Probably closer to 5 than to 6. It seems 5mm LEDs have petered out, with the majority being in the 60 to 70 lm/W range at 20 mA (~4 lm@ 20 mA), but a few better ones such as the Jeled 55,000 mcd hitting perhaps 80 to 85 lm/W. Nichia allegedy promised to release 150 lm/W whites this year or next, but I haven't even seen the 100 lm/W ones promised last April out yet. Most of the R&D these days is going into power LEDs. I guess for most very small lighting uses 60 to 80 lm/W is considered "good enough" by LED manufacturers. Another possibility is that all of the higher-grade blue chips are being using for applications like cell-phone backlighting, leaving the less than prime grades for commodity 5mm LED manufacture. That would certainly explain the apparent stagnation of efficiencies for the last year or so, although I think average efficiencies of the really low grade stuff is still rising. A year ago the super cheap (i.e. less than $0.05 in quantity) white 5mm LEDs might only manage 20 or 30 lm/W. Today they're probably doing 40 or 45 lm/W. The premium stuff has been stuck at around 80 to 85 for a while though.Good white 5 mm LEDs provide about 4 lm at 20 mA (about 60 lm/W). Expect about 10 lm when driven at 60 mA, but they're dropping rapidly.
I think the very best ones now reach around 6 lm at 20 mA, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
Probably closer to 5 than to 6. I haven't even seen the 100 lm/W ones promised last April out yet.
I know about the specs for the new DS. However, extremely limited availability at ridiculous prices isn't "out" in my book. When you can buy these for a similar price to the CS at the Nichia store, and get all you want, I'll consider them available. Like I said, they were supposed to have been out last April according to Nichia's press release. I'm still waiting.I thought these were out and were the new DS, hence the 6 lm. They're more than due.