Mar 9, 2021

Matrix Platform: build-to-order light engines optimized for the Lumileds LEDs in your application

Category: Illumination
The Matrix Platform service embeds Lumileds know-how and original technology which enable it to create never-before-possible light engines that ideally match the specifications of an individual customer’s application.
The Matrix Platform service embeds Lumileds know-how and original technology which enable it to create never-before-possible light engines that ideally match the specifications of an individual customer’s application.

Students of marketing will be familiar with the advice given to sellers of power tools: when a customer buys a 6mm drill bit, it’s not really because they want a drill bit. It’s because they want a 6mm hole.

Something similar is true of LEDs: luminaire manufacturers do not buy LEDs for the sake of the LEDs, they buy them so that they can produce high-quality light output efficiently and reliably. The luminaire manufacturer’s equivalent of the 6mm hole is a light engine with the flux, color, CRI, forward voltage, efficacy and other characteristics that their application demands.

This insight helps to explain the appeal of Lumileds Matrix Platform, a technology service that creates optimized light engines for lighting equipment manufacturers. And while assembly or system integration services are readily available to OEMs, the Matrix Platform offers special value, as it draws on Lumileds’ unique knowledge of the characteristics of its LEDs, and unique access to the individual LEDs that best fit a customer’s application.

 

The ideal selection of LEDs for optimal output and freedom from binning

The basic purpose of the Matrix Platform is to meet a customer’s light engine specification by integrating Lumileds LEDs on to a carrier board, and optionally other elements of the lighting system such as secondary optics, electronic components, and light guides. More commonly specified formats, such as the XR-5050-SQR modules for outdoor applications such as streetlights, are available as standard off-the-shelf light engines that embody all the values and benefits of the Matrix Platform service.

The provision of a Matrix Platform lighting system based on Lumileds LEDs saves a lighting equipment manufacturer the time and effort involved in developing its own design, and so can offer important benefits such as:

  • Faster time-to-market with reduced development time
  • An optimized solution that is only possible with Lumileds’ direct LED access and knowledge
  • Relieving pressure on internal development resources and extending opportunities with Lumileds Matrix team operating as an outsourced extension of the OEM’s own engineering group
  • Eliminating development and production risk – Lumileds warranties performance and quality
  • Simpler implementation of tunable white lighting and other complex or challenging technologies and applications.

On the surface, this might appear similar to the service provided by an electronics contract manufacturer or an ODM (original design manufacturer). But the Matrix Platform service embeds Lumileds know-how and original technology which enable it to create never-before-possible light engines that ideally match the specifications of an individual customer’s application.

The know-how is of every aspect of every LED’s operation: its electrical, optical, mechanical and thermal characteristics. This enables the Matrix Platform design team to configure the elements of a lighting system so that the driver operation, LEDs, optics, the board’s material and layout, and heat sink all work in optimal harmony. It’s like in rally car racing: the most successful racers are those driving ‘Works’ cars, the production models which are tweaked by the manufacturer’s own engineers – the ones who have the most intimate knowledge of the car.

It’s the same with the Matrix Platform: Lumileds’ engineers are the world’s leading experts in the operation of Lumileds LEDs.

And the effect of applying this know-how is amplified by proprietary production technology developed by Lumileds for the Matrix Platform: the Oberon system embeds intelligence in the production line, so that in real time, the ideal mixture of LED units is selected to meet the application’s exact specifications for parameters such as color point, forward voltage or flux. And because Oberon can pick from Lumileds’ entire population of production units, and not only from specific bin selections, a Matrix Platform light engine can achieve tight tolerances that are, in practice, impossible for any third-party manufacturer.

This brings into view another of the important advantages of using the Matrix Platform: freedom from binning. The requirement for fixture manufacturers to specify bins, manage LED inventory carefully, and then correctly apply bin selections on the production line creates a considerable management overhead for supply-chain management and creates the risk of using the wrong bin either because of an error at the inventory or at the production stage. Use of the Matrix Platform eliminates the question of binning as the LED selection is handled by Lumileds.

 

Superior performance for less time and effort

The promise of the Matrix Platform, then, is to deliver a superior outcome, when judged on the basis of a light engine’s overall performance, consistency and quality, while dramatically reducing the development and production effort required on the part of the luminaire manufacturer, and cutting the time it takes to bring a new design to market.

To explore the options for enhancing your next luminaire development project with Matrix Platform technology, go to www.lumileds.com/products/matrix-platform/#advanced-technologies.