AVR - Avatar Industries

I have shares in Avatar, (AVR).

Avatar has a subsidiary, Lednium, which has developed new high brightness light emitting diode technology. Four international patents have been taken out over the first version of the product it is now manufacturing in Malaysia.

Avatar understands that the product is the most powerful single souce array of LEDs in the world. What is unique about the array is that it is three dimensional.

In 2002 the US research organization, Sandia, put out a paper suggesting that there may well be a tenfold increase in the efficiency of LEDs by 2020. It seems that in part this improvement will involve nanotechnology.

The Chinese government has committed large amount to the new technology because of the huge potential energy savings.

It seems Avatar has patents over technology which will draw upon the work of many private and government research organization around the world working towards these improvements in efficiency of LEDs.

Last year Avatar, (Lednium), received a national award for its R & D.

Are there some electronic engineers etc out there who can throw more light or doubt upon this development?

Re: Avatar Industries (AVR) and LED lighting

I'm also keen to learn more about this one. anybody know anything worthwile.....except noting low liquidity.

Re: Avatar Industries (AVR) and LED lighting

I know nothing about the company but given that it's an array rather than a single LED I assume the intention is to use the product as a light source in buildings etc rather than in electronic products, traffic lights, optical fibre comms etc.

In that case the key requirements are:
1. Efficiency approaching or exceeding fluorescent tubes. At least 80 lumens per watt and ideally more.

2. Able to produce light spectum which is suitable for building lighting. This could be achieved by mixing LED's which produce different wavelengths in the same manner phospors are mixed in fluorescent tubes to produce the desired wavelengths.

3. Sufficiently low cost as to be an attractive alternative to conventional fluorescent tubes (T8 tubes), T5 tubes and metal halide lighting systems.

4. Draw an acceptable current waveform from the mains. This has been a major issue with LED traffic lights in particular with some of the earlier commercial designs being outright nasty in this regard. It still seems to be an issue for them despite solutions being relatively easily available. Whilst this issue doesn't matter on a small scale, it does if they become as common as conventional light sources are now.

As I said, I know nothing about the company itself and I'm just assuming that their product is aimed at general lighting as opposed to comms or indicator use since those things generally wouldn't involve a complex array of LED's with such a focus on efficiency and brightness (since recent developments have already met requirements there). So I assume it's for building lighting as that is increasingly recognized as the next major area where a breakthrough in LED performance is needed. And of course it's a truly massive market.

P.S. - LED = Light Emitting Diode. Like the indicator light on your computer monitor but in this case much brighter and more efficient.