Lumileds recently added new chip-on-board (COB) LEDs in the Luxeon family that utilizes a patented technology to enhance brightness of whites and color contrast. The Luxeon 90- and 95-CRI COB LEDs improve upon the previous generations’ output and efficacy. Just today, the LED manufacturer also released an eighth component in its Luxeon Rubix family of high-power LEDs — a cyan emitter in the tiny 1.4×1.4-mm form factor.
COB improvements
As reported by LEDs Magazine in June 2014, Lumileds’ CrispWhite technology made its “soft” debut at Light+Building that year; new COB LEDs actually launched later that summer. Designed to mimic the spectral power distribution (SPD) of the ceramic metal-halide (CMH) lamp — most popular in high-end retail settings — the device mixes blue-pump emitters with deep-blue chips for peaks at 410 and 460 nm. The 410-nm wavelength is responsible for the more brilliant white rendering.
Luxeon CrispWhite COBs have been previously available in 9–19-mm light-emitting surfaces but now bring 6-mm iterations to the mix. 95-CRI options have been on the market since 2019, but the company says the newest devices break the 100-lm/W efficacy barrier in both 90- and 95-CRI versions.
When asked how the LED performance has evolved since initial launch, a Lumileds representative commented via email, “Comparing to CrispWhite Gen 1 launched in 2014, flux and efficacy improvement were 17% (4399 lm vs. 3750 lm) and 16% (104 lm/W vs. 90 lm/W), respectively.” The company touts “an improved phosphor system” in the latest generation of the Luxeon CrispWhite COBs that enables increased flux and efficacy but did not elaborate on formulation.
Cyan expands color range
Moving to the Rubix LED release, Lumileds says the cyan device can be driven at up to 3A, with minimum luminous flux of 180 lm and typical 230 lm. The company announcement focuses on the demanding entertainment lighting application, stating that the addition of the cyan component to the existing portfolio enables “multicolor driven systems to produce very-high–CRI white light.”
Monochromatic red, green, blue, and royal blue and phosphor-converted (PC) white LEDs debuted in summer 2020 to address a range of dynamic color lighting needs such as automotive, emergency vehicles, building and landmark illumination, and industrial uses. Lumileds then added lime and PC amber to expand multichannel architectural and façade lighting capabilities in May 2021.
The nearby SPD diagram shows a deep trough around 480 nm where a combined RGB + PC amber + PC lime system demonstrates a gap in the spectral content that delivers a lower-CRI 3000K white light. With the added cyan, a system can achieve CRI of 98 at 3000K CCT.
Getting back to applications, the aforementioned high-impact entertainment, studio, and stage lighting would of course be a high-value target for solid-state lighting (SSL) product developers. “We love the finesse cyan contributes to skin tone rendering and the increased gamut and spectral tunability in the blue-green area,” said Wendy Luedtke, ETC product technology specialist – color, in the Lumileds release. Such skin-tone fidelity could potentially be key in healthcare environments, where medical diagnoses can hinge on being able to determine patient oxygenation levels or other visual exam cues, for example.
CARRIE MEADOWS is managing editor of LEDs Magazine, with 20 years’ experience in business-to-business publishing across technology markets including solid-state technology manufacturing, fiberoptic communications, machine vision, lasers and photonics, and LEDs and lighting.
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