Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) contain solidstate technology made in Silicon Valley using similar technologies that are used in the latest microprocessors. These solidstate devices have no moving parts, no fragile glass environments, no mercury, no toxic gasses, and no fila ment. There is nothing to break, rupture, shatter, leak, or contaminate.

Unlike typical conventional light sources, LEDs are not subject to sudden failure or burnout. There is no point in time at which the light source ceases to function; instead, LEDs gradually degrade in performance over time. Philips Lumileds LUXEON? product line, for example, is predicted to still deliver an average of 70% of initial inten sity after 50,000 hours of operation. In an application where the light source would be used for 12 hours per day, 365 days per year, this would result in a system lifetime of over 11 years with only a 30% degradation (70% lumen maintenance) from initial luminous output and no catastrophic failures.

Reduced Maintenance Costs
Since LED based light sources last at least 10 times longer than a normal light source, there is no need to replace the light source, reducing or even eliminating ongoing maintenance costs and periodic relamping expenses. Many regulated and critical lighting applications such as buoys, beacon lights, emergency exit lighting, back up lighting, and security lighting require scheduled, periodic, bulb replacement. Unlike other sources that fail as a burnout at the end of their useful life, LUXEON and SuperFlux devices remain lit. This means that there is no need for standby or emergency call in personnel to change a light source in safety critical applications. Light emitting diodes provide even greater advantages in applications where location makes replacement difficult. Radio towers, offshore marine buoys, aircraft warning lights, and bridge and tunnel lights all require expensive mainte nance fees due to their prohibitive location. Eliminating or dramatically reducing the frequency of required maintenance can save thousands of dollars per maintenance call in these applications.
The long life of a solid state solution also allows for trouble free designs. For example, even with the temperature extremes, high shock and vibration environment of trucks
and cars, SnapLED based designs offer life of vehicle performance. This provides enhanced design freedom, as no provisions for accessibility and replacement need to be considered in the system design.