by 
Jeroen Iedema, TE global product manager
In today’s world, lighting is more than just illumination. It’s about efficiency and adaptability. It’s about creating more connected homes and cities. It’s about transforming an ordinary, everyday lighting fixture into a platform for innovation. Whether you’re designing outdoor luminaires or the next generation of LED lighting controls, reliable and high-quality electrical components are at the epicenter of lighting the way to a more connected planet.
The continued evolution of lighting requires advanced technology solutions to ensure sustained leadership throughout the ecosystem. According to a recent study, the worldwide market for LED lighting alone is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of roughly 10.8 percent over the next seven years, and is currently valued at approximately $54 billion USD. Cities all around the world are making the shift to smarter LED lighting, lowering maintenance costs and cutting energy usage in half. With a focus on driving cloud management technology, street lights with the ability to monitor air quality, adapt to weather and traffic, and even alert authorities of emergencies remain at the forefront of tomorrow’s innovations.
TE Connectivity’ (TE) is a leading supplier of lighting and IP&E solutions and has developed the LUMAWISE Type Z COB LED holders, which allow for fast, flexible and effective lighting assembly together with LEDIL reflector optics—enabling faster product development and easier assembly. TE has partnered with specialty distributor TTI, Inc. to help customers fulfill their most pressing needs and enable their effective and sustainable lighting ideas to become a reality. As an authorized distributor of TE products, TTI offers a complete product portfolio spanning solutions for light engines, controls, interconnects, fixtures, and many more.
"Together with TTI, we’re focused on introducing the latest products and technologies to our mutual customers and strive to give design engineers an edge to increase speed time to market," said Sean Miller, vice president, global channel sales, at TE. "The availability of localized field support for both technical and supply chain requirements, paired with TTI’s significant inventory investments, also help engineers’ discovery and design phases seamlessly transition to production."
Suppliers such as TE rely on distributors to reach a broad market of designers, OEMs and EMS providers. Electronics customers served by TTI see strong potential for evolution within the lighting space and seek to integrate field-upgradeable solutions within their designs, said Lew LaFornara, vice president, product and supplier marketing at TTI, Inc.
"With TE as our trusted partner, we’re able to fulfill that need and deliver an innovative outcome," LaFornara added. "We’re committed to introducing TE’s products into the global marketplace and providing an extraordinary experience to each of our mutual customers every step of the way."
TE designs its products with reliability, simplicity and installation time-saving in mind. The company leverages cross-industry engineering experience to deliver reliable devices even in the harshest of environments.
For example, the LUMAWISE Type Z unit holds the COB-LED in place on the heatsink with the help of tape mounting or LED-clamping. The electrical connection is created with a simple poke-in wire connection, without any need for soldering. Wire sizes 18 and 20 AWG can be used, solid, fused and stranded. The high-reflectivity housing is molded in a flame-retardant halogen- and red phosphorus-free thermoplastic, rated V-0 under UL94.
The devices are configured for integration into a wide variety of lighting designs with mechanical and electrical connections of chip-on-board (COB) LED arrays, low-profile versions featuring a sticky tape retention that secures the LED in the holder during assembly and ensures proper positioning in the fixture are also available.
Within TE's broad portfolio of lighting solutions, design engineers are able to integrate LED electrical, mechanical, thermal and optical interconnectivity within one ecosystem.
