Osram announces Red LED - 50% efficiency at 350mA

[slebans]

Don't get too excited as it is only a "Lab" announcement at this time. This represents an impressive 25% gain over the 40% efficient Red Leds Osram currently produces.
http://www.ledinside.com/osram_20111011

Stephen Lebans

 

[bshanahan14rulz]

not bad, kinda orangy, but not bad!

 

[blasterman]

Not that I'm against improvements in red LED efficiency, but it does make me chuckle given it's usually the, uh, indoors horticulture industry that's paying the most attention.🙂

 

[Kinnza]

Actually, later improvements on the efficiency of red LEDs has anything to do with horticulture industry, but is a key for the development of highly efficient warm whites and in general, of white LEDs of good quality. The need of efficient red LEDs in the way of quality and efficient white LED lighting was noticed years ago, but research funds prioritized developing InGaN chips in order to as faster as possible introduction in the market of general lighting.

Warm white of minimal color quality has a minimum of 50% of spectral output past 600nm, usually about 60%. Getting light of this long wavelengths by means of blue pumped phosphors is very inefficient due Stokes losses and the own losses of phosphor conversion. Thus the solution is to use orange-red LEDs. Orange (605-615nm) for the highest lm output and red (or orange+red) for highest CRI (or color quality, in general).

If you get an efficient 6500K white LED with very bad red rendering and add to it a 610nm orange LED of similar efficiency, you get a ~3000K white of better CRI. If you use a longer wavelength red you can obtain a yet efficient warm white but with high CRI. Not only that, but adjusting the current on the red chip, you can tune CCT easily.

Most warm white products released lately with high performance (both color and lm/W) are using this approach. Cree, Osram, Epistar....

The nice thing about this Osram's announcement is the improvement apply to all AlInGaP chips and that it is going to be implemented on all that color range along the next year.

 

[blasterman]

Pardon my sense of humour above,.....I totally agree with you.:thumbsup:

The transition from cool white to warm white LEDs has until a year or two ago caused such a drop in efficiency performance that it's been difficult for consumers to obtain the lighting they want simply because the big LED makers are too busy battling over cool-white / low CRI efficiency.

Red and amber production has been the obvious anchor in terms of warmer or high CRI LED color rendition at the expense of efficiency, so this is obviously good news on any front.

 

[jtr1962]

This is a great breakthough. Now LEDs on both sides of the visible spectrum produce more light than heat. Once we accomplish something similar for the middle part of the visible spectrum (500 nm - 600 nm) we can in theory have >200 lm/W RGB or RGBA lighting. Even without that, this is a very meaningful accomplishment. To reiterate what blasterman said, we can now add red to the spectrum of a white LED without high Stokes losses. Better yet, this opens the door to tuneable CCT lighting with decent CRI across the entire adjustment range.

 

[bshanahan14rulz]

I think more sales probably go to automotive parts manufacturers (OEMs more than aftermarkets) than to the horticultural crowd. Amber and red-orange are really the main color LEDs that are used in cars anyways.

Next step: better greens

 

[slebans]

Don't get too excited as it is only a "Lab" announcement at this time. This represents an impressive 25% gain over the 40% efficient Red Leds Osram currently produces.
http://www.ledinside.com/osram_20111011

Stephen Lebans

An update in the form of a new press release can be found here:
Summary:
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/products/33356

Full Press Release:
http://www.osram-os.com/osram_os/EN...ange_and_yellow_with_new_chip_technology.html

What I find interesting is these LEDs are now spec'd to have a useful life greater than 100,000 hours.

Quote from press release:
Depending on the wavelength (590 nm - 660 nm) the new LEDs achieve per increases of 10 to 20 percent. The flagship is the Hyperred version (660 nm) that hits this 20 percent mark. With a brightness of 400 mW at an operating current of 400 mA the LED is much brighter than the predecessor model. It converts 46 percent of the current into light. At an operating current of 350 mA it achieves an impressive 355 mW, which corresponds to a conversion rate of 49 percent. What’s more, the LED has a long life: At an operating current of 700 mA and at a temperature of 80°C it will last more than 100,000 hours (L70/B50).


Stephen Lebans

 

[SemiMan]

An update in the form of a new press release can be found here:
Summary:
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/products/33356

Full Press Release:
http://www.osram-os.com/osram_os/EN...ange_and_yellow_with_new_chip_technology.html

What I find interesting is these LEDs are now spec'd to have a useful life greater than 100,000 hours.

Quote from press release:
Depending on the wavelength (590 nm - 660 nm) the new LEDs achieve per increases of 10 to 20 percent. The flagship is the Hyperred version (660 nm) that hits this 20 percent mark. With a brightness of 400 mW at an operating current of 400 mA the LED is much brighter than the predecessor model. It converts 46 percent of the current into light. At an operating current of 350 mA it achieves an impressive 355 mW, which corresponds to a conversion rate of 49 percent. What’s more, the LED has a long life: At an operating current of 700 mA and at a temperature of 80°C it will last more than 100,000 hours (L70/B50).


Stephen Lebans

Being lazy, but any improvement in output versus temperature, always an issue with AlInGaAp.

Semi