Industry | Electronics |
---|---|
Founded | 1983 [1] |
Founder | Robert Yeh |
Headquarters | |
Key people | Robert Yeh (Chair) |
Products | light-emitting diodes |
Revenue | NT$11.32 billion (2008) [1] |
Number of employees | 5,600 |
Website | www.everlight.com |
Everlight Electronics Co., Ltd. is a Taiwanese company which manufactures light-emitting diodes (LEDs). It is the world's fifth largest LED package manufacturer. [2]
Everlight Electronics was founded in 1983 by Robert Yeh.
Initially, Everlight produced indicator lights for home appliances.
By 2006, Everlight was Taiwan's largest manufacturer of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), producing 1.850 billion units every month, and employing 4,000 people.
In 2007, 40% of Everlight's revenue was derived from LEDs used for backlighting of mobile phones, and it also began to expand into backlight LEDs for laptop computers and televisions. [1]
In 2018, Everlight began introducing high-efficiency agricultural lighting products to augment livestock and horticultural plant stock growth. [3]
In 2019, Everlight's newly formed optoelectronic R&D team introduced tunable LEDs to maximize animal husbandry and aquaculture. For instance in poultry farming, exposing a chicken to white light takes 172 days to reach reproductive maturity, while exposing to red light reduces to 168 days, but blue light increases maturity to 182 days. Green light exposure makes poultry gain weight faster, due to growth hormone receptor stimulation and enhancement of satellite glial cells which promote muscle development. [4] [5] [6]
The R&D team also introduced UV LEDs for eggshell surface sanitization and water disinfection for waste water runoff. In collaboration with Dr. Kun-Hsien Tsai, Professor at College of Public Health at National Taiwan University, a novel ovitrap was introduced which pulses Ultraviolet C to regularly destroy collected mosquito eggs. [6]
In 2020, Everlight collaborated with Professor Wang Yong-song's team of the Institute of Fisheries Science, National Taiwan University to develop a special LED lamp for grouper fish aquaculture, where specific wavelength exposure reduces cannibalization and loss of fingerlings by over 40%. [7]
In 2021, Everlight released new horticultural LEDs in spectrums tailored to augment the red pigment of strawberries. Strawberries rely on sunlight to produce their red color through a process called anthocyanin biosynthesis, but in areas with little sunlight horticultural LEDs can be used to catalyze this biochemical process instead. [8]
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light is determined by the energy required for electrons to cross the band gap of the semiconductor. White light is obtained by using multiple semiconductors or a layer of light-emitting phosphor on the semiconductor device.
Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation is present in sunlight, and constitutes about 10% of the total electromagnetic radiation output from the Sun. It is also produced by electric arcs; Cherenkov radiation; and specialized lights; such as mercury-vapor lamps, tanning lamps, and black lights. Although long-wavelength ultraviolet is not considered an ionizing radiation because its photons lack the energy to ionize atoms, it can cause chemical reactions and causes many substances to glow or fluoresce. Many practical applications, including chemical and biological effects, derive from the way that UV radiation can interact with organic molecules. These interactions can involve absorption or adjusting energy states in molecules, but do not necessarily involve heating.
7-Dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC) is a zoosterol that functions in the serum as a cholesterol precursor, and is photochemically converted to vitamin D3 in the skin, therefore functioning as provitamin-D3. The presence of this compound in human skin enables humans to manufacture vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) from ultraviolet UV-B rays in the sun light, via previtamin D3, an intermediate isomer. It is also found in the milk of several mammalian species. Lanolin, a waxy substance that is naturally secreted by wool-bearing mammals, contains 7-DHC which is converted into vitamin D by sunlight and then ingested during grooming as a nutrient. In insects 7-Dehydrocholesterol is a precursor for the hormone ecdysone, required for reaching adulthood. It was discovered by Nobel-laureate organic chemist Adolf Windaus.
A laser diode is a semiconductor device similar to a light-emitting diode in which a diode pumped directly with electrical current can create lasing conditions at the diode's junction.
A flat-panel display (FPD) is an electronic display used to display visual content such as text or images. It is present in consumer, medical, transportation, and industrial equipment.
A blacklight, also called a UV-A light, Wood's lamp, or ultraviolet light, is a lamp that emits long-wave (UV-A) ultraviolet light and very little visible light. One type of lamp has a violet filter material, either on the bulb or in a separate glass filter in the lamp housing, which blocks most visible light and allows through UV, so the lamp has a dim violet glow when operating. Blacklight lamps which have this filter have a lighting industry designation that includes the letters "BLB". This stands for "blacklight blue". A second type of lamp produces ultraviolet but does not have the filter material, so it produces more visible light and has a blue color when operating. These tubes are made for use in "bug zapper" insect traps, and are identified by the industry designation "BL". This stands for "blacklight".
The vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser, or VCSEL, is a type of semiconductor laser diode with laser beam emission perpendicular from the top surface, contrary to conventional edge-emitting semiconductor lasers which emit from surfaces formed by cleaving the individual chip out of a wafer. VCSELs are used in various laser products, including computer mice, fiber optic communications, laser printers, Face ID, and smartglasses.
Photobiology is the scientific study of the beneficial and harmful interactions of light in living organisms. The field includes the study of photophysics, photochemistry, photosynthesis, photomorphogenesis, visual processing, circadian rhythms, photomovement, bioluminescence, and ultraviolet radiation effects.
Floriculture is the study of the efficient production of the plants that produce showy, colorful flowers and foliage for human enjoyment and the human environment. It is a commercially successful branch of horticulture and agriculture found throughout the world. Efficient production practices have been developed over the years, for the hundreds of plant taxa used in the floral industry, increasing the overall knowledge of whole plant biology. Plant breeding and selection have produced tens of thousands of new genotypes for human use.
A backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid-crystal displays (LCDs). As LCDs do not produce light by themselves—unlike, for example, cathode ray tube (CRT), plasma (PDP) or OLED displays—they need illumination to produce a visible image. Backlights illuminate the LCD from the side or back of the display panel, unlike frontlights, which are placed in front of the LCD. Backlights are used in small displays to increase readability in low light conditions such as in wristwatches, and are used in smart phones, computer displays and LCD televisions to produce light in a manner similar to a CRT display. A review of some early backlighting schemes for LCDs is given in a report Engineering and Technology History by Peter J. Wild.
A germicidal lamp is an electric light that produces ultraviolet C (UVC) light. This short-wave ultraviolet light disrupts DNA base pairing, causing formation of pyrimidine dimers, and leads to the inactivation of bacteria, viruses, and protozoans. It can also be used to produce ozone for water disinfection. They are used in ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI).
Full-spectrum light is light that covers the electromagnetic spectrum from infrared to near-ultraviolet, or all wavelengths that are useful to plant or animal life; in particular, sunlight is considered full spectrum, even though the solar spectral distribution reaching Earth changes with time of day, latitude, and atmospheric conditions.
High-energy visible light is high-frequency, high-energy light in the violet/blue band from 400 to 450 nm in the visible spectrum, which has a number of biological effects, including those on the eye.
Nichia Corporation is a Japanese chemical engineering and manufacturing company headquartered in Anan, Japan with global subsidiaries. It specializes in the manufacturing and distribution of phosphors, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs), laser diodes, battery materials, and calcium chloride.
Seoul Semiconductor develops and commercializes light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for automotive, general illumination, specialty lighting, and backlighting markets. It is the fourth-largest LED manufacturer globally.
An LED lamp or LED light is an electric light that produces light using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LED lamps are significantly more energy-efficient than equivalent incandescent lamps and can be significantly more than most fluorescent lamps. The most efficient commercially available LED lamps have efficiencies exceeding 200 lumens per watt (lm/W) and convert more than half the input power into light. Commercial LED lamps have a lifespan many times longer than incandescent lamps.
A quantum dot display is a display device that uses quantum dots (QD), semiconductor nanocrystals which can produce pure monochromatic red, green, and blue light. Photo-emissive quantum dot particles are used in LCD backlights or display color filters. Quantum dots are excited by the blue light from the display panel to emit pure basic colors, which reduces light losses and color crosstalk in color filters, improving display brightness and color gamut. Light travels through QD layer film and traditional RGB filters made from color pigments, or through QD filters with red/green QD color converters and blue passthrough. Although the QD color filter technology is primarily used in LED-backlit LCDs, it is applicable to other display technologies which use color filters, such as blue/UV active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) or QNED/MicroLED display panels. LED-backlit LCDs are the main application of photo-emissive quantum dots, though blue OLED panels with QD color filters are being researched.
Epistar Corp. (晶元光電股份有限公司) is the largest manufacturer of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in Taiwan. Epistar Corp. was established in 1996, and its headquarters are in Hsinchu. In 2009 it had an annual turnover of NT$10 billion.Epistar specialises in high-brightness LED products, which are used in general lighting, traffic signals, and various consumer products such as mobile phones and laptop computers. The company supplies the LED backlighting for Samsung liquid crystal displays.
Nanoco Technologies Ltd. (Nanoco) is a UK-based nanotechnology company that spun out from the University of Manchester in 2001. The company's development has been driven by Dr Nigel Pickett, Nanoco's Chief Technology Officer, whose pioneering work on the patented "molecular seeding" process has formed the basis of Nanoco's unique technology. Since 2004, Nanoco has focussed its research efforts into the development and scale-up of quantum dots and other nanoparticles, including cadmium-free quantum dots. Nanoco's technology has been licensed to Dow, Wah Hong, and Merck, amongst others.
Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) produce light by the recombination of electrons and electron holes in a semiconductor, a process called "electroluminescence". The wavelength of the light produced depends on the energy band gap of the semiconductors used. Since these materials have a high index of refraction, design features of the devices such as special optical coatings and die shape are required to efficiently emit light. A LED is a long-lived light source, but certain mechanisms can cause slow loss of efficiency of the device or sudden failure. The wavelength of the light emitted is a function of the band gap of the semiconductor material used; materials such as gallium arsenide, and others, with various trace doping elements, are used to produce different colors of light. Another type of LED uses a quantum dot which can have its properties and wavelength adjusted by its size. Light-emitting diodes are widely used in indicator and display functions, and white LEDs are displacing other technologies for general illumination purposes.