Product category:
Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)
News Release from: Global Lighting Technologies | Subject: MicroLens based backlighting
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 12 March 2008
LED backlight reduces costs and
thickness
Backlight design employs side-firing LEDs that focus their light into a high-performance light guide.
Global Lighting Technologies (GLT) has developed a new, thinner, LED-based backlight for use with desktop or notebook PC keyboards that provides excellent brightness and uniformity, along with the opportunity to use fewer LEDs, reducing the cost of the backlight The backlight design uses the company's patented MicroLens light extraction technology and optical engineering expertise to extract more light from the backlight through to the keyboard, increasing brightness while spreading the light more uniformly
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 8 Nov 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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"This is an ideal backlight design for keyboards used by gamers, and it's low-cost makes it an appealing option for mainstream keyboard designers", says David DeAgazio, GLT's Director of Sales Worldwide.
"It can be easily customised to OEM requirements, allowing them to really distinguish their products in the marketplace".
The backlight design employs side-firing LEDs that focus their light into a high-performance light guide.
Using state-of-the-art optical simulations, GLT's designers can optimise uniformity, and, in some cases, use diversion features that are moulded directly into the light guide to "bend" a portion of the light around a potential through-hole, resulting in a very uniform backlight that gets more collimated light from the light guide through to the keyboard.
LEDs can be located on the edge of the light guide, or in some cases, in the middle of the backlight, depending on the surrounding geometry.
The backlight can be thinner and provide a brighter, crisper and more uniform light, which may require fewer LEDs.
This reduces the high cost, thickness, and power consumption associated with other backlighting methods such as screen-printed light guides or direct LED lighting.
"MicroLens provides superior control over output and uniformity, resulting in a brighter, more uniform backlight in a thinner form factor with fewer LEDs", says DeAgazio.
"Custom designs are easily scalable to different sizes".
Typical backlight thicknesses that can be provided for desktop keyboards are in the 0.6-0.8mm range.
For laptop keyboards, even thinner backlights in the 0.3-0.4mm range can be realised.
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