AC-LED technology leads the new trend in LED lighting market

At present, whether it is household electricity, industrial and commercial electricity or public electricity, most of them are powered by alternating current (AC), while traditional LED lighting must be driven by direct current (DC), traditional DC-LED as lighting. For other purposes, the AC-DC converter must be included to convert AC power to DC power.

However, due to the high cost, low light conversion efficiency and short life span of this kind of power supply mode, it is contrary to the original intention of LED energy-saving. Therefore, the development of AC-LED lighting products that can be directly used in the AC power grid has become the technology of LED enterprises. The main direction is also one of the main topics for the future exploration of the LED lighting industry.

At present, global LED companies have achieved remarkable results in the research of AC-LED technology. Emerging LED companies represented by Seoul Semiconductor, Xinli Light Source and Changyuntong Optoelectronics are leading the development trend of the global lighting industry with AC-LED technology.

AC-LED technology leads the new trend in LED lighting market

As we all know, DC-driven LED products hide many drawbacks. They need to be used with rectifiers, which have a lifetime of only 20,000 hours, but DC-driven LED products last as long as 50,000-100,000 hours. Therefore, the DC-driven LED product needs to be replaced many times in the "lifetime", and it is inconvenient to apply to a fixed lighting device. The development of high reliability, small size, low cost LED drive circuit has become one of the keys to the large-scale application of LED lighting.

As a result, AC-LED technology came into being. It is a type of LED product that integrates a variety of processing technologies, including a variety of devices or cores, without the need for additional transformers, rectifiers or drive circuits, which can be directly driven by the AC power of the AC grid. This allows LED products to be directly applied to home and office AC electrical plugs (100-110 volts / 220-230 volts) without the need for converters, which not only significantly reduces the cost of the circuit, but also avoids the energy lost during the power conversion process.

Further, on the other hand, in order to take full advantage of the small size of the LED, the complex configuration of the DC drive power LED and the LED chip modules often together compactly mounted inside a small lamp body, an LED chip and power supplies It is a heat source that causes the ambient temperature to rise, thereby further reducing the operating efficiency and life of the DC drive power supply. Studies have shown that the complex DC drive power supply is greatly affected by temperature, and the working life at peak efficiency is less than 10,000 hours, which is much lower than the working life value of LED chips (50,000-100,000 hours).

AC-LED technology completely breaks through this technical bottleneck: its basic concept is to not use extra (external chip) AC/DC conversion and rectification circuits, instead of using current limiting resistors to directly drive LEDs with AC power, avoiding constant use. Loss of efficiency due to DC power, large size, complex structure, and lifetime limitations. The application of AC-LED eliminates the traditional constant voltage and constant current power supply, removes redundant electronic components, thereby reducing the cost, and has achieved great success in the miniaturization, reliability and extended working life of LED lamps.

Since the AC-LED can be directly connected by AC power, the rectifier transformer can be used without any need, and the development of cost optimization and application convenience cannot be ignored. Therefore, many industry insiders predict that AC-LED technology will lead the new development trend of LED lighting market.

Optimize system cost to subvert traditional application patterns

AC-LED lighting products can be used in a variety of applications, such as residential lighting, street lighting, office lighting, landscape lighting, and many other advantages that traditional DC-LEDs can't match. From the circuit point of view, AC-LED is directly driven by AC power supply, no AC-DC converter is needed, and the circuit design is also simpler. From the design point of view, AC-LED is suitable for convenient design of AC power application, which is convenient for customers to design more. The compact solution, and the heat dissipation is easier to solve, saving board space.

Existing LED operating modes focus on low voltage (2-4 volts) and constant DC. When urban AC power is used to drive LED lights, a variable voltage constant current power supply including buck and steady current electronic components is required. In the AC-DC conversion process, 15-30% loss is inevitable, and Avoiding the substantial increase in the cost, weight and structural complexity of LED lighting fixtures, AC-LED technology can effectively avoid this problem by removing the AC-DC conversion link, which can effectively optimize the design of the lighting structure and improve Light efficiency costs.

Seoul Semiconductor, a Korean LED manufacturer, has been working on the development and promotion of AC-LEDs for a long time. Acrich2, which was developed by Seoul Semiconductor and does not require AC/DC conversion, has successfully subverted the traditional application mode with long life and high reliability.

Wen Xinghua, Sales Director of Seoul Semiconductor China, said that compared with the traditional solution, Acrich2 series LED modules remove the short circuit life of electrolytic capacitors in the traditional constant current power supply circuit, so that the life of the entire lighting system can reach or exceed 50,000 hours. Compared with the traditional DCLED system, it has higher power factor, more convenient design, and better optimizes the system cost of ownership (TCO) of the lighting customer. Whether in the procurement and inventory turnover, or in the process and manufacturing, the power factor up to 0.97 can be It saves the energy cost of the whole society and saves at least 65% of the cost of incandescent bulbs.

At present, the Acrich2 AC LED overall solution and the MJT technology LED are respectively adopted by customers and have been applied in commercial and home environments. More and more cases have adopted Acrich2's LED light sources, including public road lighting in China. According to relevant customer feedback, the AC-LED solution not only reduces the post-maintenance cost of the project implementation, but also simplifies the luminaire design and is more attractive to the end customer.