Towards a System Level Reliability Approach for Solid State Lighting

Solid State Lighting applications are slowly but gradually pervading into our daily life. A Solid State Lighting system is composed of a LED engine with a micro-electronic driver(s) in a housing that also supplies the optic design. Knowledge of system level reliability is crucial for the business success of future Solid State Lighting (SSL) systems, and also a very scientific challenge. In practice, a malfunction of the system might be induced by the failure and/or degradation of the subsystems/interfaces. Extra costs, in terms of exceed efforts/designs/parts, has been applied to the system in order to secure the guaranteed reliability performance of SSL system. The most SSL system designs allow few failures of the subsystem/interface during the application period. Hence, a significant cost reduction can be achieved when the system level reliability is well understood by proper experimental and simulation techniques. This paper will cover the reliability of total Solid State Lighting systems including the reliability theories and practices for all(sub-) components, such as LED engines, drivers and fixtures.