A History of Philips and Lighting

When Philips, the multinational electronics company, celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1991, this was really the anniversary of Philips, the lamp manufacturer. In 1891, the banker Frederik Philips, resident in the small Dutch town of Zaltbommel on the River Waal, financed a factory for his son Gerard in Eindhoven. Like so many people at that time, Gerard had been experimenting with electric lighting. He, too, was enthusiastic about what the American, Thomas Alva Edison, had demonstrated in 1879 in Menlo Park, New Jersey: incandescent lamps. People have long been fascinated by light. Think of other great inventions of the nineteenth century - photography and, later, film. Many scholars and inventors studied the principles of artificial electrical light during that century. Edison, who in 1879 made the first incandescent lamp, which burned for precisely 45 hours, knew then what had to be done: an infrastructure        - an electricity network - had to be set up. The development of the incandescent lamp can rightly be said to be the first step towards a gigantic distribution network that we now take for granted, supplying electrical energy by cable to every room in the house. An enormous amount has happened since Gerard Philips' first attempt to make a living from lamp manufacturing. Like most entrepreneurs just starting up, Gerard did not have an easy time of it. For the first few years he did everything himself: he was the purchaser and salesman, developer, producer and personnel officer, in addition to which he had to write his own business letters. He bought the bulbs for his lamps from a German glassworks. Obtaining constant quality in the filament was a continuous headache. Gerard Philips was often to be found in his laboratory, then referred to as the "kitchen" or even the "chemist's". As a technician, he knew one thing for sure: without research and development work there would be no new and better products. And without new and better products there would be no continuity for the company and no income for him and his personnel. Research is the driving force In the more than 100 years of Philips' existence, research has always been considered of great importance. Indeed, Philips has been a company driven by research, and has what it takes to remain so. Philips Lighting, as the lighting part of the company is now called, has benefited greatly from scientific inventions and discoveries. Some of these were made within Philips; some were the result of research carried out by others, which Philips was quick to adopt. In 1908, Gerard Philips recruited his first technologist. At this time tungsten had been found to be very suitable, although difficult to process, for making filaments. When in 1910 the American Coolidge succeeded in drawing tungsten wires, Gerard Philips was one of the first, in 1912, to launch lamps on the market with drawn filaments made from tungsten. In 1913 there was again a great improvement: the glass bulbs, which until then had been vacuum sealed, were filled with nitrogen (shortly after replaced by argon gas), which meant that the filament evaporated more slowly. A consequence of the gas filling was the necessity to wind the filament into a coil, in order to limit the heat loss. Since 1933, the filament wires take the form of double coils to give an even higher light output. However, we now know that the incandescent lamp uses a great deal of energy. No more than some seven per cent of the electricity supplied to the lamp is converted into light. The rest is wasted as heat. Per watt the incandescent lamp currently provides about 15 lumen of light output. This is little better than the 10 lumen per watt Gerard Philips achieved in 1915 with his argon-filled "Arga" lamp. The range of lamps expanded steadily. Lamps were made for cars, and all sorts of other special types were developed, such as bulbs for projectors and lighthouses. In the early 1930s the gas-discharge lamp was introduced in the form of low-pressure sodium lamps, known for their orange-yellow colour. Colour rendering of these lamps is very poor, but they offer amazing efficacy, which is currently approximately up to 200 lumen per watt. They are therefore ideal for security and road lighting, where the colour rendering is of less importance but where it should be possible to see contrasts clearly with low energy costs. In the meantime, variations of this lamp have been developed combining a still high efficacy with improved, and sometimes even very good, colour rendering. Examples of these are the high-pressure sodium lamp for road and residential lighting and the special high-pressure sodium lamp ("White SON") for almost magical shop and shop window lighting. Metal halide light sources, which produce a natural sparkling white light, are also ideal for shop lighting as well as for decorative floodlighting. Latest in the Philips range is the Master-colour.  In essence, the technology of this lamp is the merging of metal halide technology, well-known for white light at high efficiency, and the high-pressure sodium ceramic arc tube technology (as found in SON lamps), well-known for its colour stability and long life. Gas-discharge lamps are also very suitable for the decorative lighting of buildings and monuments, as can be seen at the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Forth Bridge in Scotland. The Xenon Light, another gas-discharge lamp, has been specially developed for car headlights. Compared to halogen lamps, the Xenon Light gives two to three times as much light for half the energy with a five times longer life and very tight beam characteristics.   The TL lamp (fluorescent tube)   The development of the low-pressure sodium lamp was followed, in 1934, by the high-pressure mercury lamp, which gives a bluish white light. Mercury vapour is very suitable for generating light using an electrical discharge in the vapour, although at low pressure the radiation is largely generated in the ultraviolet area. These rays are invisible to the eye. The development of fluorescent materials was needed to shift the UV radiation to that part of the spectrum which is visible to the eye, and thus to convert the UV radiation into light. In 1938 this was achieved and the fluorescent lamp was born. However, Great Britain was the only European country in which the large-scale introduction of this well-known fluorescent lamp, the TL tube, took place before 1945. Improvements continued until 1973, when Philips Lighting introduced the so-called 80 colours which give a major improvement in light quality. Five years later there followed the introduction of the 26 mm TLD tube offering considerable savings in energy. In 1994 the company introduced the New Generation TL lamps which combine a more constant light output over lamp life with a considerably lower mercury content. Then, the following year, Philips introduced the T5 system which, with its thin fluorescent tube of only 16 mm diameter, offers a considerable reduction in total operating costs in combination with miniaturised luminaire designs enabling substantial savings in materials. More recently the mercury content of Philips TLD New Generation lamps has been reduced by 80% to just 3 mgs and these lamps have been made 100% recyclable. Within Europe, the main manufacturing facilities for fluorescent lamps ("compact" and TL) are in the Netherlands, France and Poland; for incandescent lamps in Poland, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK; for car lamps in Germany and France; for sodium, high-pressure mercury and metal halide lamps in Belgium; and for halogen lamps in France and Germany. Since 1931, Philips Lighting has also developed and produced luminaires, above all for professional lighting, as well as lamp ballasts and fluorescent powders for TL lamps, at first on a project basis, and since the 1950s on an industrial scale. Nowadays, Philips develops and produces a full range of high-quality luminaires for indoor and outdoor applications, with the main manufacturing locations in France and the Netherlands. Also since the early thirties, Philips has produced its own ballasts for gas-discharge lamps, such as sodium lamps and the TL lamps. This wide range now includes electronic ballasts as well.       International company Over the years, Philips had grown considerably and become an international company. Through internal growth and as the result of a number of takeovers, including the acquisition of Compagnie des Lampes in France in 1982 and Westinghouse Lamps in the United States in 1983, Philips Lighting became the largest lighting product manufacturer in the world in the eighties; turnover in 1998 was some 9.8 billion Dutch guilders (4.5 billion Euro’s) Company facilities spread from Eindhoven, first in Europe and then to the rest of the world. Production was decentralised. In recent years, the company has been strengthening its position in Eastern Europe and, especially, in the Far East, through various acquisitions and joint ventures. Philips Lighting currently has manufacturing facilities in the Netherlands, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Poland, the United States, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Thailand, the People's Republic of China, Korea, Japan, and others. The number of employees is 49,000 (December 1998). Scientific and technical research Over the past 50 years no new scientific principles have been discovered for the generation of light, leaving aside the invention of the laser beam, which is not suitable for general lighting purposes. But scientific and technical research has been at the core of many improvements and modernisations in the field of lamps and lighting, and especially in the field of materials. In the sixties the halogen lamp conquered the car world. It then went on to astonish the professional user and the consumer with its attractive light quality. Moreover, halogen lamps have a longer life and greater luminous efficacy than normal incandescent lamps: between 20 and 25 lumen per watt. Luminaire designers are completely taken with the small halogen lamps, which work on low voltage and have a bright, white light colour and excellent colour rendering. Low-voltage halogen has even become so trendy that light designers are warning that there will soon be an over-abundance in home interiors! Halogen spotlights are intended for use as accent lighting, not as general background lighting. The incandescent lamp, the TL - of the right light colour, of course! - and the energy-saving SL* or PL lamps are much more suitable for general lighting. A major breakthrough of the last decades has been the discovery of new, efficient fluorescent powders for TL lamps. These powders have enabled for the first time the combination of good colour rendering with a very high luminous efficacy and can be used with a heavier UV load. Thanks to this discovery it became possible to fold thin glass tubes (10 or 12 mm) into compact fluorescent tubes.    In 1980 Philips brought the SL* lamp onto the market, which was followed in 1981 by the introduction of the PL lamp. These fluorescent lamps, which are often called "energy-saving", quickly won a place in the professional lighting world because of their high efficacy. In recent years the consumer has started to realise that these lamps, despite their initial cost being much higher than that of incandescent lamps, are considerably cheaper in the long run. Electronics Incandescent lamps are straightforward: you screw them in, flick the switch, and the light burns. Gas-discharge lamps, such as TL, require a little more attention because a lamp ballast is always required to limit the current flowing through the tube. However, if there is something technical to be controlled, this can be done using (micro)electronics. This is how electronics, too, has won a place in lighting technology. PL lamps are widely available in electronic versions. TL lamps, certainly in the professional lighting market, are increasingly being controlled electronically. High-frequency, electronically-controlled TL systems are more expensive in terms of the initial outlay, but the advantages are clear: greater comfort, no flickering, longer life and energy savings throughout the lamp life. In addition to this, the application of electronics is providing opportunities for greater lighting efficiency in buildings. In offices, the most up-to-date systems incorporate remote control switching, daylight linking and presence detection to offer the benefits of greater convenience and comfort along with cost savings. More recent developments include fibre optic lighting which allows a multitude of light points to be produced from one light generator. Apart from the well-known spectacular "starry-sky" effects on ceilings, applications include lighting for more difficult-to-access locations and (because of the absence of electrical current) where the light points are positioned in fountains and other places in or near water. Earlier this year Philips Lighting demonstrated its confidence in the long-term future and increasing range of applications of solid-state illumination (LED’s) by greatly expanding the scope of its existing Lumi Leds joint venture with Hewlett Packard. Applications will include automotive, high-brightness signalling, contour lighting and signs, outdoor illumination and white LED’s for both indoor and outdoor. Lighting engineering In addition to lighting technology, Philips has been active for over sixty years in the field of lighting engineering. More and more sales with a high added value result from this, including prestige projects such as the lighting of the Louvre in Paris. No self-respecting shop or department store would consider not calling in a lighting designer to implement a sophisticated lighting plan: the right lighting is an essential part of any sales strategy nowadays, and guarantees greater sales and higher profits. Light can be used to create exactly the required atmosphere. The Philips Lighting catalogues feature thousands of different lamps, both incandescent and gas-discharge, and luminaires. Choosing a lighting solution and giving lighting advice has become the work of specialists, particularly in the professional sector. How much light is required on a desk to ensure that one's eyes tire as little as possible? Under what sort of lighting do fashion articles, or even bread at the baker's and pork chops at the butcher's, look most attractive? What is the right reading light for reading at home in an armchair? These questions all fall into the specialist field of Philips lighting engineers