There are a few major LED makers out there. However Cree currently dominates most of the modern production market.
Let's see if I can make a quick breakdown here.
The first white LEDs were the tiny little 5mm LEDs and Nichia has dominated that sector for some time. They really don't make an easily obtainable power LED package that works well in lights. I think the only Nichia power LEDs that I've seen used are a small run by member Arcmania. McGizmo also uses a different, special high CRI Nichia LED in his Sundrop lights.
LumiLEDs owned by Phillips now was the big name a few years ago when they hit it big with their Luxeon brand power LEDs. A big step beyond the 5mm "showerhead" lights of the time. (around 2000, or 2001 iirc) Last year they made a large mis step and had to recall thousands of not millions of their TFFC K2 and rebel LEDs. They're starting to get back in the game by the sounds of it but currently don't have anything that can quite compete with the offerings of Cree at the moment imho.
Cree showed up about 3 years ago and blew up the LED market they continue to lead right now. We'll see if they can stay on top in the future. One thing that makes them really good is their availability. Cree LEDs are far more available than LumiLEDs who distribute thru one terrible little channel.
Crees are the Q5's and R2's you see so often. The Q5 and R2 refer to the flux bin of the led. Pretty much the estimate of brightness at a given power input. Cree has 3 major models in the flashlight LED market at the moment. The XR-E which knocked everyone's socks off 2-3 years ago. The MC-E which is a 4-die package, and the newer XP-E. (Both the XR-E and the XP-E use the Q5, R2 flux bin designations by the way)
The new LED that they're slated to realease this fall as far as we know is the XP-G.
SSC (Seoul Semiconductor) is another company that has been populat in the past couple years. They currently make the P7 quad die. THe P4s have been very popular with modders and custom builders over the past couple years due to their easy compatibility with many older Luxeon lights.
Osram has been stepping up to the plate over the past year releasing a couple good emitters. The 6 die Ostar has become more readily available and has shown up reciently in some production lights. They also make the golden dragon, diamond dragon, etc.
Another new kid on the block is Phatlight which are releasing samples of sime interesting high power LED emitters. The SST50 and the SST90 are of keen interest to the CPF community at the moment.
There are a couple other minor LED manufacturers out there but nothing that really matters much to CPF at the moment.
Hope this helps.
