KYOCERA’s Violet LEDs Utilized in Arflex Japan’s First Lighting Equipment

Jointly developed by Arflex Japan and Kyocera

31 August 2016

Kyoto - Kyocera Corporation (President: Goro Yamaguchi; herein “Kyocera”) and Arflex Japan Ltd. (President: Taku Hoshina; herein “Arflex Japan”) announced that the companies jointly developed a cutting-edge violet light-emitting diode (LED) floor lamp called “LIGHT CONE” which will launch on September 3, 2016. The development project was undertaken with the supervision of Tadashi Hoshina, founder of Arflex Japan and current leader of C.O.D. (Coral Ocean Design Inc.), and Shozo Toyohisa, a world-renowned lighting architect. LIGHT CONE is the first commercialized lighting equipment that the furniture specialist Arflex Japan brings to the market (This product is only available to the Japanese market).

Since its foundation, Arflex Japan has been creating beautiful luminous surroundings inspired by rich Italian style. It was not simply a pursuit of brightness, rather a passion to create soothing spaces through indirect lighting and to provide beautiful lights best suited to each time and place. The lighting which Arflex Japan has been pursuing is realized through collaboration with world-renowned Shozo Toyohisa and Kyocera’s cutting-edge technologies for practical application of violet LEDs.

Light Cone

Main Features of LIGHT CONE

1. Kyocera’s violet LED utilizing cutting-edge technologies

Kyocera’s violet LED element achieves full-spectrum true white color by combining red, green and blue (RGB) phosphors. This violet LED system enables LIGHT CONE to produce a color spectrum which is close to natural sunlight.

2. High-quality, long-life LEDs developed through Kyocera’s fine ceramic technology

The high-quality and long-life violet LED based on Kyocera’s fine ceramic technology provides a color spectrum extremely close to sunlight. The violet LED system is applied to the light source of LIGHT CONE and enables the emission of stable light. LIGHT CONE merges refined luminaire design with convective heat release configurations, making it possible to provide a high light output

equivalent to a 150-watt halogen lamp. The combination of C.O.D.’s design and Kyocera’s technology prevents excessive temperature rise of the LED. Moreover, combined with Kyocera’s original ceramic package for LEDs, the system has attained a design life of 100,000 hours for the light source*. This is 2.5 times longer than that of conventional blue LEDs and translates to 46 years of life assuming 6 hours of use per day.

* Not to be interpreted as product life warranty of the luminaire. Parts and components are repairable or replaceable.

Kyocera’s LED in LIGHT CONE
Hara Museum ARC Kankai Pavilion (left) and Pola Museum of Art (right)

3. Beautiful light color expression supervised by Shozo Toyohisa

Shozo Toyohisa is a world-renowned lighting architect, best known for his outstanding projects for fine art and other museums around the world. He has designed exhibit lighting for the Pola Museum of Art, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Hara Museum ARC Kankai Pavilion and others. His professional supervision of the quality of light was instrumental in accomplishing the beautiful quality of LIGHT CONE, along with Kyocera’s technological contribution in RGB phosphor formulation. Coupled with its natural light balance, the impressively pure and natural light of LIGHT CONE allows all things from human skin and clothing to wooden furniture and fabrics to be shown in their natural colors.

4. Bounce lighting

Arflex Japan applies bounce lighting at all its flagship lifestyle furniture shops since it provides soft light for comfortable spaces and avoids directing strong light in customers’ eyes. Arflex Japan developed lighting based on this technology in the hope of promoting wider use of bounce lighting and further enriching people’s lives.

5. Functional and aesthetically pleasing design achieved by C.O.D.

With the design team’s concept of “creating objects that will continue to be used and loved however the times may change,” LIGHT CONE has refined design and functional beauty including a lamp shade which enfolds a beautiful light source brightening the room and its shape with convective heat release configurations.

6. Color spectrum extremely close to natural sunlight

LIGHT CONE incorporates an innovative light source comprising violet LEDs and RGB phosphors to produce light that is extremely close to sunlight. Kyocera’s RGB phosphor formulation technology enables LIGHT CONE to produce high-rendition light that is very close to sunlight which reproduces the natural colors of illuminated objects. 

Kyocera’s LEDs producing light close to natural sunlight
Sunlight
The spectrum of sunlight is continuous and has no missing wavelengths.
Violet LED system
The wavelengths are continuous like those of sunlight, hence realizing natural light balance*.

The violet LED system consumes higher electric power than the blue LED system because RGB phosphors are used to obtain white light. It was previously not widely used for household lighting equipment but Kyocera has successfully developed the technology that has enabled large-scale production.

* The above wavelengths are illustrative and different from those of LIGHT CONE.

Blue LED system
Natural light cannot be produced because of the absence of wavelengths.

It does not consume much electric power because “quasi-white” light is produced only through yellow phosphor. Its use spread fast because of its high light output, relative ease of production and low cost.

Supervisor: Shozo Toyohisa

Born in 1960, Toyohisa has mainly been engaged in the planning and design of lighting for fine art and other museums. He won world acclaim through his optical fiber-based work at the MoMA “Contemporary Japanese Textiles” exhibition in New York. He has designed exhibit lighting for the   Saint Louis Art Museum, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Mori Art Museum, Pola Museum of Art, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Hara Museum ARC Kankai Pavilion, Nezu Museum, Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum and others. He has also helped the lighting of personal collections in New York and other parts of the world. His consistent policy is to create original lighting for the individual art pieces or architectural space every time he embarks on a new project. 

Design: C.O.D.

C.O.D.; Coral Ocean Design was founded in 1998 by Tadashi Hoshina in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands. The team has designed many products for Arflex Japan over the years, with the concept of “creating objects that will continue to be used and loved however the times may change.” Since 2015, their base has been moved to Tokyo. With product designer Takuya Fujito, C.O.D. is undertaking new challenges in formative design for a wide range of new lifestyle products.

About Arflex Japan

Arflex takes its name from the Italian word for furniture, arredamenti, and “flexibility,” signifying our desire to provide you with quality furniture that flexibly fits in with any era, any setting. Launched in Italy in 1951 and transplanted to Japan in 1969, Arflex Japan is an Italian-born, Japanese-raised brand that combines Italian sensibility with Japanese values and craftsmanship to offer you exciting solutions for enriching your lifestyle with built-to-last furniture.

About KYOCERA

Kyocera Corporation (NYSE:KYO)(TOKYO:6971) (http://global.kyocera.com/), the parent and global headquarters of the Kyocera Group, was founded in 1959 as a producer of fine ceramics (also known as “advanced ceramics”). By combining these engineered materials with metals and integrating them with other technologies, Kyocera has become a leading supplier of electronic components, printers, copiers, solar power generating systems, mobile phones, semiconductor packages, cutting tools and industrial ceramics. During the year ended March 31, 2016, the company’s net sales totaled 1.48 trillion yen (approx. USD13.1 billion). Kyocera appears on the 2014 and 2015 listings of the “Top 100 Global Innovators” by Thomson Reuters, and is ranked #531 on Forbes magazine’s 2016 “Global 2000” listing of the world’s largest publicly traded companies.

CONTACT:
KYOCERA Corporation (Japan)
Corporate Communications
Natsuki Doi, +81-(0)75-604-3416
webmaster.pressgl@kyocera.jp
Fax: +81-(0)75-604-3516

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