Press Releases

Company Closes Series D Funding Round—Demonstrates

Investment Community’s Confidence in Company’s LED Technology

Strategy

SUNNYVALE, CALIF., April 8, 2008 – Bridgelux,

Inc., a leading supplier of energy-saving LED technology for high-volume,

solid-state lighting markets, today announced it has completed its

latest round of financing, totaling approximately $40 million. This

latest round includes $30 million of private equity investment and

approximately $10 million of bank lines of credit. This funding

will allow Bridgelux to aggressively pursue its strategy for product

development and market expansion, while continuing to drive its

technology research and development activities.

This financing round was led by new investor VentureTech Alliance,

while existing investors DCM, El Dorado Ventures, VantagePoint,

Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital and Harris & Harris Group participated

with follow-on investments.

Leveraging its innovative technology, Bridgelux is poised to take

advantage of future robust growth in the LED market and widespread

interest in environmentally conscious, clean technologies. Leading

market research firm, Strategies Unlimited, is forecasting a compounded

annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20% over the next five years for the

LED market. High-brightness LEDs alone are projected to grow by

12% in just 2008, while new market opportunities also emerge around

display backlighting, camera flash, architectural lighting, task

lighting, commercial and other general lighting applications. As

a result of these burgeoning market segments and related applications,

the overall market is expected to reach a total size of $11.4 billion

by 2012.

“At VentureTech, we’re dedicated to facilitating the

growth and success of world-class, high-technology companies. Our

concentration is on early-stage to mid-stage companies that have

potential to achieve market leadership and the intellectual property

(IP) strength to defend that leadership position,” said Jim

Diller of VentureTech Alliance. “With innovative technology

and a solid business model focused around a growing market, Bridgelux

is representative of precisely the type of investment we seek. On

the management side, Bridgelux’s team features an impressive

roster of seasoned individuals with combined experience in the LED,

IC, compound semiconductor materials, lighting and consumer electronics

sectors, all of whom will be key to driving its future success,”

he added. Bridgelux reports that Diller will be joining the company’s

board of directors.

Commenting on the latest round of funding, Bridgelux CEO Mark Swoboda

noted, “At Bridgelux, our capabilities in gallium nitride

epitaxy growth processes, device structures and chip designs, coupled

with our market knowledge, has enabled us to quickly become a leader

in the high-power LED industry. This latest round of funding is

an additional vote of confidence in our underlying business strategy

and technology, which will enable us to rapidly expand beyond our

LED chip product offerings and move aggressively into LED lighting

products, expanding our market reach.”

LED-based lighting technologies offer myriad advantages over current

fluorescent and incandescent solutions, including reliability and

light quality, along with superior energy efficiency. As a result,

LEDs have quickly captured dominant shares of the mobile appliance

backlighting and camera flash markets, and are rapidly appearing

in small, mid- and large-area displays. While not yet widely available

for consumer lighting needs, the current generation of environment-friendly

solid-state lighting technologies deliver efficiencies that exceed

those of incandescent lighting products, and have recently begun

to rival many fluorescent solutions in industrial and commercial

applications. In addition, LED lighting solutions do not contain

the environmentally damaging substances found in fluorescent bulbs.

About Bridgelux

Focused on bringing innovation to light—Bridgelux is fast-becoming

a leading provider of high power, cost-effective and energy efficient,

yet extremely reliable, light-emitting diode (LED) solutions. The

company’s proprietary epitaxy technology and innovative chip

designs have enabled the company to develop advanced solid-state

lighting products that offer superior quality, are lower in cost

and are environmentally friendly—all without compromising

optical, thermal or electrical performance. Beyond LED chips, the

company is actively seeking to extend its reach to deliver value-added,

application-specific solutions that will open up new markets in

solid-state illumination. Founded in 2002, Bridgelux is headquartered

in Sunnyvale, Calif. For more information on the company, please

visit www.Bridgelux.com

Contacts:



Brian Fisher

Bridgelux



Phone: 408.990.7563



Email: brianfisher@Bridgelux.com

Marie Labrie



MCA



Phone: 650.968.8900, ext. 119

Email: mlabrie@mcapr.com

Increased investment demonstrates strong commitment to China Market

GUANGZHOU June 9, 2014 — Bridgelux, a leading provider of high performance, IP secured solid state lighting solutions, today announced a major expansion of its China operations, significantly increasing its investment and capabilities in China. To better serve its rapidly growing customer base in China, Bridgelux has opened a major R&D center in Xiamen dedicated to supporting the development and manufacture of new solid state lighting products, including extensions to its best in class V Series Chip-on-Board (COB) product line. In addition, Bridgelux will be opening an applications lab in Shanghai’s Hongqiao district to assist its China customers with the design and enhancement of lamps and fixtures that integrate Bridgelux’s highly regarded LED light source products.

The Chinese LED market has expanded rapidly over the last decade, with an estimated 32B RMB in revenue from LED lamps and luminaire and over 8B RMB in revenue at the LED package level in 2013. With its dedication to high quality, low cost LED solutions, Bridgelux has grown its business steadily over its 10-year history in the country. “Our customers in China are playing an increasingly important role in the global lighting market,” said Tim Lester, Bridgelux’s vice president of operations and chief financial officer. “We are committed to supporting them in their rapid growth and worldwide expansion by dramatically increasing our local in-country capabilities.”

Opened earlier this year, Bridgelux’s Xiamen R&D facility is co-located with Kaistar Lighting, a strategic supply chain partner and investor in the Company. In only a few months, Bridgelux has hired several engineers and installed state-of-the art pilot line and test equipment. Bridgelux plans to continue to build critical engineering and product development capabilities at the Xiamen facility through 2014 and beyond. Moving forward, Bridgleux plans to utilize the Xiamen facility in support of the development and manufacture of products geared to meet the requirements of the Chinese market, working closely with Kaistar and taking full advantage of the Company’s manufacturing assets in the region.

Bridgelux’s new Shanghai applications lab will be located in the company’s existing office location in the Hongqiao area of Shanghai. The Shanghai applications lab will be modeled after the Bridgelux Application Test (BAT) lab at the Company’s headquarters in Livermore, CA, providing critical application design support, including optical, mechanical, thermal, and certification testing services. With these capabilities on the ground in China, Bridgelux will be well positioned to support its customers’ need for faster cycle times.

“Bridgelux has established an impressive reputation as a leading provider of high performance, cost competitive LED light sources and has been rewarded with a rapidly expanding China business ,” said Lester. “With our new Xiamen and Shanghai investments, we are further demonstrating our commitment to the success of our China customers. With the help of local Bridgelux resources, our customers will be better positioned to participate in the rapid replacement of legacy technologies with high quality, cost effective LED lamps and fixtures in China and throughout the world.”

Bridgelux will be exhibiting its most recent product releases, including the high performance, low cost V Series LED light sources, and sharing customer success stories, at the Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition from June 9-12. Current and prospective customers are encouraged to stop by the Bridgelux booth for more information on these and other company announcements.

About Bridgelux

Bridgelux is a leading developer and manufacturer of technologies and solutions transforming the $40 billion global lighting industry into a $100 billion market opportunity. Based in Livermore, California, Bridgelux is a pioneer in solid-state lighting (SSL), expanding the market for light emitting diode (LED) technologies by driving down the cost of LED lighting systems. Bridgelux’s patented light source technology replaces traditional technologies (such as incandescent, halogen, fluorescent and high intensity discharge lighting) with integrated, solid-state lighting solutions that enable lamp and luminaire manufacturers to provide high performance and energy efficient white light for the rapidly growing interior and exterior lighting markets, including street lights, commercial lighting and consumer applications. Bridgelux is the only vertically integrated LED manufacturer and developer of solid-state light sources that designs its solutions specifically for the lighting industry. For more information about the company, please visit www.bridgelux.com.

Bridgelux and the Bridgelux stylized logo design are registered trademarks, and V Series is a trademark, of Bridgelux, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Posted by Forbes.com 06/13/2014; http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2014/06/13/bridgelux-enables-the-led-revolution-from-behind-the-scenes/

LED lighting is a fascinating technology. It’s not like incandescent lighting – where you heat up a filament until it glows (with the inevitable result that you generate 90% heat and relatively little light). It’s not like fluorescent either – where an electric current excites a mercury vapor which ultimately leads the phosphor coating on the lamp tube to glow. No, solid state light emitting diodes are a completely different technology. They are semiconductor devices that produce light as a consequence of an electric current. And unlike incandescents and fluorescents, LED lights are directional – you can focus them in one direction. And you can talk to them.

LED lighting has to do with chips, which makes the design, production, and innovation a completely different game. One of the companies that came to the playing field early was Bridgelux, and they have been innovators since the start. Among other claims to fame in the lighting world, Bridgelux was first to create a mass production process for growing LED chips on silicon substrates – a development that is now coming to market and will lead to significant cost reductions. The company was also a pioneer in developing what is know as ‘Chip-on-Board’ architecture, which serves as the basis for improving light quality and color control, lowering the production cost and time to market for a wide variety of lighting applications.

Image: Bridgelux

Bridgelux has now taken that approach a step further and developed what they call their Vero platform in order to further drive down the cost of LED light (measured in lumens per dollar). The Vero platform also creates increased connectivity and integration capabilities required by the coming growth in smart lighting applications.

Image: Bridgelux – Vero

Bridgelux then sells to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), who in turn manufacture products that carry somebody else’s brand. So what Bridgelux does is highly leveraged, and their innovations and productivity improvements matter, as society moves to squeeze more value out of every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed.

I recently spoke with the company’s CEO, Brad Bullington, to try and better understand this highly technical and complicated space, and to elicit a sense of where he sees the industry going. Bullington has been with Bridgelux for four years, and CEO for the last year and a half. He has taken the company through a good deal of change to get where it is today.

Bullington commented that Bridgelux was originally founded to be a capital equipment company in 2002 – they were going to create the tools to develop the wafers and chips necessary for LEDs. They filed some key patents, but eventually came to realize that it might be easier to join the LED fray rather than be a capital equipment company. They soon also realized that if you wanted to beat the incumbent lighting technologies, it was necessary, as Bullington puts it, “to cross over certain price performance levels that will allow new applications to flip to new technologies.”

Part of the challenge of LEDs is the same one that affects other illumination technologies (though here to a lesser degree): the generation of light also creates unwanted heat. Bullington commented that this was the initial technical challenge that had to be addressed.

“What Bridgelux saw in 2007/08 was that if you took a standard LED chip, the requirements at the packaging level in general illumination increased exponentially. You had problems with lighting, heat management and other issues.”

So the company decided to add “value added packaging,” i.e. taking the chips and creating the best layouts or what is know as “array architecture,” to their portfolio. Bridgelux was particularly keen on developing the capability to create high quality light in general illumination, while resolving thermal and power management challenges presented by LEDs.

The other thing Bullington, the former CEO (Bill Watkins), and the rest of the team did was to focus on the gallium nitride (GaN) chip technology. They selected the GaN technology, specifically with 8” silicon substrates, owing to its lower cost points and ease-of-entry into the well established silicon manufacturing universe represented by Intel, Toshiba and others. The infrastructure to build silicon-based technology was already in place. The challenge was that the gallium nitride application to silicon posed specific technical hurdles.

“Getting gallium nitride to work on silicon substrates had been a challenge for 20 years, and people thought that was unachievable. We were initially viewed as heretics for drawing strong analogies between LEDs and mainstream semiconductors. As part of that playbook, we partnered with Toshiba to further commercialize GaN-on-Si for solid state lighting.”

In January 2012, the two companies signed a partnership agreement to commercialize the GaN-on-Silicon LED wafers. By October, the partnership announced the achievement of ‘world class’ performance of GaN-on-silicon wafers.

In 2013, the two companies deepened that strategic relationship, and announced a manufacturing deal that would position Toshiba as the manufacturer for GaN-on-silicon based LED chips, while Bridgelux would focus on packaging. Toshiba has produced some GaN-on-silicon devices, but mass production won’t start until later this year.

Looking back, Bullington comments on the evolution of the LED lighting technology as happening in three distinct phases.

Phase One was about getting the core technology right and getting the price points down where they became attractive to customers.

“Until recently, chips weren’t efficient enough and even when they were, they cost too much. All that changed three to four years ago. There is now a battle for that core chip technology, where the total cost of ownership paybacks are now in the sub three-year to sub two-year range.”

Phase Two (the industry is at the latter end of this phase) addressed the ‘packaging,’ and creating the architecture and chip alignment to optimize performance.

“Packaging technology became important. The packages didn’t initially contemplate all the challenges around thermal and optical management…now packaging became a bigger deal. There were 100 different ways to package, and there were lots of competitors.”

Phase Three is what Bullington refers to as ‘the activation phase of light.’

“The core technology is powerful. The ability to be productive has gotten to the point where swapping out for LEDs is a no brainer. The opportunity now is to start catalyzing and activating light. That could mean different types of dimming, daylight harvesting, – a huge catalyst of savings. If you could swap out all lights you could see a reduction of 35% of lighting consumed. With basic connectivity and dimming you could increase efficiency again by another 30-50%.”

After that, it gets really fun and creative. Because with LEDs, you can do things with color and connectivity that you simply cannot do with a light source that is not solid state.

“Then you get more nuanced controls, and with a feedback loop, you can think about more controlled applications in retail. You could talk about a 10% reduction in overall energy cost in a supermarket. Perhaps you could boost profit margins. But if you add sensing technology you could start to control lights. If somebody gets closer to display, for example, you could bump up the lumens and change the colors.”

Given the rapid state of innovation and evolution in the LED space, where does Bullington see this going? First, he sees continued improvement in cost-effectiveness for the consumer, that in some ways have hurt the bottom lines of the LED players.

The paradox is that the massive compression of cost that has enabled that. We’ve seen a huge reduction in component costs – chip plus package; those prices even at the high end have fallen 35-50% a year for the last three years. That’s bad for margins, and good for market penetration. You will see market consolidation.

Bullington also expects LED market penetration to continue rapidly, while the applications of lighting technology for humans will evolve.

“We view 25-30 billion sockets in the world today, and every one should be connected over the next decade. It’s an incredible network. You could have a physical network tracking capability, where products reside. There are applications around spectral tuning and behavioral influencing. For example, they use red LEDs on nuclear submarines, because various spectra help people sleep or stay alert, or forestall depressions.

What’s exciting is the game moving forward…I think the next phase is, you can start to talk the OEMs into the idea of starting to integrate wireless controls or to spectrally tune, or have a health and wireless sensor so you can predict failure. I’ve seen a change in their behavior – that tradeoff is starting to happen.”

The CEO of Bridgelux is keenly aware that the industry and his company sit in a critical position, at a pivotal time in the evolution of lighting technology. He is intent on having Bridgelux play a key catalyst role in this change.

“Disruptive technologies only come around so often – the way you define the way things pass this test or don’t is seeing if the underlying value proposition of the new technology is radically better than what you are replacing. If you just look at energy savings, maintenance savings – yes, solid state is disruptive. The second criteria are whether there is neat science that gets productized. Is there a way this gets productized radically differently? This will increase as you integrate more features and functions on board…We look at this as a technology industry, not as a lighting industry.”

Dear Valued Partner and/or Customer,

I’m very pleased to provide you with an update of Bridgelux’s industry-leading recent achievements.

Bridgelux has demonstrated clear leadership and market acceptance of its high performing and cost effective solid state lighting solutions. This quarter we introduced our V10 and V15 products into the V Series family, offering high quality light and tight beam control suited for both the commercial and residential lighting market segments. We are also now shipping samples of our much anticipated OLM solution, a unique modular approach for ready integration of an LED subsystem into outdoor fixtures, and expect general availability in Q4 ‘14.

Reflective of our success, Bridgelux is proud to announce record first half revenues and is on-track to exceed $100m in revenue for 2014. In the first half of 2014, Bridgelux also experienced 104% unit growth year over year for sales of package products and 36% for sales of die products.

Bridgelux is building and accelerating on this success by substantially increasing investments in next generation products and technologies. Additionally, the Company continues to increase investments in R&D and applications engineering, particularly in support of our strong customer base in Asia. Currently we carry no outstanding debt and have a substantial unutilized credit facility. Bridgelux ended the second quarter with $45 million in cash.

As a team of more than 150 employees worldwide, Bridgelux is committed to providing industry leading products and services that allow you to quickly deploy the most competitive LED luminaires. Our leadership in innovation, protected by an extensive IP portfolio, is stronger than ever and we look forward to continuing to provide the technology and expertise you’ve come to rely upon to help grow your business.

If you have any questions, please do reach out to your Bridgelux Sales Representative or pr@bridgelux.com.

Brad Bullington
CEO, Bridgelux

Bridgelux Launches New “Human Centric” Chip-on-Board LED Arrays

New Décor Series Class A products are the first commercially available LED arrays on the market to meet the full Class A Color specification

LIVERMORE, Calif., Oct. 27, 2014 — Bridgelux, a leading developer and manufacturer of LED lighting technologies, will debut its new Vero^® Décor Series™ Class A Chip-on-Board (CoB) LED array products at the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair 2014. The launch of the Décor Series Class A arrays marks Bridgelux’s new “human-centric” approach to product development and color targeting by using Gamut Area Index (GAI) to measure how light and color appeals to and is perceived by the human brain.

Available through global channels in mid-November, the new Décor Series Class A arrays are the first products to use the full Class A Color specification from the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Alliance for Solid-State Illumination Systems and Technologies (ASSIST).

In research and development since 2002, Class A Color was created at the LRC with funding by ASSIST. Class A Color redefines high color quality of light. The long-term study examined how people perceive white light sources and what they prefer in terms of color rendering and the white hue or tint of a light source. Bridgelux specifiers and engineers developed prototype lamps based on the Class A Color spectral requirements for the LRC to use in field evaluations.

“Class A Color has been broadly tested and ‘tuned’ to ensure the most pleasing blend of naturalness and vividness based on subjective human perceptions,” said Jean Paul Freyssinier, senior research scientist at the Lighting Research Center. “A majority (75 percent) of those tested from around the world agree that Class A Color light sources provide the best color rendering and optimum saturation levels. It’s consistent lighting that won’t disappoint.”

Distinguished by its human appeal, brightness and natural rendering, Class A colors are inherently more vivid and whites are their whitest due to a broader spectrum of colors and saturation. By achieving a balance of color properties that match how people perceive color, the Bridgelux Décor Series Class A LED arrays not only deliver superior color quality, but provide a better return on investment when compared to traditional halogen and ceramic metal halide bulbs.

Décor Series Class A LEDs consume 30 percent less energy, generate 70 percent less heat, and last 20 times longer than halogen or metal halide light sources.

Lighting has become a critical design feature for high-end retail and commercial spaces, with solid-state LED technologies playing a vital role in helping businesses differentiate and stand out to their customers. Whether creating ambience in a luxury hotel lobby, showcasing merchandise in a retail store or illuminating museum works of art, Décor Series Class A LED arrays deliver a stunning visual experience by appealing to people’s natural perception of light, helping to drive improved aesthetics, increased visits, customer purchases and revenue per square foot.

“The launch of our Décor Series Class A LED arrays is a game changer for Bridgelux, our customers and the industry,” said Brad Bullington, CEO of Bridgelux. “Light has the power to influence how people behave, what they purchase, their productivity and their mood. Our new human-centric approach harnesses that potential to help our customers create custom light experiences that deliver great aesthetics and a tangible financial impact.”

Traditionally, the lighting industry uses Color Rendering Index (CRI) as a primary measure of light quality; however, CRI only measures color distortion. Gamut Area Index (GAI) measures color saturation and strength to more accurately reflect the holistic effect of light and how a person will perceive color. Bridgelux Décor Series Class A is engineered at the optimal GAI and CRI combination based on human perception of light.

Bridgelux Vero Décor Series Class A arrays will be available in 4000 K and 3000 K CCT. They’re designed for applications including high-end retail, hospitality, museums and commercial spaces.

For more information about Class A Color research and development, please visit:
http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/solidstate/colorResearch.asp

For more information about Bridgelux Décor Series Class A Chip-on-Board (CoB) LED array products, please visit www.bridgelux.com.

About Bridgelux

Bridgelux is a leading developer and manufacturer of technologies and solutions transforming the $40 billion global lighting industry into a $100 billion market opportunity. Based in Livermore, California, Bridgelux is a pioneer in solid-state lighting (SSL), expanding the market for light emitting diode (LED) technologies by driving down the cost of LED lighting systems. Bridgelux’s patented light source technology replaces traditional technologies with integrated, solid-state lighting solutions that enable lamp and luminaire manufacturers to provide high performance and energy-efficient white light for the rapidly growing interior and exterior lighting markets. For more information about the company, please visit www.bridgelux.com.

Bridgelux, the Bridgelux stylized logo design, and Vero are registered trademarks, and V Series is a trademark, of Bridgelux, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Record 160 lm/W Performance Demonstrated on Existing Platforms

Livermore, Ca. January 15, 2015 — Bridgelux, a leading developer and manufacturer of LED lighting technologies, is now shipping its Vero^® and V Series™ LED array products with high performing warm white efficacy of 130 lumens per watt (lm/W) and greater. This enhanced performance delivers up to 10% additional energy savings over previous generations. Further, the company has achieved a record warm white efficacy of greater than 160 lm/W on its existing chip on board platforms. With these efficacy gains, Bridgelux continues its tradition of breakthrough LED chip and packaging technology innovation and helps further accelerate the adoption of solid-state lighting.

LED arrays with an efficacy of 130lm/W not only provide a significant return on investment to end customers, but also help OEMs and manufacturers better compete with product offerings that design in state of the art LED based products. The featured 130 lm/W efficacy is now a standard across all Bridgelux Vero and V Series product form factors (3000K, 80 CRI nominal current). Bridgelux Vero arrays provide designers with a best-in-class light source design, a wide range of premium color options, easy integration and installation, reduced manufacturing costs and the industry’s best product warranty for LED light source products. Bridgelux V Series arrays leverage the technology and performance of the Vero products in smaller, cost effective packages.

“Our team is committed to programs that improve LED package efficiencies, while maintaining the dazzling high-level of Bridgelux color and uniformity that our customers have come to rely upon,” said Aaron Merrill, Director of Product Marketing at Bridgelux. “With advancements in phosphor and die technology we’re already achieving efficacies on our current platform that position Bridgelux to push our efficacy leadership well into the future.”

With a strong focus on R&D advancing emerging technologies, Bridgelux is a leading innovator in the ever-expanding market for LED lighting solutions. The company is dedicated to the efficient delivery of differentiated, high performance and cost-effective light source solutions that delight the public with aesthetically pleasing, energy saving LED lighting.

About Bridgelux

Bridgelux is a leading developer and manufacturer of lighting technologies and solutions that invites companies, industries and people to experience the power, possibility and financial potential of LED lighting. Headquartered in Livermore, California, Bridgelux employs more than 160 employees with global sales and services within international markets. Born of world-class engineering and informed by human intuition, the company’s LED arrays and chips replace traditional lighting technologies with integrated, solid-state lighting solutions that make it possible for its customers to provide high performance, human-influenced light for the commercial, industrial and outdoor markets. For more information about the company, please visit www.bridgelux.com.

Bridgelux, the Bridgelux stylized logo design and Vero are registered trademarks, and V Series is a trademark, of Bridgelux. Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.