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Improved Transparency And Heat Resistance Make New Products Ideally
Suited For Use with High-Brightness LEDs
Midland, Mich. – Dow Corning Corp. today introduced three new two-part high
refractive index (HRI) silicone encapsulants to serve the fast-growing
light-emitting diode (LED) market. Dow Corning’s new encapsulants offer
increased light output, a range of hardnesses to suit a variety of
applications, and superior resistance to heat, chemical and ultraviolet (UV)
light exposure compared to other LED encapsulants on the market today.
Market research firm Strategies Unlimited expects worldwide LED sales to
grow more than 60% during the next three years, reaching $8 billion during
2010, as LEDs make steady inroads into the general lighting market as well as
applications in automobiles, cellular phones and LCD laptop and television
back-lighting systems. Silicone encapsulants are helping to enable the LED
market’s growth by improving device performance and durability.
Most LEDs are coated with protective encapsulants to prevent electrical and
environmental damage while increasing light output and minimizing heat
build-up. Encapsulants also can be molded into lenses to create specific light
distribution patterns. Until recently, encapsulants were commonly made of epoxy
and other organic materials because of their hardness, transparency and low
cost.
Silicone encapsulants increasingly are gaining favor, however, as the
electronics industry develops more powerful, high-brightness LEDs. Silicone
encapsulants can withstand much higher LED operating temperatures than epoxy,
and are compatible with lead-free solder reflow manufacturing processes.
Silicone encapsulants also offer high light transmittance, excellent adhesion
to a variety of materials, low moisture absorption, and availability in a wide
range of hardnesses and viscosities.
Dow Corning’s new two-part HRI encapsulants are available in three
formulations, each optimized for different uses and manufacturing processes.
DOW CORNING® OE-6665 A and B offers maximum hardness along with low viscosity.
DOW CORNING® OE-6630 A and B offers a softer formulation with similarly low
viscosity. DOW CORNING® OE-6635 A and B also offers a softer composition, but
with twice the viscosity. All three products are highly transparent, with a
refractive index of 1.53, compared with 1.4 for other silicone encapsulants on
the market.
“These new encapsulants offer significantly more light output than previous
formulations, along with silicone’s inherent heat resistance and durability,”
said Billy Han, Dow Corning’s global market manager for LED and light
management products. “LED encapsulants are a high-growth opportunity for Dow
Corning, and we are pleased to be assisting the market’s growth by developing
new materials with superior thermal properties and stability.”
About Dow Corning
Dow Corning Corporation (http://www.dowcorning.com) is a globally
integrated provider of materials, application technology and services, and is
focused on providing innovative technologies that help its customers to invent
the future. For more information on Dow Corning Electronics, visit http://www.dowcorning.com/electronics.
Dow Corning Corporation is equally owned by The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:
DOW) and Corning Incorporated (NYSE: GLW). More than half of Dow Corning
Corporation’s sales are outside the United States.
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