Terminology question: What is the meaning of "bin"?

I always read things like 70 bin, 100 bin, etc when people talk about LED. What does the term "bin" mean? If a certain LED has a higher bin than another LED, what does that signify?

Thanks.

LED manufacturers don't have enough control over the process to produce LEDs with a consistent efficiency or color. So after they manufacture them, they sort them according to color and the amount of light output for a given current. Conceptually, they have a number of "bins" they put the LEDs into according to color and output.

As their processes improve, they're able to produce a larger fraction of LEDs with better efficiency, so the availability of LEDs from higher efficiency "bins" increases.

c_c

so, there's really no standard or consistency from last production to it's current production?
they can have alot of highly efficient leds last week, and really dim ones this week, so the highest efficient of the duds would go in the higher bin number even though it still would not equal the lowest of last weeks bin?

senecaripple said:

so, there's really no standard or consistency from last production to it's current production?
they can have alot of highly efficient leds last week, and really dim ones this week, so the highest efficient of the duds would go in the higher bin number even though it still would not equal the lowest of last weeks bin?

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No, the bin designations are absolute, not relative. The low-bin LEDs made this week will go into the low bins with the ones from last week.

This explains why my L1DCE, L2DCE,P2DCE all have different tints.

fluke said:

This explains why my L1DCE, L2DCE,P2DCE all have different tints.

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You also have to remember that each "bin" represents a range of tints or brightness. So even two LEDs from the same color bin can have visably different tints, and two from the same brightness bin can have measurably different brightness. In fact the difference can actually be greater than in some cases where they come from adjacent bins.

c_c

so without any uniformity, I can have a better batch than you.