This record purchase commitment was added to the existing distributorship agreement, which extends through Cree's fiscal year ending June 2007. Sumitomo agreed to buy $160 million of LED chips from Cree in the current fiscal year ending June 2005.
Both companies anticipate that purchases will be made across Cree's full line of LED chip products representing its standard brightness, mid-brightness and high brightness devices, including MegaBright, XBright and XThin LEDs.
"Cree continues to provide the new products and cutting-edge technology our customers require," said Koichiro Kusano, assistant general manager of Sumitomo's Electronic Division. "These continued advances in performance, combined with Cree's respected intellectual property, allow Sumitomo to continue to expand our market share through increasing penetration in growing application segments like LCD backlighting."
"The renewal of our agreement and increased purchase commitment reflects the growth we are forecasting in Japan and highlights the strength of our partnership with Sumitomo and our Japanese customers," stated Chuck Swoboda, Cree's chairman and CEO.
Cree XLamp LEDs selected by Lighting Science
Lighting Science Group Corporation has selected Cree XLamp 7090 power LEDs as the light source for its patent-pending Optimized Digital Lighting (ODL) products.
Lighting Science's ODL products feature affordable, efficient and long lasting LED-based bulbs and fixtures designed to be quickly deployed in a broad range of large-scale public and private applications. Both indoor and outdoor lighting products are planned.
"To achieve the best energy efficiencies and maximum light output, Lighting Science selected Cree XLamp LEDs to ensure that our customers benefit from the industry's highest brightness LEDs," said Ron Lusk, Lighting Science Group chairman and CEO.
"Cree's technical leadership in power LEDs and Lighting Science's technical expertise in designing ODL products combine to offer a highly efficient, non-toxic and cost effective, digital solution for large-scale lighting applications."
Compared with traditional lighting solutions, the ODL products are expected to use up to 80 percent less energy and last up to 16 times longer. In addition, these LED-based systems will be environmentally friendly, containing no toxic materials such as the mercury used in some traditional lighting sources.
"Lighting Science is taking a lead in developing LED-based lighting systems that can achieve significant energy and maintenance savings for large-scale lighting applications such as street, parking lot and mall lighting," said Norbert Hiller, Cree vice president and general manager of Cree Lighting.
"We believe that large-scale lighting applications in particular can achieve significant savings by implementing LED-based lighting solutions and are pleased that Lighting Science is deploying Cree XLamp LEDs in the roll out of its Energy Saving Sharing Program and ODL solutions."
