MICROLENS™ LIGHT GUIDES ARE THINNEST LED-BASED BACKLIGHTS

Global Lighting Technologies (GLT) has introduced new LED-based high-brightness backlights that offer exceptional thinness – down to 0.4 mm or less – to provide the slimmest molded light guide BLUs available for backlighting LCDs in a wide array of consumer electronics products, as well as the keypads/keyboards used in mobile phones and laptop and desktop PCs. GLT’s patented MicroLens™ light extraction technology and improved manufacturing processes are making light guide packages that are thinner than ever available to OEMs who need to meet the increasing consumer demand for smaller, slimmer size with no sacrifice in performance. Backlight assemblies less than 1 mm high utilizing light guides as thin as 0.4 mm or less are now a reality. The result is BLUs that offer the thinness of electroluminescent (EL) backlighting, but with all the advantages of today’s advanced LEDs combined with the superior light extraction provided by MicroLens™ molded light guides. “Consumers continually want a smaller size with a thinner, sleeker design,” said David DeAgazio, GLT’s Director of Sales Worldwide. “But, of course, there can be no sacrifice in performance. “To help GLT’s OEM customers meet these demands,” he continued, “we continually improve our MicroLens™ light guide technology to maximize the advantages provided by the latest advances in LED technology.” As LEDs have gotten brighter and thinner, so have GLT’s molded light guide BLUs, thanks to continual refinements of the company’s patented MicroLens™ light extraction technology, along with superior optical design, prototyping, and manufacturing processes at three Far East facilities. MicroLens™ light extraction technology provides the most efficient utilization of today’s high brightness LEDs. The result is light guides that are the world’s most efficient edge-lit backlights, with thinner packages that can backlight LCDs from 0.25” up to 50” diagonal and higher. Light is extracted precisely where needed, such as around thru-holes for keypads. MicroLens™ can reduce the number of LEDs required, providing bright, uniform light in a thinner form factor with no hot spots or dark areas.