Pacoima, Calif. (August 17, 2005) - JKL Components Corporation, a recognized leader and innovator in the design and production of miniature fluorescent lamps and power inverters, today announced its introduction of an entirely new line of 2.6mm diameter cold cathode fluorescent lamps ranging in length from 346mm to 600mm (approximately 13 to 24 inches). They are the longest such lamps in the industry.

The announcement was made by JKL president and technical director, Joseph S. Velas. Targeting a growing demand from both the industrial and consumer markets for large flat panel displays, Velas indicated that his company is poised to work with customers from prototype to production to assure they deliver evenly illuminated, bright displays for use in any viewing environment.

The CF Series of miniature fluorescent lamps have an x-y color output of 345±0.1 and 360±0.1 respectively at 5000° Kelvin. Starting circuit voltages run from 1450Vrms to 2340Vrms at 0°C, increasing proportionately with the length of the lamp. Operating lamp current is 6±1 mArms, and the lamps deliver 36,000 candelas/m₂±15%. Velas emphasized the new lamp line has a rated life of 40,000 hours.

"These new small diameter, extended length, mini fluorescent lamps provide our customers with the ability to tailor a backlighting package that is truly superior, in terms of light distribution, uniformity and long life."

Delivery is four weeks after receipt of order, with production pricing at $4 to $6 depending on lamp length.

JKL Components Corporation is a just-in-time supplier to many of the nation's leading high-volume users of miniature and sub-miniature lamps and lighting accessories. JKL offers one of the broadest selections of lamps and accessories in the industry, with over 5000 standards available from stock.

The product line includes miniature cold cathode, hot cathode and ultraviolet fluorescent lamps, backlighting assemblies for liquid crystal displays, LED indicators, miniature PC board lighting, quartz halogen lamps, silicone lamp filters in colors, neon glow lamps, indicators, incandescent lamps, medical and optical lamps, aircraft lamps, and automotive lighting and displays. For additional information, please contact Sherry Carpenter, Sales Manager of JKL Components Corporation, 13343 Paxton St., Pacoima, California 91331. Telephone 818 896-0019. Fax 818 897 3056. http://www.jkllamps.com

PACOIMA, CA (October 13, 2005) -- JKL Components Corporation, an innovative supplier of DC-AC lamp inverters and miniature cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL), has developed a postage-stamp sized inverter with a minimal footprint of only 13mm x 26mm, with a low above board height of a mere five millimeters.

The new BXA-302 DC-AC inverter expands the ceiling on the company's increasingly broad line of miniature special purpose power supplies, specifically designed to provide stable, efficient AC power for the company's extensive line of miniature cold cathode and ultraviolet lamps.

During a corporate meeting at the Raffles Hotel, Joseph S. Velas, JKL's president and technical director asserted that "The BXA-302 opens up a whole new vista of opportunities for designers in need of low voltage inverters for slim-form hand-held and other portable devices, components for which were previously unavailable. It's so itsy-bitsy you could use it as an electric toothpick, though I doubt that you'd want to."

The JKL Model BXA-302 Inverter operates at 3VDC input, supplying 4.5mA with of 650VAC output voltage at 80 kHz. Cost of this new, multi-output inverter is $6 in production quantities. Delivery is stock to four weeks. Technical specifications are available online at http://www.jkllamps.com/BXA-302.pdf .

JKL provides wiring harnesses, customer-specified connectors, heaters and opto-sensors as part of the company's exclusive Short-Run Assembly capability, as well as the industry's broadest range of miniature fluorescent lamps, ranging from 1.8 to 9mm diameter and from 25 to 600mm in length.

JKL Components Corporation is a just-in-time supplier to many of the nation's leading high-volume users of miniature and subminiature lamps and lighting accessories. JKL offers one of the broadest selections of lamps and accessories in the industry, with over 5000 standards available from stock.

The product line includes miniature cold cathode, hot cathode and ultraviolet fluorescent lamps, backlighting assemblies for liquid crystal displays, LED indicators, miniature PC board lighting, quartz halogen lamps, silicone lamp filters in colors, neon glow lamps, indicators, incandescent lamps, medical and optical lamps, aircraft lamps, and automotive lighting and displays.

PACOIMA, CA (August 2, 2005) – JKL Components Corporation has today announced its development of a diminutive 3mm x 25mm Mercury fluorescent lamp to augment its line of specialty ultraviolet lamps.

The unique bright-line spectral signature of the Hg mercury ultraviolet lamp is useful in semiconductor research, nanotechnology imaging devices, and in other specialized applications such as UV/VIS spectrophotometer calibration. It utilizes a hard glass envelope which attenuates lamp output below 253.7nm UV energy, thereby preventing the generation of ozone gas. BF325-HG is ideal as a calibration instrument in spectrophotometry. It is a low-cost solution for applications that need a robust and portable source of ultraviolet radiation with low power consumption.

The announcement was made by JKL president and technical director Joseph S. Velas, who stressed that this latest edition to the company's extensive line of cold cathode, UV-A, UV-C and special purpose fluorescent lamps reinforces the JKL reputation for having the broadest selection of miniature fluorescent lamps, power inverters and related lighting accessories in the industry.

The BF325-HG lamp has a starting voltage of 400 Vrms at 25°C, operating lamp voltage of 156 Vrms, and operating lamp current of 5 mArms. Rated lamp life is 7,500 hours.

Delivery of the new BF325-HG lamp is stock to four weeks after receipt of order, with production quantity prices beginning at $9.

JKL Components Corporation is a just-in-time supplier to many of the nation's leading high-volume users of miniature and subminiature lamps and lighting accessories. JKL offers one of the broadest selections of lamps and accessories in the industry, with over 5000 standards from stock.

The product line includes miniature cold cathode, hot cathode and ultraviolet lamps, backlighting assemblies for liquid crystal displays, LED indicators, miniature PC board lighting, quartz halogen lamps, silicone lamp filters in colors, neon glow lamps, indicators, incandescent lamps, medical and optical lamps, aircraft lamps, and automotive lighting and displays. For additional information, please contact Sherry Carpenter, Sales Manager of JKL Components Corporation, 13343 Paxton Street, Pacoima, CA 91331. Telephone 818 896-0019. Fax 818 897-3056. http://www.jkllamps.com

PACOIMA, CA (March 04, 2005) -- JKL Components Corporation, a just-in-time supplier of miniature and sub-miniature lamps and lighting accessories, today announced a new line of sub-miniature lamps that consume very little board space and deliver exceptional brightness. Standard selections are available in 5-14 Volt models.

The JKL ETB series offers engineers design flexibility allowing for thru-board or surface mount placement. Carrier tape packaging for automatic placement or bulk packaging is available. The ETB design can be provided with a filter to meet specific color coordinates and serves as a great alternative to LED's when viewing angle, color and brightness levels are critical to the design. Ideal for high volume applications, the lamps can withstand reflow solder to 250 degrees Celsius. Pricing starts at $0.24 a piece in quantities of 5000.

JKL Components is a just-in-time supplier to many of the nation's leading high-volume users of miniature and sub-miniature lamps and accessories. Over 5000 standard lamp packages are available from stock.

The product line includes miniature cold cathode, hot cathode and ultraviolet fluorescent lamps, backlighting assemblies for liquid crystal displays, LED indicators, miniature PC board lighting, quartz halogen lamps, silicone lamp filters in colors, neon glow lamps, indicators, incandescent lamps, medical and optical lamps, aircraft lamps, and automotive lighting and displays.

For additional information, please contact Sherry Carpenter, Sales Manager of JKL Components Corporation, 13343 Paxton Street, Pacoima, CA 91331. Telephone 818 896-0019. Fax 818 897-3056. http://www.jkllamps.com.

• Enhanced Transmissive Brightness

• Additional Reflective Performance

• Uses Sunlight to Increase Backlight Brightness

• Minimize Internal and Surface Reflections

• Eliminates Expensive Semi-custom Inverters

• Eliminates Expensive Multi-bulb Backlights

• Low Power Usage (no more than off-the-shelf LCDs)

• Low Heat Emission (no more than off-the-shelf LCDs)

• Easily Integrated into Sealed Enclosures in Extreme Environments

• Combine with Low-power Active Enhancements

• Contrast Enhancements

• Cost of Ownership Reduced Due to Increased Bulb Life and Simpler Integration

• Can be Applied to Virtually Any Size LCD

• Index-matching Films or Coatings

• Optical Bonding Available Optionally to Further Augment Performance

Overview

As more and more LCDs find their way into outdoor applications, the need becomes far greater for them to not only be able to withstand severe temperature extremes (heat and cold) and solar radiation, but the LCD must also be readable when exposed to extreme optical conditions such as direct and indirect sunlight, glare and reflection.

Most off-the-shelf LCDs are not properly equipped to handle all of these requirements. The traditional approach demands installation of value-add backlights to boost brightness and incorporation of thermal management solutions to dissipate the heat generated by the backlights.

Additionally, although transmissive panels are now available with a white luminance of more than 400 nits, they do not provide adequate brightness or contrast to be considered practical in high ambient lighting conditions or direct sunlight.

The Myth

It is a common myth that increasing an LCDs backlight brightness alone will make an LCD usable in high brightness environments (i.e., sunlight readable). The reality is that the increase in brightness is only a benefit if it does not adversely affect the contrast at the same time.

For example, imagine that a value-add backlight is used to increase the luminance of an OEM LCD that has a white luminance of 200 nits and a contrast ratio of 300:1 (black luminance of 0.66 nits) by ten-fold to a white luminance of 2,000 nits. While the display is unarguably brighter, the increased brightness will not be of much value in direct sunlight if the "black luminance" is correspondingly increased from 0.66 nits to 660 nits (contrast ratio of 3.03).

These factors, as well as other integration issues such as power consumption and heat dissipation, must be considered as a collective when designing an LCD for true sunlight readability.

General Digital™ offers three types of sunlight readable solutions. The first is the traditional value-add backlight solution. The second approach is to provide a transflective display, which incorporates a highly reflective backlight that reflects ambient light back out of the display. Our third offering, and generally the most efficient and cost-effective solution, is the GenFlective™ display, a hybrid of transflective and passive enhancements.

Value-Add Backlights

Traditionally, value-add backlights have a short life expectancy; bulbs generally have a brightness half-life of 20,000 hours, which means that the backlight will only be able to produce approximately half of its original brightness after 20,000 hours. Compared to this, current OEM backlights often are rated for 50,000 hours.

A typical 2,000 nit backlight for a 10.4" display will require as much as 20 watts, while a 600 nit 20" backlight uses greater than 60 watts. Because of this high power consumption, heat dissipation is of paramount importance. Integration of thermal management such as heat sinks, cooling fans, heat exchangers, heat pipes, etc. is necessary to maintain safe operating conditions.

Although most recent value-add backlight designs do not add significant depth to the OEM LCD, they typically require more space in the integrated enclosure due to the necessity to provide thermal management.

By themselves, value-add backlights can be quite costly. In addition to the expense of the backlights and their associated electronics and packaging, most displays also require some optical films as well. When considering the integration of a value-add backlight, one must also consider the expense of the thermal management solution (typically required) as well as the increased cost of ownership resulting from shortened lamp life. And don't forget about the special inverter(s) required to drive the backlights.

Transflective Panels

Although they are designed to reflect ambient light back out the display to augment its performance in direct sunlight, transflective panels have insufficient transmissive luminance (typically ~200 nits) to be considered usable in diffuse lighting conditions where direct sunlight is not available (e.g., cloudy or rainy days).

Additionally, transflective panels are only available in a limited range of display sizes and resolutions.

GenFlective™ Technology

A GenFlective™-enhanced LCD is a display that General Digital™ has altered, using passive enhancements, to improve the brightness (transmissive and/or reflective) and/or the contrast of the display. Although each display has its own personality, due to differences in design, manufacturing techniques and in the stock film stack, General Digital™ can typically enhance the performance of an OEM panel utilizing Optical Management Films, Polarizers and Diffusers, and a multitude of films and coatings (Contrast Enhancement, Index Matched, Antireflective, etc.).

In contrast to value-add backlights, LCDs enhanced with GenFlective™ technology do not require any additional power since General Digital™ has not modified the OEM bulbs or backlights. In addition to reduced power consumption, this benefits the end user with cooler running units, which in turn negates the need for bulky, complex and/or expensive cooling systems (fans, heat exchangers, heat pipes, etc.) that traditional value-add backlights typically require. Another benefit resulting from these factors is improved reliability (reduced piece count).

Since the LCD's lamps are not being overdriven, the GenFlective™ enhancements do not adversely affect the brightness half-life of the bulbs. A direct correlation exists between the brightness half-life of the bulbs and the suitability and cost of ownership of the integrated solution. For example, most bulbs are rated for 50,000 hours when operated at their intended drive current. As a rule of thumb, the bulbs will lose 10% of their initial brightness during their first 500-2,000 hours and 1-5% for every 1,000 hours of use thereafter. Longer brightness half-life also reduces the cost of ownership by reducing the frequency in which the backlights must be replaced.

In theory, candidate displays for GenFlective™ enhancement can be of any size, resolution or manufacturing origin. The success of the candidate display is most influenced by the display's aperture, transmissivity and the "personality" (OEM film recipe).

Combining GenFlective™ with Other Technologies

To further enhance LCD performance and improve its ruggedness, GenFlective™ technology can be combined with optical bonding, provided by General Digital's™ Optical Bonding Laboratories™.

Optical bonding of an LCD reduces internal reflection and increases brightness and contrast by index matching internal surfaces. It also creates a shatterproof construction similar to the properties of automotive windshields. An additional benefit is the optical-friendly integration of other options, such as heaters, EMI filters, hot mirrors (IR filters) and more.

Another combination utilizes low power active enhancement, which allows overdriving of cold cathode fluorescent tubes and multiple tube edgelight replacements.

Overdriving the bulbs, or using a drive current that is greater than recommended by the OEM manufacturer, will increase display brightness but will also reduce the brightness half-life expectancy of the bulbs. Increasing the number of bulbs will also increase the luminosity of the panel and add less than 10 watts of additional power consumption.

In some instances, GenFlective™ technology can also be combined with traditional value-add backlights for a "best of both worlds" solution.

Integration Decisions and Influences

To optimize the benefits and performance of the GenFlective™-enhanced LCD panels, General Digital™ recommends that an index matched to air antireflective coating be included on the outer viewing surface to improve contrast. Customers should note that special handling and cleaning instructions are required for the care of antireflective coatings.

Introduction of overlays that adversely affect light transmission, such as vandal shields, touchscreens, EMI filters, hot mirrors, etc., will diminish the performance of the Genflective™-enhanced LCD.

PACOIMA, CA (March 21 2007) -- JKL Components Corporation, a leading lighting technology provider, has enhanced its design and manufacturing capabilities for specialty LCD backlight assemblies. JKL's design engineers, working with defense contractors, have developed capacity and ability to meet the most demanding and stringent quality specifications for custom requirements. Maintaining reliability and high brightness of backlights for flat panel displays in critical military applications requires strict quality guidelines in the design and manufacture of the CCFL backlight assemblies.

JKL's program for additional control technologies includes NVIS compatible green lamp phosphors, thermistors for temperature control, opto-sensors, wire-wrap heaters, as well as custom treatments for mounting and assembly for flat panels used in harsh environments.

JKL Components Corporation offers solutions that encompass a wide variety of lighting technologies, including incandescent, fluorescent, ultraviolet, LED and gas-filled lighting. JKL is registered ISO 9001-2000 and TS-16949:2002. For additional information, please contact Sherry Carpenter, Sales Manager of JKL Components Corporation, 13343 Paxton Street, Pacoima, CA 91331. Tel. 818 896-0019 * Fax 818 897-3056 * Email sales@jkllamps.com * http://www.jkllamps.com.