How Rambus turned its patents into an LED lighting business

Photo by:corn bulb led
When you think of Rambus, you probably don't think of hardware. Maybe you vaguely remember RDRAM, but most of us know Rambus to be a technology company. That tiny detail didn't stop Rambus from getting into the LED lighting game and ultimately transitioning from licensing LED tech to designing and selling bulbs. Currently on offer are a A19, BR30, and PAR30, rounding out the three main offerings in today's lighting market.
Historically Rambus was focused on pioneering technology, but now the company is into lighting, imaging, cryptography, what it calls “over the top” video, and other fields. Even so, Rambus is not a manufacturing company, which makes the choice of LED lighting seem rather odd. In this respect Rambus isn't unlike 3M who recently turned its expertise in light guides into a rather nice LED bulb. Rambus, in late 2009, acquired the patent portfolio from Global Lighting Technologies and was soon licensing its technology to companies like GE and Cooper Lighting.Today the company's core competencies include edge-lighting (what it calls microlenses) and True Edge LED coupling (its version of light guide tech). This allowed Rambus to design a few fixtures, license fixture technology, and then move to bulbs.The Rambus A19 (the most common household bulb size) doesn't look anything like most LED lamps. It uses a ring of LEDs -about one-third of the way up from the socket -with three sets of LEDs working with a light guide, which uses microlenses to create an omnidirectional output.
The design is optimized for conductive and convective heat flow, in order to keep the LEDs cool and extend the lifespan. The 60W-equivalent lamp operates at 11.5W and produces 800 lumens. It's not widely available yet (I haven't tested it), and Rambus hasn't stated the price, though the company says it will be competitive.When I asked a Rambus representative about its competitive advantages -the ones they would make Rambus a viable competitor to titans like GE and Philips -the answer focused on Rambus' institutional knowledge, specifically light guides and the efficiencies they bring to the table. And then, since moving past A19, Rambus plans to have a broad product portfolio with thermal advantages, the backing of strong semiconductor side of its business and then strengths in mobile and security.
The last two piqued my curiosity as they are not obvious components of household bulbs, but will be part of smart lighting solutions, like Philips' Hue. It's possible that Rambus is entering the market with what are essentially commodity LED bulbs, with the hopes of moving into high-tech, high-margin connected lighting in the future. As for right now, the only product in its pipeline that Rambus was willing to talk about was an MR16, a tiny reflector bulb that is popular in Europe and with businesses.Rambus' unpriced, unreviewed, not-yet-available lamps look interesting but it's too early to see them as anything but another entrant into the quick-growing LED lighting business. At 69.5 lumens-per-watt and with no specialized LED tech (Rambus currently gets its LEDs from Nichia), there is little that sets the company apart from the crowd.
The one cool trick that that Rambus has been able to integrate into its PAR and BR products, though, is manually adjustable color temperature. Using an adjustment ring the bulbs can be shifted from 5000K to 3000K, by controlling a remote phosphor that rotates over the LEDs. The A19 does not have this but it might get it in the future.

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