The Seattle Mariners, a Major League Baseball (MLB) team, held a special event on January 24 and 25. The team opened its Safeco Field home stadium to its fans and showed off a brightly lit diamond and outfield with its newly installed lights. The new light-emitting diodes (LED) were made by KMW, a small but growing medium-sized Korean technology and engineering firm.
The Seattle Mariners is the first Major League Baseball team to install LED lights. KMW has now become the first company to install an LED lighting system in an MLB stadium, outbidding a number of renowned multinational competitors from across the world.
KMW was founded as Korea Microwave in 1991. It initially started as a maker of mobile communications equipment and entered the LED manufacturing business only five years ago. It specializes in making equipment that turns signals transmitted to base stations into signals for mobile handsets.
The company established subsidiaries in the U.S., Japan and Germany, beginning with the American subsidiary in 1995. It now operates factories in Korea and China.
Manufacturing communications equipment and LEDs share a lot of the same technologies, as they both use light as a medium and 80 percent of their manufacturing processes overlap with each other. The company launched its LED lighting line, GigaTera, in 2012 with technologies it acquired from manufacturing communications equipment.
GigaTera lights are 20 to 30 percent brighter than previous products, but are still less blinding. They also use 60 percent less electricity.
For Safeco Field, a total of 578 800-watt LED lights were installed. The company applied both its anti-heat technology and its narrow multi-beam forming (NMBF) technology when installing these lights. NMBF technology helps concentrate light in only the target area and eliminates unnecessary energy use. With the least amount of light, it can still meet the required illumination intensity on the target.
At a sports arena, it is very important for each light to properly illuminate the target, and essential for the lighting not to flicker. The angle of light dispersed needs be controlled precisely, too, in order to prevent one spot from being too bright or too dark. In response, KMW developed LED technologies that allow light to spread across an angle of 30 degrees so that light is dispersed equally across the stadium.
Viewers often see light flickering in slow motion on their TV screen. KMW's LED devices, however, do not flicker down to the very slow motion display rate of 480 frames per second. TV producers tested the lighting system in the stadium and they gave a thumbs-up to the new lights. The reproduction of colors on the screen has also greatly improved with the new lighting system, which helps deliver green images of the grass field more realistically.
KMW has already supplied GigaTera LEDs to the U.S.-based Boeing Corp. and to the Abu Dhabi International Exhibition Centre. It installed the LED illumination system in Borussia-Park in Mönchengladbach, home to that city's Bundesliga team, and at the Panya Indra Golf Club in Thailand. It is also in discussions with National Football League (NFL) teams and a National Basketball Association (NBA) team to install its LED devices in their stadiums.
"We have developed technologies that can send light to only the target area, with other technologies to control high frequencies," explained a company official. "Now, most of our sales come from communications equipment, but in five years' time, we expect LED sales to make up a larger portion of our revenue."
By Limb Jae-un
Korea.net Staff Writer
jun2@korea.kr
The Seattle Mariners is the first Major League Baseball team to install LED lights. KMW has now become the first company to install an LED lighting system in an MLB stadium, outbidding a number of renowned multinational competitors from across the world.
The Seattle Mariners' Safeco Field is brightly lit with LEDs built by KMW.
KMW was founded as Korea Microwave in 1991. It initially started as a maker of mobile communications equipment and entered the LED manufacturing business only five years ago. It specializes in making equipment that turns signals transmitted to base stations into signals for mobile handsets.
The company established subsidiaries in the U.S., Japan and Germany, beginning with the American subsidiary in 1995. It now operates factories in Korea and China.
Manufacturing communications equipment and LEDs share a lot of the same technologies, as they both use light as a medium and 80 percent of their manufacturing processes overlap with each other. The company launched its LED lighting line, GigaTera, in 2012 with technologies it acquired from manufacturing communications equipment.
GigaTera lights are 20 to 30 percent brighter than previous products, but are still less blinding. They also use 60 percent less electricity.
For Safeco Field, a total of 578 800-watt LED lights were installed. The company applied both its anti-heat technology and its narrow multi-beam forming (NMBF) technology when installing these lights. NMBF technology helps concentrate light in only the target area and eliminates unnecessary energy use. With the least amount of light, it can still meet the required illumination intensity on the target.
KMW's LED lights are installed in the Seattle Mariners' home stadium in Seattle.
At a sports arena, it is very important for each light to properly illuminate the target, and essential for the lighting not to flicker. The angle of light dispersed needs be controlled precisely, too, in order to prevent one spot from being too bright or too dark. In response, KMW developed LED technologies that allow light to spread across an angle of 30 degrees so that light is dispersed equally across the stadium.
Viewers often see light flickering in slow motion on their TV screen. KMW's LED devices, however, do not flicker down to the very slow motion display rate of 480 frames per second. TV producers tested the lighting system in the stadium and they gave a thumbs-up to the new lights. The reproduction of colors on the screen has also greatly improved with the new lighting system, which helps deliver green images of the grass field more realistically.
Equipment at KMW tests new LEDs against heat and makes sure they can operate under such extreme conditions.
KMW has already supplied GigaTera LEDs to the U.S.-based Boeing Corp. and to the Abu Dhabi International Exhibition Centre. It installed the LED illumination system in Borussia-Park in Mönchengladbach, home to that city's Bundesliga team, and at the Panya Indra Golf Club in Thailand. It is also in discussions with National Football League (NFL) teams and a National Basketball Association (NBA) team to install its LED devices in their stadiums.
KMW headquarters are located in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi-do (Gyeonggi Province).
"We have developed technologies that can send light to only the target area, with other technologies to control high frequencies," explained a company official. "Now, most of our sales come from communications equipment, but in five years' time, we expect LED sales to make up a larger portion of our revenue."
By Limb Jae-un
Korea.net Staff Writer
jun2@korea.kr
