The former approaches allow many more lighting possibilities and effects unachievable with the later phosphor approach which produces “White” light only. All three produce useable, consistent, inexpensive “Solid-State White Light”.

UNIROYAL Optoelectronics is dedicated to providing high brightness LEDs for White lighting including a variety of short wavelength devices used with YAG conversion phosphors, hues specifically formatted for binary complimentary Multicolor White, and RGB LEDs that optimize the Poloychromatic full color specrum White lighting approach.