For those that have hoped to someday enjoy natural color under fluorescent lamps, Philips Lighting's TLD80 three-wavelength fluorescent tube offers a welcome solution. After debuting the TLD80 for business users nearly three years ago, Philips Taiwan Ltd. Recently stepped up promotion of the feature- rich bulb for home users.

Lison Lee, product marketing manager of the lighting division of Philips Taiwan, says that the time is right to market the TLD80 for household use since its price has dropped to a third of its original level, with bulbs now retailing for NT$90 to NT$100 (US$2.6 to US$2.9 at US$1:NT$35) in Taiwan.

The TLD80, Lee emphasizes, is noted for its good color rendition, durability, limited lumen loss after long use, recyclability and high power efficiency.

Right Balance

Philips Lighting's specialists fixed the color- rendering index (Ra) of the lamp at 80 to ensure brightness efficiency without losing color fidelity, says Lee. The lamp generates 90 lumens per watt, he says, noting that any gas- based lamp generally has to sacrifice color rendition to achieve lumen efficiency, or vice versa.

Traditional fluorescent lamps deliver light at red, green and blue wavelengths, but the blue wavelength is the longest, making the light look cold. Tri-wavelength fluorescent lamps, by comparison, are designed to give equal emphasis to the three wavelengths in order to produce more natural lighting.

The TLD80 comes in two specifications: 18 watts at two feet long, and 36 watts at four feet long. The bulbs can burn 15,000 to 20,000 hours when used in conjunction with an electronic ballast.

In order to achieve this long bulb life, engineers at Philips placed electrodes on both sides of the lamp with a specially designed ring to prevent electrons from hitting the lamp wall and eating away the coated fluorescent powder. Also, they installed three electrode wires on each side of the bulb to accommodate a greater amount of the exhaustible electrode powder.

Even toward the end of their usable life, the bulbs maintain 90% of the luminosity of a brand-new bulb. "That's a remarkable accomplishment that no other domestic lighting manufacturer has been able to achieve so far," Lee says.

Lee's company has proved that the lamp consumes 30% less electricity than traditional fluorescent lamps.

Made for Recycling

When Philips Lighting debuted tri-wavelength lamps in the early 1990s in Europe, the lamp was one of the first that could be recycled simply by replacing worn parts. "Usually, recyclable lamps have to be crushed, melted and refined. Our reproduction process eliminates this costly work by simply replacing worn parts on our existing production lines for brand-new lamps," says Lee.

Lee attributes the low cost of recycling the lamps to his company's horizontal-type production lines and a good system for purifying fluorescent powder extracted from used tubes for reuse. He says that only a few lighting manufacturers around the globe have the capability to reclaim wasted lamps in this way due to the high cost of the production lines, which at about NT$10 billion (US$290 million) per line are not cheap.

However, Philips Taiwan has not been able to collect exhausted tubes efficiently because the government here has not set up collection points. Currently, Philips Lighting has recycling facilities in Malaysia and mainland China. The Malaysia factory is Philips Lighting's primary facility for making tri- wavelength lamps outside Europe and the exclusive source of Taiwan's TLD80s.

Philips factory in mainland China mostly supplies standard fluorescent lamps to the greater China area, which encompasses Taiwan, the mainland and Hong Kong.

Philips Lighting also has a facility in India. According to Lee, the Dutch lighting- technology giant has divided non-Japan Asia into three major markets--the greater China area, Southeast Asia and India. "Each of these markets is very promising and independent from each other," Lee notes.

Lee estimates that his company has grabbed around 30% of Taiwan's market for tri- wavelength lamps, which amounts to over 10 million tubes a year. However, his company has so far managed to get barely 10% of the domestic market for standard fluorescent lamps, which number 100 million units a year.

Tri-wavelength lamps, Lee says, now make up around 10% to 15% of Taiwan's fluorescent- lamp market, leaving his company much room to grow. Over the past three years, Philips Taiwan has targeted corporations as its major customers. Its primary customers include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), currently the world's largest supplier of built-to-order chips. "Recently, some local LCD (liquid crystal display) manufacturers have begun using our lamps at their new factories," he says.

The new battleground is the home-user market. The company has shipped the lamps to big local retail chains such as B&Q and to individual contracted stores throughout Taiwan. The lamps come with color-temperature options of 2,700 Kelvin (K), 3,000 K, 3,500 K, 4,000 K, 5,000 K and 6,500 K.