Split decision-IMO-Right now technically speaking yes, but fundamentally I think not. I have to go along the lines of Pompsander. (lawsuit aside)The economy will improve and drive earnings up. This will drive the technicals up. This isn't to say you won't have time before the next earnings release, to time buy, at a lower price. I myself haven't overloaded the boat yet because of uncertainty surrounding the lawsuit, but it could also trigger a positive response if their is a favorable outcome.
On another Note:
If this is any indication of LEDS reliability. I have first hand experience changing bulbs on a Komori Press with a mixture of both. The press is about 15 years old. I'd guess the ratio of traditional bulb burn outs, to leds (Nichia brand), at about 8 to 1. The New German equipment I work on. The newest technology available, with touch screen controls and a full sheet scanning color control display)just has LEDS for all light displays. If the reliability issue wasn't a proven factor. I don't think the manufacturer would have incorporated it in todays new equipment.
I myself believe the market is so big, there is room for many players developing their own niches. I believe technology plays such as Led players can kind of be compared to GPS (Global Positioning). In that the biggest markets are still in the stages of development, but the future looks bright. Trimble and Garmin are finally seeing their markets develop. IMO- Technology, to developing markets for LED products are most likely behind that of GPS. There are more problems to be solved. Also cost effective issues to tradition lighting problems. Some will fail others will excel. Technology is one thing, making money off of it, is another. I think this company has position itself to do that. I don't just want to play one is this field.
I also own Agilent stock. who I also believe has positioned itself well.
Agilent Technologies (Lumileds) is a joint venture between Agilent and Philips Lighting.
I have pasted below some older material for viewing form some of my old document I've saved.
GITY-Good Investing to You
RR
Light-emitting diodes
(LEDs) could save nearly 2.5 billion kilowatt hours if they replaced incandescent lamps in traffic signals. The approximately 260,000 traffic signals in the U.S. offer a large potential market for LED sources.
LEDs are essentially monochromatic and an efficient source of light for traffic signals. Incandescent lamps produce white light, and all colors except for the red, green, or yellow required must be filtered out through a lens. They also produce considerable light outside of the visible spectrum that is emitted as heat. LEDs minimize both wasted light and heat.
Switching to LED red signals alone could save nearly 1.9 billion kilowatt hours. Green LEDs could save another 350 million kilowatt hours. Retrofitting yellow incandescent lamps with LEDs can save another 65 million kilowatt hours. At the end of 1997, more than 150,000 traffic signals had been retrofitted, virtually all of them red.
Manufacturers of LEDs and LEPs are both making significant effort towards creating continuous spectrum light or white light suitable for general illumination (see figure 2). However, Dr. S.H.A. Begemann, president of Advanced Lighting Concepts and senior vice president of Philips Lighting, says he does not foresee general lighting applications for LEPs in the coming decade.
LEP manufacturers have yet to solve the problems of their relatively low efficacy and short operating life. While progress has been made in producing white light with LEPs, problems still exist. The different emissive materials required for white-light age at different rates and create an undesirable spectral shift over time.
Many LEPs exhibit relatively high photoluminescence efficacy with minimal self-absorption. The absence of self-absorption by the polymer film is a critical advantage in creating white light. Recently, researchers have demonstrated that highly efficient white-light emission can be obtained by combining the LED and LEP technologies.
The successful development and commercialization of solid-state white light sources that are more efficacious than tungsten lamps would clearly have a major impact. These devices would have longer service life, increased heat resistance and mechanical shock resistance, higher energy efficiency, and lower costs than existing alternatives. They could have the potential to change lighting design, but whether they will become a powerful new tool remains to be seen.
Will light-emitting polymer (LEP) technology revolutionize the lighting and display industries? Could LEPs supplant light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in a number of seemingly secure markets and compete as an energy-saving general illumination alternative?
Some manufacturers are confident LEPs, also known as organic LEDs (OLEDs), may someday do all that and more.
Philips Electronics NV predicts that eventually "light-emitting polymers will evolve to become as flexible as fabric and thin as paper. Formed or flat, applications in the domestic, mobile, office, and public environments will place 'spread' or 'task' lighting on ceilings, walls, floors, or free hanging." Photonics Spectra (April 1997) speculates that LEPs could be used for glowing walls and flexible TV screens that roll up.
In 1990, Professor Richard Friend and Dr. Andrew Holmes at the University of Cambridge discovered that poly (p-phenylene vinylene), commonly referred to by the acronym PPV, would emit light.
In 1992, the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge spun off Cambridge Display Technology to commercialize LEP technology. Since then, Seiko Epson, Philips Electronics, Hoechst Innovative Display Technologies Inc., UNIAX, DuPont, and Intel are some of the companies working with Cambridge Display Technology to develop commercially viable LEP products.
What are LEPs?
LEPs, which are organic semiconducting materials, and LEDs, which are inorganic semiconductors, generate light in similar ways. However, light from LEPs can be patterned like liquid crystal displays. LEPs are also thin and can be flexible.
The PPV polymer or derivatives form the active layer of most promising LEP devices. Varying the chemical composition of the PPV polymer changes its physical and electro-optical properties.
As illustrated in Figure 1, LEP displays are constructed by applying a thin PPV polymer derivative film to a glass or plastic substrate coated with a transparent indium tin oxide electrode. Some PPV polymer derivatives can be applied directly from solution, similar to manufacturing liquid crystal displays; LEDs require more sophisticated thin film deposition methods, so LEPs can be less expensive to manufacture. The polymer is sandwiched between an indium-tin oxide electrode and a metallic electrode &emdash; such as calcium, aluminum, or magnesium; it generates light when a voltage is applied.
Some LEP devices can be as bright as a cathode ray tube (around 100 candelas per square meter), with luminous efficacies between 2 to 3 lumens per watt. Researchers have been able to achieve brightness as high as 3 million candelas per square meter without heat degradation by operating LEP devices in pulsed mode, according to Cambridge Display Technology. Latest LEP device results from the company show luminous efficacies of 3 lumens per watt and 21 lumens per watt for the blue and green LEPs respectively. Cambridge Display Technology further reports that in collaboration with Seiko Epson, they have been refining the material and device design to produce devices with common architectures and emission suitable for continuous spectrum color displays.
Applications
LEP technology lends itself to the creation of ultra-thin lighting displays that will operate at a lower voltage; Philips Components estimates that LEP lighting displays will take 10 times less power than existing light emission displays. In the near term, most LEP manufacturers will produce small displays such as digital readouts on electronic devices. With further technological advances, however, the LEP industry would like to apply the technology to large area applications such as high-resolution flat panel displays.
Today, light-emitting devices with modest efficacy (3 to 4 lumens per watt) can achieve, at low voltages, brightnesses greater than those available from incandescent or fluorescent lamps. However, at these high brightness levels, the operating life is severely limited, in part due to heat generated by the high power level and the relatively low efficiency. Before lighting products will be commercially viable, therefore, efficacy must be improved to reduce heat generation when operating at high brightness. Efficacies of 25 percent or greater are theoretically achievable, and could make large-scale lighting practical.
UNIAX claims to have developed LEPs with demonstrated efficacy exceeding 3 lumens per watt and brightnesses of approximately 500 candelas per square meter at 3 volts. The company believes that achieving 25 percent efficacy would enable manufacturers to develop polymer LEP products like wallpaper lighting that would entirely change the lighting industry. |
