LED Chipmakers Raising Quotes

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,532
Highlights of the day: LED chipmakers raising quotes
DIGITIMES staff
Wednesday 20 January 2021

As shortages of components continue to haunt the semiconductor industry, LED chipmakers are now looking to raise their product quotes, which will drive downstream LED lighting product vendors to also increase their prices to reflect the costs. Meanwhile, Taiwanese IC design houses have seen their supply being seriously constrained by foundries' insufficient capacity, while backend houses extending their delivery time will also have some effect. Server shipments, however, are expected to enjoy double-digit on-year increases in 2021 thanks to robust demand for cloud computing services.

LED chipmakers, downstream vendors raising prices: LED chipmakers in Taiwan and China have seen their delivery lead times extend, and have raised quotes for some of their products particularly non-blue light LED chips, which in turn has also driven downstream LED lamp vendors or illumination solutions providers to hike sales prices to reflect increased materials costs, according to industry sources.

Taiwan IC design houses see supply constrained: Taiwan-based IC design houses have seen their supply constrained by tight foundry capacity, as well as longer delivery times at backend houses, according to industry sources.

Taiwan server makers eyeing double-digit increases for 2021 shipments: Taiwan-based server makers including Quanta Computer, Inventec, Wiwynn, Mitac Computing Technology and Foxconn Technology are optimistic about their business prospects this year with expectations that their 2021 cloud server shipments will see double-digit on-year increases, according to industry sources.


Stop with the FragHarder Disco Lights in every component already!!
 
Hopefully this will lead to a decrease in the RGB puke on literally everything.
More likely the RGB Cancer spreaders will outbid the conventional lighting companies, and we'll have to chose between living in the dark or only being illuminated by frag harder disco lights because there won't be any white LEDs available.

🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
 
The only rbg on my computer is the line on my 011 dynamic front panel. Everything else is disabled.
 
My dad replaced all the lights in the basement with LED fixtures HOLY COW is that bright.
 
All the lights in my house are LEDs except the freezer and dryer, so I only have to worry in another 50k hours or so.

Guess I'm glad I got the only LED component besides my mb when I did, though. Gotta have some light in that all black case!
 
I have a box of about x70 regular 60 watt 40 watt 200 watt for projectors incandesant light bulbs in my room they are really hard to find since GE sold out or went under recently.I used to stock bulbs at work like everything converted to LED those dairy queen bulbs they pushed on consumers were the worst. LED is tolerable but Incandesant is still the best Edison bulbs are good but only if you want to live in the dark ages.
 
Do ya think the MFG's will make RGB an OPTIONAL choice for GPU's, etc in the near future? I wonder if they will charge a different price for a product that is RGB vs non-RGB but of coarse given the fact they know people are willing to sell their firstborn to acquire a RTX 3090 I'm guessing both a non-RGB and a RGB product will cost the same. Heck, wouldn't be surprised if they charged more for the non-RGB :LOL:
 
It would be great if all vendors sold an alternate "blackout" version SKU for 5-10% less for each and every product they sell which has RBG designed into it. I would have easily saved $100 on the last rig I built.
 
I have a box of about x70 regular 60 watt 40 watt 200 watt for projectors incandesant light bulbs in my room they are really hard to find since GE sold out or went under recently.I used to stock bulbs at work like everything converted to LED those dairy queen bulbs they pushed on consumers were the worst. LED is tolerable but Incandesant is still the best Edison bulbs are good but only if you want to live in the dark ages.

Nice! I really despise LED junk being pushed into everything lighting now! When the apartment complex I live at "upgraded" the post top lights (all 450 of them) I got a few of the Metal Halide fixtures these use an M90 (100W) Metal Halide lamp I then got a few ceramic metal halide lamps from an eBay seller (as they claimed no one wants this "old junk") for only 130 watts (input current with ballast losses) this thing is bright!

The post tops have all failed and been replaced (some more then once) I did get one of the LED ones the powersupply (external 24VDC constant voltage) they now "identify" as a driver so they can be sold for more $ just like a heat pump (AKA reverse cycle AC) can be sold for more $ then what it is actually called!

Long live real lighting tech! LED is good for it's original purpose only indicator lights on equipment.
 
Nice! I really despise LED junk being pushed into everything lighting now! When the apartment complex I live at "upgraded" the post top lights (all 450 of them) I got a few of the Metal Halide fixtures these use an M90 (100W) Metal Halide lamp I then got a few ceramic metal halide lamps from an eBay seller (as they claimed no one wants this "old junk") for only 130 watts (input current with ballast losses) this thing is bright!

The post tops have all failed and been replaced (some more then once) I did get one of the LED ones the powersupply (external 24VDC constant voltage) they now "identify" as a driver so they can be sold for more $ just like a heat pump (AKA reverse cycle AC) can be sold for more $ then what it is actually called!

Long live real lighting tech! LED is good for it's original purpose only indicator lights on equipment.

Look, your day is almost here!

D_29_Curmudgeons-Day-e1421775735388.jpg
 
All the lights in my house are LEDs except the freezer and dryer, so I only have to worry in another 50k hours or so.

Guess I'm glad I got the only LED component besides my mb when I did, though. Gotta have some light in that all black case!
Yeah, I've had terrible luck with led bulbs. Those ratings are lab bullshit. I'm back on the incandescent train. Less hazardous and they actually work. Also when they expire it's binary, it either works or doesn't, no flicker crap.
 
Yeah, I've had terrible luck with led bulbs. Those ratings are lab bullshit. I'm back on the incandescent train. Less hazardous and they actually work. Also when they expire it's binary, it either works or doesn't, no flicker crap.
Well, 3yrs running and no issue so far, although I could do without the 60hz flicker from my range hood. All my bulbs are philips or GE (mostly philips). 26 total, inside and out...and I lied a bit. There's still two incandescents in the unused bedroom.
 
Nice! I really despise LED junk being pushed into everything lighting now! When the apartment complex I live at "upgraded" the post top lights (all 450 of them) I got a few of the Metal Halide fixtures these use an M90 (100W) Metal Halide lamp I then got a few ceramic metal halide lamps from an eBay seller (as they claimed no one wants this "old junk") for only 130 watts (input current with ballast losses) this thing is bright!

The post tops have all failed and been replaced (some more then once) I did get one of the LED ones the powersupply (external 24VDC constant voltage) they now "identify" as a driver so they can be sold for more $ just like a heat pump (AKA reverse cycle AC) can be sold for more $ then what it is actually called!

Long live real lighting tech! LED is good for it's original purpose only indicator lights on equipment.

The issue is that Cheap LEDs are exactly that. Good LEDs cost money. But even cheap LEDs are far more efficient than the most efficient incandescent or florescent, and even then will probably survive a longer period of time.

Good LEDs last decades, not hours.
 
All the lights in my house are LEDs except the freezer and dryer, so I only have to worry in another 50k hours or so.

Guess I'm glad I got the only LED component besides my mb when I did, though. Gotta have some light in that all black case!
Do you not have an oven?

RE. LIfespan of LED's I replaced all the bulbs in my house with LEDs in 2015 and since then a grand total of 2 (out of dozens) did the flickering stuff and were easy to exchange at the store.
 
The issue is that Cheap LEDs are exactly that. Good LEDs cost money. But even cheap LEDs are far more efficient than the most efficient incandescent or florescent, and even then will probably survive a longer period of time.

Good LEDs last decades, not hours.
I have a case of 24 Sylvania LED bulbs that I bought for ~$24 off Amazon. Cheap as hell LED bulbs.

So far in just over a year of using them, I've only had 2 that went out prematurely. They went out within a couple weeks of each other and were both used in my not very well ventilated bathroom so I'm guessing humidity was the killer. Otherwise, all the rest have shown zero problems so far. Fingers crossed that they don't all die now that I've made this post.
 
It would be great if all vendors sold an alternate "blackout" version SKU for 5-10% less for each and every product they sell which has RBG designed into it. I would have easily saved $100 on the last rig I built.

Some manufacturers do. Here's an example from Crucial:

RGB:
https://www.newegg.com/ballistix-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820164216?Item=N82E16820164216

non-RGB:
https://www.newegg.com/ballistix-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820164188?Item=N82E16820164188

The non-RGB version is 21% cheaper going off the non-sale price. The non-LED version of any product is still going to be more expensive because it's the same product without the LEDs. If a product was designed from the ground up without LEDs in mind, it would be cheaper.

I have a case of 24 Sylvania LED bulbs that I bought for ~$24 off Amazon. Cheap as hell LED bulbs.

So far in just over a year of using them, I've only had 2 that went out prematurely. They went out within a couple weeks of each other and were both used in my not very well ventilated bathroom so I'm guessing humidity was the killer. Otherwise, all the rest have shown zero problems so far. Fingers crossed that they don't all die now that I've made this post.

Problem with cheap LED bulbs is they smash the LEDs with as much current they can get away with, grossly overrunning them to get as much brightness with as few LEDs as possible. This creates a lot of extra heat and the PCB the LEDs are mounted on run smoking hot. They generally survive for awhile in the open air, but once you stuff them in enclosed fixtures or places with poor ventilation, they rapidly die.

The failure mode really simple, one of the LEDs in the series string will burn and the bulb goes dark or starts to flicker if the burned LED starts arcing. If you look at the LEDs after the bulb fails, you'll generally see one or more with a black spot of death. Less commonly, one of the components on the "driver" board dies, usually the electrolytic capacitor if there is one.

There is a way to make these bulbs last longer if you can get into the base of the bulb. Almost all of the cheap LED bulbs use capacitor droppers to limit current. If you replace the dropping capacitor with one for a lower capacitance rating, it'll run the LEDs at lower current and they'll last far longer. If the bulb has already died, you can make up a new string of LEDs equivalent to the number in the old LED board and keep on going. Old dead LED bulbs are great to make decorative bulbs with, you can make them any color you want.
 
  • Like
Reactions: owkia
like this
Look, your day is almost here!

View attachment 322308

I'm not a Curmudgeon I just dislike this unreliable crap being pushed onto consumers with no other choice now!

Yeah, I've had terrible luck with led bulbs. Those ratings are lab bullshit. I'm back on the incandescent train. Less hazardous and they actually work. Also when they expire it's binary, it either works or doesn't, no flicker crap.

Yes how do they know they will last 25 years? LED as general lightning use has not even been around this long + who uses lights for only 3 hours a day even in the summer months it is dark for more then that!

I do remember the whole colored CCFL tube trend from the early 2000's those were OK (the high failure part was the inverter) just don't touch the output from the inverter it hurts and will leave a mark also don't use "normal" wire to extend the output side use high voltage wire or better yet don't extend it or extend the 12VDC input side
 
Good LEDs last decades, not hours.

I have built many high power LED arrays for the last decade+ and they still work, excluding one external manufacturing/engineering issue which was beyond my control at that early time.

Buy shit cheap LEDs, get shit cheap LEDs lol. I prefer to make them last a lifetime excluding PSUs, it's quite possible if you heatsink very well and under-drive stuff.


I'll have to check with my suppliers if EU/US stuff is getting more expensive too.
 
Last edited:
Yes how do they know they will last 25 years? LED as general lightning use has not even been around this long + who uses lights for only 3 hours a day even in the summer months it is dark for more then that!
Long term test data.
There are much longer term studies and LEDs have typically exceeded their projected degradation rate under hard conditions, longest I saw in past was ~20k hours total test time. You'd replace 10 lightbulbs in that time because they leave the tungsten impurities, in order to make the bulb last a limited time.

Most of my LED designs barely see 30-40°c Tj in summer, so the thermal cycling over lifetime is minimal.

To summarize some of the key points of that datasheet: when you encase an LED in plastic diffusion sphere, with a tiny metal surface to dissipate 10W or more, then run it at 90°c in a downlight, it degrades severely and lasts barely any longer (if you are lucky), than a shitty CFL.
You need to cool LEDs or they won't last, let alone drive them nicely, PSUs are also important for longevity of the whole system. A majority of LED designs skimp on both those factors because people don't want to pay more than peanuts for a light source, so they are run hard for max 'bang for buck' (which fades to visible lumen degradation in a minute or two) and not cooled well.
 

Attachments

  • XLampXR-E_lumen_maintenance.pdf
    579.2 KB · Views: 0
Long term test data.
There are much longer term studies and LEDs have typically exceeded their projected degradation rate under hard conditions, longest I saw in past was ~20k hours total test time. You'd replace 10 lightbulbs in that time because they leave the tungsten impurities, in order to make the bulb last a limited time.

Most of my LED designs barely see 30-40°c Tj in summer, so the thermal cycling over lifetime is minimal.

To summarize some of the key points of that datasheet: when you encase an LED in plastic diffusion sphere, with a tiny metal surface to dissipate 10W or more, then run it at 90°c in a downlight, it degrades severely and lasts barely any longer (if you are lucky), than a shitty CFL.
You need to cool LEDs or they won't last, let alone drive them nicely, PSUs are also important for longevity of the whole system. A majority of LED designs skimp on both those factors because people don't want to pay more than peanuts for a light source, so they are run hard for max 'bang for buck' (which fades to visible lumen degradation in a minute or two) and not cooled well.
Ah Thank You

LEDs are OK the cheap crap seems to be the power supplies you know the device that now identifies as a "driver" I did get some of the failed LED lights from the apartment complex they work fine in this instance the 24VDC constant voltage (any normal 24VDC power supply will suffice for these) I tested with 2 12V SLA batteries in series to test I then bought the proper 60W (2.5A @ 24VDC) power supply as I did not want to waste money if they were in fact truly bad I already had the 12V SLA batteries laying around.
 
So far I've had pretty good luck with LED Bulbs. The one or two times I went with a cheap model they died quickly, likely due to insufficient cooling or poor electronics construction. I've only had one that had a flickering issue so far and it was a cheap non-dimmable. Replaced it with an average quality dimmable and no problems since. It has lasted multiple years in an LED-hostile environment (closed fixture/globe in a bathroom). Also, the early years of LED Bulbs seemed to have far more failures than recent years.

I've probably got 20 or so in the house now, ~5-10 of which I've been using for 5 years or more with no failures in various situations (even non-recommended fixtures like closed globes, etc). This even includes some cheapos (Walmart dimmable multipack).
 
Im in the camp of don't need led lights on ram, fans, gpu's .. what's next
led lights on hd ?? ... waste of money ...

So, hoping manufactures stop putting them everywhere and lower prices ..

What they will do is stop led lights on those products but keep prices same..
and raise the price on products that have led lights..
 
The Threadripper I am trying to build is to be devoid of all that RGB gamer bling. It’s near bloody impossible. Only part I’ve managed to source for it is the Gigabyte Turbo series 3090. By the time it actually arrives I’m hoping that AMD has announced the new chips so I can work on the rest of the system. Just hoping I can get it all delivered before July 1.
 
Yes you need the heat and UV output only fluorescent or HID sources can provide!

Overall PAR and the amount on the 660nm is more important than anything on the UV spectrum. I've used LEDs for years now for plant growth.
 
Last edited:
Overall PAR and the amount on the 660nm is more important than anything on the UV spectrum. I've used LEDs for years now for plant growth.
I do believe the grow lights are sucking away resources and slowing overall development. 1xP1000, Viparspectra, 2xViparspectra P1500, and either a 3rd P1500 or a P2500 so I will be responsible for over a thousand LEDs a lot of which are 660nm.
 
Yeah, it's too bad you can't just plant things outside and watch them grow. Maybe we'll invent houses for plants and grow them there.
/S
I seriously wonder if this grow light conundrum is related to the relaxation of marijuana regulations
 
I do believe the grow lights are sucking away resources and slowing overall development. 1xP1000, Viparspectra, 2xViparspectra P1500, and either a 3rd P1500 or a P2500 so I will be responsible for over a thousand LEDs a lot of which are 660nm.

The big thing for me is not having to change out T5's anymore at, seemingly, arbitrary intervals. The T5 could look like it was doing great, but you start to see growth deficiencies because of uneven drop in overall spectrum output. You either had to change them out prematurely but on a regular basis, or change them 'as needed' and end up with a period of slower than normal growth. I've had no such issue with quality LED setups.

Yeah, it's too bad you can't just plant things outside and watch them grow. Maybe we'll invent houses for plants and grow them there.
/S
I seriously wonder if this grow light conundrum is related to the relaxation of marijuana regulations

I am not in the cannabis end. I farm rare aquarium plants using CO2 injection, so consistent lighting is important.
 
  • Like
Reactions: travm
like this
The big thing for me is not having to change out T5's anymore at, seemingly, arbitrary intervals. The T5 could look like it was doing great, but you start to see growth deficiencies because of uneven drop in overall spectrum output. You either had to change them out prematurely but on a regular basis, or change them 'as needed' and end up with a period of slower than normal growth. I've had no such issue with quality LED setups.



I am not in the cannabis end. I farm rare aquarium plants using CO2 injection, so consistent lighting is important.
Off topic but which lights do you use and how tall is your tank. I started with fluval 3.0 but find they are not really suitable for tanks 18 inches and taller.
 
Off topic but which lights do you use and how tall is your tank. I started with fluval 3.0 but find they are not really suitable for tanks 18 inches and taller.

I've used Finnex lights for a long time now. They have a lot of value for what you pay and the Planted+ has 121 par at 14 inches. This is plenty for everything you could want to carpet at 18. You will need CO2 injection. They have more feature rich ones with more adjustment that I would look at without CO2. That said, CO2 is the easiest route to better growth. If you are not using a fertilizer dosing regimen, and are not running CO2, I would not go over 50 par
 
Last edited:
Back
Top