This blog came from Maury Wright, the conference co-chair of EE Times' LEDs and Lighting Virtual Conference

Given a continued sluggish technology economy, it's really nice to find a market segment that’s poised for significant growth. The LED-based lighting market is certainly such a market. Already, LEDs have moved beyond their indicator-light legacy and are finding success in automotive lighting, signage, and backlighting applications ranging from mobile phones to TVs. And now high-brightness LEDs are poised to make a run in the general illumination market bringing improved energy efficiency and long life. The potential has engineers looking for design help and conferences stepping up to provide that help.

This week alone, engineers have three major events focused on LEDs and Lighting. On Wed Oct 21, designers can attend the EE Times LEDs and Lighting Virtual Conference. Meanwhile, the LEDs2009 Conference will run Oct 20-22 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, CA. And in the Los Angeles area, LightShow/West tales place Oct 21-22.

What's the motivation for engineers seeking more information on the LED market? The answer is both market potential, and the fact that LEDs are really quite different devices once you get past the basic indicator usage. First let's take a quick look at financials. Databeans places the entire LED market at $5.3 billion for this year. But general illumination is a very small part of that number. But Strategies Unlimited projects that just the general illumination segment will hit $5 billion in 2012. And consider that the residential market will not have kicked in at that point.

Now let's consider the technical side. LEDs can bring great efficiency advantages in illumination as well as long life. But designing LED luminaires – lighting fixtures – is way different than working with incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. Design engineers must learn a complete new set of pertinent optical specs and figures of merit. And driving high-brightness LEDs can require three power supply stages. Then consider the thermal issues. LEDs don't radiate heat the way traditional light bulbs do, so LEDs require much more complex mechanical designs.

The EE Times LEDs and Lighting Virtual Conference will provide anyone with an Internet connection around the world a jump start of designing with LEDs. First, Carnegie Mellon researcher Inês Lima Azevedo will offer a keynote entitled "The Transition to Solid State Lighting." Azevedo will detail the tremendous amount of energy that we waste on inefficient lighting today, and then present a series of financial scenarios that project when a broad move to LEDs lighting might occur.

Following the keynote, the conference will offer four webinar panel discussions, as well as virtual booths, and chat sessions with peers. The panels include:

• Inside the LED: Specifications, Characteristics, and Optical Parameters
  
• LED Applications: Opportunities Drive Advancements in Design and
  Components
  
• Maximizing LED Performance and Efficiency
  
• The LED Driver: It’s More Than Just a Power-Supply IC
  

Note that is you read this after Oct 21, the EE Times LEDs and Lighting Virtual Conference materials will be available on an archived basis.