Lighting Equipment Manufacturing

Lighting equipment manufacturing refers to the industry production of lighting elements (incandescent bulbs, fluorescent lamps [CFL], halogen incandescent bulbs, high intensity discharge [HID] bulbs, light emitting diodes [LED]) and their fixtures and accessory components and products used to provide illumination and artificial lighting. With various lighting elements commanding significant global markets, there are distinct manufacturing processes and supply chains for each lighting element technology.

The current capital equipment and technology markets for lighting manufacturing are in global flux as the traditional (incandescent) light bulb is being displaced through market dynamics or regulation by more-efficient fluorescent consumer lighting like CFLs and LEDs.

Incandescent light bulbs are mass produced on a conveyor belt where ribbons of glass are fed through a special machine that includes a firing furnace and air nozzles that blows the molten glass into individual molds. Tungsten or other metal wire filaments are separately produced through metallurgy and fed into the bulb on a glass stem. The interior of the bulb is evacuated with a pump or the air is displaced within an inert gas to preserve the filament from chemical reactions and to prolong its operational lifecycle. Fluorescent bulbs and lamps use a similar filament called a cathode that emits electrons in an evacuated bulb. Evaporation and other applications methods are used to coat the inside of the bulb with a fluorescent or phosphorescent coating.

LEDs or solid state lighting devices are semiconductors produced through metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) or other epitaxy methods with accompanying packaging steps.