HK innovation shines in Olympic venues (hktdc.com)


	China's spectacular Bird's Nest stadium has been hailed as the finest arena in the world

	The Water Cube design turned the global spotlight on Beijing's National Aquatics Centre

	Richard Sy, Managing Director of Cree Hong Kong

They are some of the most iconic structures to be built for the Olympic Games: the National Stadium, otherwise known as the Bird's Nest, and the Water Cube, or the National Aquatics Centre, captured the imagination of billions of people around the world during the Beijing Summer Olympics. The company responsible for putting the finishing touches to make the buildings stand out in all their glory was the LED lighting firm Cree Inc.

"It was an exciting project to have been a part of," said Richard Sy, Managing Director of Cree Hong Kong. "Our company is proud to have introduced our innovative products in such a high-profile project."

Cree Hong Kong, a subsidiary of US-based Cree Inc, a Nasdaq-listed firm, provides customer and technical support in the region, and serves as Cree's centre of product innovation in Asia. Cree Inc employs 1,400 people in the United States, while most of the 1,600 staff in the Chinese mainland work at its manufacturing plant in Huizhou, in southern Guangdong Province. The engineering centre at the Cree Asia-Pacific headquarters, based at the Hong Kong Science Technology Park, works closely with its US and mainland counterparts on research and development.

Enormous potential

One of four major players in the LED market, Cree is a market leader in high-power, high-brightness LEDs. According to Mr Sy, the LED industry is still in its early stages, with the potential application for the product only taking off in the past decade. The energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly technology is slowly replacing the use of incandescent light bulbs in advertising, billboards, and traffic signage. But its full potential has yet to be realised.

In the Beijing Olympics project, Mr Sy said contractors planned to use LED only on the Water Cube, but later decided to use it also for the Bird's Nest. Nearly half a million of Cree's Xlamp in red, green and blue were used to light up the exterior of the Water Cube, while 258,000 of the LED lamps were installed on the Bird's Nest exterior to dramatic effect.

Cree worked with two companies to produce the lighting fixture and install the system. "Coordinating the lighting project was the main challenge because we had to walk them through on how to use them. And we were working under a short timeline," Mr Sy said. Experts had only six months to complete what would have ideally been a one-year job. "That's because we couldn't start work until the civil construction was complete." Mr Sy added that the other challenges were ensuring the lights were going to be bright enough to have the visual impact, and the components' reliability.

Best place for business

The company is now involved in other major projects for similar high-profile events, including the 2010 Shanghai Expo and the 2010 East Asian Games in Guangzhou.

Some of Cree Inc's latest innovations, the Xlamp MC-E, which boasts four times more illumination, will feature along with other Cree LED products at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair, Autumn Edition, 13-16 October, and at the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair 2008, 27-30 October at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

"Hong Kong is an ideal place to base our Asia-Pacific business," said Mr Sy. "It is ideally located near the mainland and is close to Singapore and Malaysia, where we conduct our other major businesses. The talent is also here, not to mention the infrastructure. We're fortunate to be based here at the Hong Kong Science Technology Park, which provides strong support for our business."