60 lm @ 350mA and 100lm/w Cree LEDs presented

[NewBie]

"Cree Reveals Latest White LED Performance Results at Strategies in Light
February 8, 2005...Cree, Inc. of Durham, North Carolina USA one of the undisputed "Big 5" in advanced LED manufacturing, is taking the opportunity of this week's Strategies In Light conference in Burlingame, California USA to announce their most recent breakthrough in white LED performance. The results were 100 lumens per watt and 50 percent wall-plug efficiency from standard 5 mm LEDs and maximum luminous flux of 60 lumens from its 7090 series white XLamp power LEDs operating at 350 mA."

http://www.sslighting.net/lightimes/?date=2005-02-08

 

[idleprocess]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

I'd like to see 100 lm/W 7090 Xlamps. Might inspire me to learn to solder SMD parts.

 

[jtr1962]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

Interesting that I predicted we would break the 100 lm/W barrier fairly soon. Two months into 2005 we already have.

I only have one question regarding the 100 lm/W 5mm LEDs-how long before they show up on eBay?

Imagine the BL-3000 Lamina array with these dice-2500 lumens at nominal power, probably capable of over 5000 lumens overdriven, and more efficient than most fluorescents over most of the power curve.

 

[NewBie]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

I remember one college student underpowering Nichia parts to reach 63 lm/w, the cost wasn't an issue (yeah right).

Anyhow, the XL7090, already doing 60 lumens off 350mA, I wonder just how efficient these puppies get under powered.

Of course you could always under power Cree's 100lm/w part...


With CREE kicking down lots of records lately, and even shipping product producing the records, I wonder if LumiLEDs is just a stick in the mud, or just trying to squeeze every penny they can out of their old parts.



""The breakthrough level of brightness we have demonstrated outpaces any known commercial offering on the market today and we believe this achievement sets a new benchmark in the industry," stated Norbert Hiller, Vice President of Cree Lighting. "The XLamp 7090 white LED delivers significantly more light for architectural lighting and backlighting applications." "

 

[evan9162]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

So tell me,

Is this maximum of 60 lumens anything that would be achievable by a product you buy, or did they simply have a binning scheme where 60lu is the upper limit?

Because you could say that Lumiled's Luxeon V produces up to 250lu at 4.8W, and you wouldn't be lying, since the X-bin is applicable, and they probably have lab samples that have done that.

How much of this is marketing, and how much is what will actually end up in our hands soon?

 

[jtr1962]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

[ QUOTE ]
NewBie said:
With CREE kicking down lots of records lately, and even shipping product producing the records, I wonder if LumiLEDs is just a stick in the mud, or just trying to squeeze every penny they can out of their old parts.


[/ QUOTE ]
I'd say the latter. If they hope to remain competitive, they're going to have to either lower their price or have some really big improvement sometime very soon.

And BTW, a part of me is very happy we finally demonstrated 100 lm/W. I was getting tired of all the naysayers telling us it wouldn't happen for years or even decades. It looks like we may even reach that 2012 goal of 150 lm/W way ahead of schedule.

I question the 50% wall plug efficiency quoted in the article though. Given that the emitted spectrum of typical blue plus phosphor white LEDs has a luminous efficacy of maybe 300 lm/W or more, we're probably looking at something like 30% to 35% wall plug efficiency here. In fact, when you consider losses in the phosphor conversion, a 50% overall efficiency would imply a blue die with an efficiency of over 70%. I doubt it. Maybe the 50% figure is the efficiency of the blue die itself.

 

[SemiMan]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

I guess I have a hard time though believing some of the Cree claims. Their data sheet for the XLAMP states TYPICAL - 60 Lumens at 350mA. Obviously from their press release, that must be a lie as it appears more like the top end of the yield is 60 lumens, not the typical at all. I wonder what the typical is for real. That would allow a more apples to apples comparison with the likes of Nichia, Lumileds, OSRAM,et. all. 100/watt is pretty impressive.

Semiman

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

Until you can buy them, specs of non available parts don't impress me. I have heard of stuff all the time that ended up never being able to be produced in any quantity worth manufacturing. Kind of like drugs the drugs companies claim do this and that and never make it to the market because the claims ended up being bogus and only reproducable in ideal factory conditions.

 

[inluxication]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

Semiman, excellent points, thanks. To add another (less sophisticated) caveat, to me "100 lumens per watt and 50 percent wall-plug efficiency from standard 5 mm LEDs and maximum luminous flux of 60 lumens from its 7090 series white XLamp power LEDs operating at 350 mA" looks like it may be two separate assertions -- i.e., no efficiency claim for the 60lm LEDs.

 

[NewBie]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

[ QUOTE ]
Lynx_Arc said:
Until you can buy them, specs of non available parts don't impress me. I have heard of stuff all the time that ended up never being able to be produced in any quantity worth manufacturing. Kind of like drugs the drugs companies claim do this and that and never make it to the market because the claims ended up being bogus and only reproducable in ideal factory conditions.

[/ QUOTE ]


Duh.

You can buy them, they have been out already.

Give ETGTech (their distributor) a call.
http://www.etgtech.com/


I assume you did see this release back in very early November?

Durham, NC, November 3, 2004 - Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE), a market leader in light emitting diode (LED) technology, today announced that its XLamp™ 7090 white LED product has achieved the highest commercially available brightness in the industry, offering 40-60 lumens at 350mA. With a typical brightness of 45 lumens, the XLamp 7090 white LED significantly reduces energy consumption by providing customers more light in the same amount of space using less electrical power. Cree's new higher brightness white XLamp LEDs are available in sample quantities, with production volumes targeted to be available in December 2004.

http://www.cree.com/News/news210.asp

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

typical 45 lumens isn't 60 to 100, have you heard of anyone that has actually had one of these in their hand to test? I see they offer some sort of *kit* for $100 but I do not see them offering them in quantity yet. I will wait till someone gives a review here of them and tells me they are what they claim to be and not trust reviews from people associated with manufacturers telling me they are uber. I guess I am skeptical of press releases that predate products that never make it to the mainstream public in reasonable time. There are often claims of stuff that never make it to us within 5 years of the claim.

 

[OddOne]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

It looks like the entire LED world is poising for the next jump in the technology. We have massive arrays in single packages coming out, improvements in thermal management, and now improvements in the chips and phosphors themselves, all hitting at about the same time.

We may be about to see the next big thing emerge, the biggest change since the Luxeons came out.

oO

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

I would guess instead of a *big* jump in technology unless the chinese etc and koreans come out with it you may see the improvements rationed to the highest bidder. Citing a thread on 26,000mcd 5mm LEDs that didn't come from nichia or any of the major players as an example. Where is the cree 30,000 mcd 5mm LEDs? nowhere I know of, seems all the big name LED makers have given up on improving 5mm LEDs and making them mass marketable.

 

[NewBie]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

CREE is one of the largest LED die suppliers in the world, ranked one of the Big 5 in LEDs, and many of their die are distributed to manufacturer's in Asia, if you look at their investors reports, you'll see hundreds of millions of dollars of die are sold.

CREE isn't stupid, not alot of money to be made in 5mm LEDs, especially with US labor rates...


Lynx_Arc:

You can purchase the LEDs with no problem, at volume on 1,000 quantity on a standard reel right now.


There are in fact several cpf'ers that have these parts in their hot grubby hands.

If you haven't seen CREE parts before, this is what they look like:

The production machines for the 1W LEDs are running.

FYI, customers of CREE include folks like OSRAM, Kingbright, Sharp Corporation, Vishay, Stanley Electronics, Citizen Electronics, Rohm, etc. These companies buy the die from CREE.

In June 2003, CREE employed 1,121 people.

http://www.cree.com/Products/led_man.asp

Details on their revenues and such are here:

http://www.cree.com/News/news_index.asp

Details on the company are in this report:
http://www.cree.com/ftp/pub/cree_annual2003.pdf

For fiscal year 2003, Sumitomo's advance purchase commitment was 23 million, and Sumitomo's actual purchases were $54.6 million. For fiscal year 2004, Sumitomo's advance purchase commitment was approximately $100 million, which they exceeded. For 2005, Sumitomo's commitment is for $160 million USD. Sumitomo is an Asian distributor of CREE die for the Asian LED manufacturers, in 2003, 20 Japanese companies used the CREE die.

Sales to OSRAM Opto Semiconductors 21% (OSRAM committed to 500 million LEDs from CREE through June 2005) and Agilent Technologies (Malaysia)(LumiLED's parent company is Agilent, LumiLEDs has a Luxeon production facility in Malaysia also...) were 10% of revenue.

As of June 29, 2003, CREE had a backlog of ~$68 million.


For more recent news:

2005 Second Quarter Revenue:

Durham, NC, January 13, 2005 - Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE) today announced revenue of $97,451,000 for the second quarter of fiscal 2005 which ended on December 26, 2004, representing a 34 percent increase over the Company’s comparable year ago period revenue of $72,684,000. Gross margin for the second quarter of fiscal 2005 was 50.4% of revenue.


And no, I don't work for CREE, lol...

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

I checked around and nobody else but cree seems to sell the 7090 but there are articles about it everywhere some of which claim it to be up to 50 lm/watt instead of 60. My guess is it may take a few years before you can buy these from a distributor instead of trying to get 1000 pcs of them from cree. I may have missed it but I haven't seen a CPF'er review one of these yet so if they have any there is either a gag order or they are holding out on us. From the little I have gathered cree is falling behind on production quotas to the big players wanting their product which probably means prices don't go down nor do the smaller distributors get any supply to sell in smaller quantities to enthusiasts.

I am still a cynical skeptic, and no I don't work for cree either, lol

 

[Ocelot]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

[ QUOTE ]
NewBie said:
Duh.

You can buy them, they have been out already.

Give ETGTech (their distributor) a call.
http://www.etgtech.com/


[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, I went to ETGTech, and saw that they have signed an agreement with Cree to be an XLAMP 7090 distributor.

If you then click on "more info", it brings up a datasheet where the 7090 data is listed, with "typical" white lumens on their 350mA model being 28 lumens...

Am I missing something? Where is the 60 lumen value?

In addition, the Lumileds data sheet shows typical lumens of 31 for their 1W at 350mA...

While Cree appears to be a competitor that is going to provide another source for high-power LEDs, it appears that they haven't beaten Lumileds yet. In addition, there was a press release on the lumileds site:

http://lumileds.com/newsandevents/releases/PR31.PDF

185C junction temperature, "up to" 65 lumens in a 1W, etc.

Scott

 

[LED-FX]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

I see the point about junction temp and lumens per watt not in same paragraph but...

Is it a die advance or a package advance?

Is that a huge slab of copper the slug has morphed into, in more machine placement friendly format.

Lumileds were first out with Spider/Pirannha 4 lead package which added a lot more metal to take heat away from pretty much otherwise standard dice, allowing a bit more overdrive.

Lamina are on the same track with their baking trays, at a back of envelope calc, BL2000 run about 50mA a dice.

5mm LEDs are a packaging from back when a red LED was dim indicator on the front of a VCR ;-)

Adam

 

[pbarrette]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

Well,

If we're basing the Cree vs. Lumileds battle on manufacturer claims and documentation, then Cree wins this round.

Xlamp page:
http://www.cree.com/Products/Lighting/lmp_index.asp

Xlamp 7090 datasheet:
http://www.cree.com/Products/Lighting/downloads/XLamp7090.pdf

Xlamp binning:
http://www.cree.com/Products/Lighting/downloads/XLamp7090_B&L.pdf

Cree is claiming a typical flux of 45 lumens with up to 60 lumens, while their binning specs on the 1W lamps goes up to 87.4 lumens. This is just from the datasheets, as opposed to the Lumileds claim which is in press-release format only.

But the real test will come when I can hit the order button on a web page for a quantity of less than UNOBTAINABLE.

Now, what Cree really has in their favor is something that Lumileds is still lacking.. The ability to use standard reflow techniques to mount the suckers. Lumileds advises against standard reflow because of damage to the LED.

With Cree offering a part of roughly the same capabilities as the Luxeon line, but one that is reflow workable.. My guess is that these things will get picked up faster and in more quantity than the Lux's. That should mean more availability and cheaper prices to us in the near future.

pb

 

[NewBie]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

[ QUOTE ]
Ocelot said:
[ QUOTE ]
NewBie said:
Duh.

You can buy them, they have been out already.

Give ETGTech (their distributor) a call.
http://www.etgtech.com/


[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, I went to ETGTech, and saw that they have signed an agreement with Cree to be an XLAMP 7090 distributor.

If you then click on "more info", it brings up a datasheet where the 7090 data is listed, with "typical" white lumens on their 350mA model being 28 lumens...

Am I missing something? Where is the 60 lumen value?

In addition, the Lumileds data sheet shows typical lumens of 31 for their 1W at 350mA...

While Cree appears to be a competitor that is going to provide another source for high-power LEDs, it appears that they haven't beaten Lumileds yet.
Scott

[/ QUOTE ]


You completely missed the boat and drown. Don't pass go, don't collect 200 dollars, go directly to jail.

Thats an old datasheet on the ETG site, from early last year. Here are some from later in 2004:
http://www.cree.com/Products/Lighting/downloads/OV-7090.pdf
http://www.cree.com/Products/Lighting/downloads/XLamp7090.pdf

The 40-60 lumens at 350mA parts have been shipping since at least December last year.


Right now the LumiLEDs parts are still vaporware and are only pre-announced for late this year. Hopefully they will get something you can buy before next year, but I am still doubtful, very. Meanwhile, personally, I'd definitely hold off on buying any LumiLEDs parts, since their new parts are "supposed" to arrive shortly, with considerably more output, but still not knocking CREE off for the King of Efficiency at 350mA.


[ QUOTE ]
pbarrette said:
But the real test will come when I can hit the order button on a web page for a quantity of less than UNOBTAINABLE.
pb

[/ QUOTE ]


If you'd bothered to make a simple phone call to ETG, you would have found you can order the high efficiency CREE parts. Unfortunately, their sample kits are spendy.

I've put these side by side by a TWOJ, wired in series- so each is recieving exactly the same current, on the same heatsink. The new CREE parts are quite noticeably brighter than a T bin Lux III, not just a little, but by nearly double the light output, judging by eyeball.

 

[Ocelot]

Re: 60 lm/w and 100lm/w Cree presented

[ QUOTE ]
pbarrette said:

Cree is claiming a typical flux of 45 lumens with up to 60 lumens, while their binning specs on the 1W lamps goes up to 87.4 lumens.

But the real test will come when I can hit the order button on a web page for a quantity of less than UNOBTAINABLE.



[/ QUOTE ]

While Cree's datasheet shows 45, the one they provided to their supplier says 28... They are both called the 7090, so it's not clear if one is a rev1 and the other is improved, or what. So what are we to believe...

In any case, *both* are currently unobtainable as you say.

Scott