The days of the light bulb are counted in Europe: Brussels reaches for an arrangement that energy saving lamps should become a duty within the European Union. Other countries already have showed how this works. Focussing on Germany this would mean an energy save of about 7.5 milliards (US: 7.5 billions) kilowatt-hours, so all inefficient products will be banned from the markets until 2015.

At this point new energy and environmental aspects will be added to the current CE signet. As from 2015 the CE signet will be withdrawn from lighting systems with poor performance and may not be in use anymore. The changeover has already reached the big lighting systems companies, so any lighting devices of this kind won't be available anymore, not even for spare parts.

One alternative to the light bulb is modern LED lighting technology which can save energy costs up to 80%. At the same time this is an environment-friendly solution for public, private and industrial purposes for a long time. The environmental pollution with CO₂ will be drastically decreased just as the pollution of environmentally harmful additives like mercury, which can be found in the production and recycling process of fluorescent tubes.

Beside offering a wide range of variable color temperatures (yellowish to cool-white) modern high-power LEDs also have a better light produce than regular lighting systems, so there is no need for high expenses of planning and installation. Combined with the extreme lifetime of high-power LEDs of about 70,000 hours, the nearly zero maintenance costs and its flexible fields of application this lighting technology guides straight to the future:

• long lifetime duration
• low maintenance costs
• better light produce than MV lamps or SV lamps
• up to 70% less energy costs than MV lamps or SV lamps
• no switching wearout
• great reliability
• enhanced color reflection of illuminated objects

We at MARK-TRONIK have recognized the signs of time and formed a symbiotic relationship between our decades lasting know-how of heat sink technology and LED technology. It's a fact that modern high-power LEDs produce a higher heat than former LED generations, so an efficient and safe heat dissipation is required at all costs.

So we have probed all technical aspects of a modern LED lamp and developed some partial solutions which are satisfying our customers and us. We are sure that LED lighting technology is the future of light and that we can do our stint for this future.