Established in 2013, Lumens Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is one of the leading Indian companies with expertise in semiconductor distribution, kitting & consolidation. The company’s expanded product portfolio consists of LEDs, LED drivers and driver ICs with complete solutions and passive components like El-capacitors, MLCC, mosfets, diodes, varistors, thermistors, resistors, SMD fuses and the like. Following the motto of becoming a single window solution provider, it keeps adding new and innovative components which it uses to source from world’s leading manufacturers to avoid any chances of failure.
The company, which started with ready to use solutions mainly in LEDs, is now busy extending its portfolio to encompass other verticals so as to rapidly expand its customer base and their wide requirements. The most recent in the list is Nxton ICs, regarding which we at LED World got the opportunity to talk at length with Kuldeep Gupta, the company’ managing director. “LED is passion at Lumens Tech. We focus to offer high quality & reliable products to our customers from trusted & reputed suppliers at affordable costs,” he says while speaking to us. Edited excerpts are here as follows:
What does Lumens Tech’s profile comprise?
We are one of the leading distributors of electronic components and semiconductors in India. Our business is semiconductor distribution, kitting and consolidation. It means that we want to provide to our customers one group of solutions for all their requirements with respect to electronics and its components.
When we talk about LED lighting industry, it requires four types of solutions – thermal (heat sink) management, electrical drive management, optical management and LED chips. Besides offering a wide range of LED chips in various packages suitable for a number of applications, we also deal in electrical drive management.
Electrical drive management is a driver which requires 30 to 40 odd components including capacitor, diode, transistor, resistor, transformer, IC, etc. – all inside a small box. Of all these components, the major role in the circuit is played by ICs. Nxton is the brand of IC, a California-based IC design house, which also has a branch in Boston. The Integrated Circuit is getting packaged in China and we got associated with them for India market.
What’s the objective behind bringing Nxton brand to India?
It’s not new as we have been instrumental in introducing several renowned brands like Seoul Semiconductor, Hongli, Kiwi Instruments, etc. in India and Nxton is just another brand. The ideology behind this is to complete our product portfolio. Nxton in itself is a full spectrum product where we have solutions starting from 3W to 100W in several combinations of wattages.
We have developed an emergency bulb that is designed to offer a back-up of up to four hours. Similarly, we are living in an age of remote controllers, which are used to control numerous electronic devices. All of these run on battery power, generally of the sorts of AA or AAA, with billions of pieces monthly consumption and a maximum of one-year lifespan. Once exhausted, these batteries only add to the toxic e-waste.
So to avoid these, we have come up with Nxton Integrated Circuit-based rechargeable battery with life-time warranty; recharge it for 30 minutes and it would remain operational for six months or a year. As of now, these batteries are being sourced from China at reasonable rates. However, we are in negotiation with a few battery manufacturers in India to get it produced indigenously. We are offering them a complete recipe and hope to get something positive in the next couple of months.
How is this IC going to help improve efficiency of LED lighting products?
We have seen the transition in lighting with special reference to tubelights, popularly known in the industry as FTL (fluorescent tube light), which was followed by CFL (compact fluorescent lamp), and now we have LED tubelights. While FTL & CFL are operated with electronics in the form of ballast, LED tubelights are made operational with the help of a driver.
Our Nxton, which is an Integrated Circuit, does away with the requirements of a driver and helps save 25% to 30% cost on manufacturing of LED tubes. And since it eliminates the use of many components, it automatically reduces the chances of failure of the products. Further, it makes the complete fixture more compact, sleek and aesthetically pleasing.
Nxton being a one-stop-solution, we understand that it would boost linear lighting for sure. How will it help lighting designers and architects?
Yes, our ICs are a breakthrough in the applications of linear lighting by lifting over space restrictions within the fixtures. This is because in most of the instances, it’s actually challenging to adjust the driver especially when it is designed for sleeker space with minimalistic width to be fit-in within the linear fixture. Not only this, Nxton Integrated Circuit also opens the doors of experimenting with more options to architects and lighting designers as they can now specifically design their lighting solutions in more compact way as well as aesthetically appealing to suit the interiors of the contemporary architectures.
Does it also help control the invisible flickering?
Yes! One bigger advantage of this IC is that it helps control the invisible flickering in LED lighting, which has now become a very important health factor especially for eye strain. Besides this, since it does away with the use of many components in making a light bulb or tube, it also helps control the other discrepancies in illumination.
How do you see your competitors who are already there with likely Integrated Circuits?
For such components, there are many Chinese suppliers in the industry. But we are far ahead of our competitors in India because none of them are offering full spectrum of solutions in electronics. Also, when we say that we offer full spectrum that means we can attend more customers than our competitors for varied applications which no other company is offering as of now in India. Together, we offer our valued customers complete electronic solutions so that they can control their inventory at a price which is reasonable and economically viable.
How is it going to help LED lighting industry?
Another new technology that has recently been introduced to the world of electronics is DoB (driver-on-board), of which, the earlier version was not suitable for Indian environment which is prone to unfavourable electrical conditions, high surge, voltage fluctuation, etc. This IC has been designed keeping in view the Indian condition with conventional robustness to perfectly fit in typical Indian requirements. If this IC will be used in LED lighting fixtures, it would do away with many other components, thereby reducing the manufacturing cost and capping the causes of failure.
How are you approaching lighting manufacturers?
Like battery manufacturers, we have also offered this IC to LED lighting manufacturers. Our purpose is to strengthen their R&D by providing OEMs and other branded manufacturers with the technology in the form of a recipe, which is not present in India. Most of it is in the form of a component, while few are complete products depending upon the requirements. As a supplier, we would remain there as their partner.
What are the other developments at Lumens Tech?
We are a technology-driven company and want to move ahead with the same. We have invested heavily in setting up a testing lab in Mumbai last year wherein 12 engineers are continuously working to improve upon the technology. Whosoever is manufacturing or supplying these high technology products, we are offering to test their products for reliability, efficacy and efficiency. We are soon going to replicate this laboratory model in Delhi.
Who are your target audience for these services?
The lighting industry in India is so huge with quite a few manufacturers or suppliers, many of whom do not have this facility. We invite such stakeholders to come to our lab and use these testing facilities to meet their requirements. This exercise provides them with a kind of confidence that the product which they are manufacturing or going to manufacture is ok because the formula that they are using to make the product is perfect.
Not only to bigger companies, we are also giving good support to smaller and mid-sized companies by offering them testing facility so that they need not invest in R&D as the reliability factor of their products can be ensured in our lab. For instance, if someone is planning to manufacture streetlights, he can come to us to test his technology and we would help him rectify the technical faults, if any.
To sum up our conversation for now, what one thing would you like to share with industry peers?
As you know, we have touched many heights in just six years. Starting as a one man show, we now have a team of 50 members with two branch offices, one each in Mumbai and Delhi. Besides, there are resident engineers in maximum number of cities to get the customers served in time for any technical issues. Further, we at Lumens Tech have recently got associated with MIT Pune and signed an MoU, wherein we have committed to offer internship to 20 students each year and offer them placement at Lumens. This really brings a very pleasant feeling.
