AmberSemi Announces Plans for AC Direct Lighting Control Engine Silicon Chip
AmberSemi’s Digital Control of Electricity to Transform the Lighting Market by Powering the Next Generation Architecture for Dimmers and Light Switches with Universal Bulb Compatibility & more.
Single AmberSemi silicon chip will power the range of different bulb-types and energy / features requirements for a dramatic sku consolidation and performance enhancement opportunity.
Amber Semiconductor, Inc. (AmberSemiTM), a leading technology developer of patented, innovative technologies for AC Direct digital management of electricity in silicon chip architecture, today announced The AmberSemiTM AC Direct Lighting Control Engine - a configurable lighting control engine in a silicon chip IC. This newest advancement of AmberSemi’s silicon-based breakthroughs comes following several successful technology evaluations of this new lighting control engine with top electrical product and semiconductor partners.
Based on tight requirements derived from these partners after their validations, AmberSemi will provide a silicon chipset-based universal lighting control architecture for a wide range of standard and smart dimmer switches on the market today – powering the potential to change the entire landscape of the lighting industry, globally, in the coming years.
The AmberSemi AC Direct Lighting Control Engine is a unique system that utilizes a mix of AmberSemi’s patented core breakthrough technologies: the Amber Programmable AC Switch ControllerTM, the AC Direct DC EnablerTM (which enables DC extraction from AC mains) and AC Direct Sensing (for continuous awareness of the state of electricity).
The integration of these three breakthroughs in a silicon chipset solution will deliver a more universally compatible and flexible solution for lighting and dimming, compared to the outdated incumbent architectures. The AmberSemiTM AC Direct Lighting Control Engine can accommodate virtually any dimmer design aesthetic, hardware, and software features. It can also dim incandescent, halogen, CFL, LED, ELV and MLV loads. This breadth of advantages makes it a compelling option for lighting product manufacturers – and even semiconductor companies - with a myriad of tangible benefits to professional installers and end consumers.
In addition, the smaller architecture for power management enables more space efficient form factors and more robust feature enhancement opportunities (without change in product size), such as IoT control, occupancy/vacancy sensing, environmental sensing and more.
“This announcement of our plans to deliver a silicon chip-based lighting control engine is a significant milestone for our business, as it exemplifies AmberSemi’s expansion beyond the discovery of innovations (R&D) to the start of our productization – silicon development based on our partners’ requirements and integration into their end products,” “The advantages AmberSemi’s patented breakthroughs in power architecture afford the lighting industry - is nothing short of the modernization of this pervasive space to silicon chip power architecture. From universal bulb compatibility to configurability and smaller form factors for easier install and expanded features gives an upgrade to lighting product architecture that will be felt globally,” said Thar Casey, Founder and CEO of Amber Semiconductor, Inc.
“The smart lighting category is growing steadily and has potential for acceleration with solutions that deliver on the core value propositions of convenience, comfort, energy management, and automation,” “Versatile and flexible technology that brings down costs, eases integration, and makes solutions less expensive to install will help smart lighting reach a wider audience,” said Chris White, Senior Analyst at Parks Associates.
Lighting products that leverage AmberSemi's AC Direct Lighting Control Engine realize several next level advantages over today's conventional architecture. These include the following:
Technical Advantages
- Universal bulb compatibility - Silicon integrated lighting control architecture to dim incandescent, halogen, CFL, LED, ELV and MLV loads
- Integrated architecture - Enables slimmer, more streamlined light switch products, as well as dramatically fuller feature sets, including enhanced sensing and IoT integration.
- Configurability - The embedded software architecture is a native controller that does all the complex, heavy lifting, such as a timing, phase cutting, and DC delivery – all in a silicon chip. It has functionality that can be configured by the lighting manufacturers via microcontroller to create a wide variety of production light switch solutions.
Manufacturing and Operational Efficiencies
- Scalable Lighting Architecture – more than just flexibility of design-in implementation, AmberSemi’s AC Direct Lighting Control Engine enables common component efficiency across a range of product SKUs.
- Increased Manufacturing Efficiency – due to consolidated and reduced component count.
- Streamlined Inventory Management & SKU Reduction – in addition, each SKU can serve the broader bulb compatibility landscape, providing an opportunity to reduce total SKU count and achieve more cost-efficient inventory loads – benefitting lighting manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and installers.
- Reduced Customer Service Costs & Returns – Higher integration into silicon directly benefits reliability. This in conjunction with high levels programmability will directly reduce customer service and returns issues for manufacturers and their retail and distribution partners by reducing consumer/installer mistakes of incorrect dimmer/load compatibility.
Distributor and Retail Advantages
- Better Performing SKUs: The universal bulb compatibility of each SKU enables each AmberSemi powered SKU to perform better for retailers and distributors – tapping wider market compatibility per SKU compared to competitive non-AmberSemi powered products, creating both increased inventory efficiency and greater revenue opportunities per SKU. The AmberSemi AC Direct Lighting Control Engine siliconization efforts and end product planning is being finalized with partners in 2022.
