Starting in the single-die area, Cree announced a new LED in its 5 by 5 millimeter XM-L family that the company says is the highest performing single-die package on the market. When operated at 3 amps of drive current the LED outputs 1198 lumens at an efficacy of 116 lumens per watt. At 350 milliamps of drive current, the LED can deliver efficacy of 186 lumens per watt delivering on a laboratory milestone that Cree announced three years ago this month. According to Cree, the benefits of a single-die LED for directional applications such as MR16 retrofit lamps are tighter beam pattern and greater center beam candle power. The company says that the LED will enable an MR16 design with double the center beam candle power available in the best MR16 LED lamps on the market while reducing power consumption.
Bridgelux, meanwhile, announced its new Vero packaged LED array family that combines a rectangular chip-on-board array and a separate circular plastic body that simplifies the mechanical design of solid state lighting products. The company offers the LEDs in four form factors and over a span of 800 to 20,000 lumens. Bridgelux touts the array approach and the Vero two-part package as allowing a luminaire maker to simply offer a product with a range of performance options in light output and quality. For example, the company will offer the Vero products with its Décor option of a 97 color rendering index.
Moving into the lab, Osram Opto Semiconductors reported an R&D efficiency record for an infrared LED chip. The 850 nano meter LED achieved 72% wall plug efficiency and 67% external quantum efficiency. The lab development uses a thin-film chip architecture and the infrared application is in devices such as surveillance cameras, but Osram said the lessons learned can be transferred to LEDs in other spectral wavelengths.
We will close this week by noting a couple of our archived webcast presentations that provide excellent learning opportunities if you missed the live events. The presentation "How to Achieve System Performance Breakthroughs for Downlights and Lamps in 2013" takes viewers through the process of targeting a specific lumen output level in a new product design, and analyzing the options in terms of packaged LEDs for delivering the needed light output. Meanwhile, the presentation entitled "Tunable lighting - Changing color and light levels to enhance our enjoyment and wellbeing" discusses both methods of delivering RGB and tunable-white light output and the benefits of doing so. Find both webcasts at ledsmagazine.com/webcasts.
