# Cree Achieves 161 Lumens per Watt from a High-Power LED



## mds82 (Nov 19, 2008)

http://www.cree.com/press/press_detail.asp?i=1227101620851 

damn, cant wait for this guy to come out!

ha ha, maybe 1 year? j/k!!!


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## Manzerick (Nov 19, 2008)

Nice!!

While reading it i clicked on the home products link and can't wait for the light bulbs to be here!! (no special drop in fixture or anything!!!)


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## JohnR66 (Nov 19, 2008)

And at a warmer color temp too! This is the gist of the story:

"Cree’s tests confirmed that the 1mm x 1mm LED produced 173 lumens of light output and achieved 161 lumens per watt efficacy at a color temperature of 4689K. The tests were conducted under standard LED test conditions at a drive current of 350mA, at room temperature.":thumbsup:

Guess I have to save for another round of flashlights and cree emitters again...


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## baterija (Nov 19, 2008)

Doing the math from the total lumens to lumens per watt figures it's showing a Vf of about 3.1 volts too. No funky Vf rating surprises that should cause issues with current drivers. It's about a 40% jump in output above the top of the R2 bin.

Looks like I have from now till they figure out how to produce it economically in mass to learn how to solder. :thumbsup:


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## LED_Thrift (Nov 19, 2008)

173 lumens @ 350mA! YEAH !


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## matrixshaman (Nov 19, 2008)

Go Cree!


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## tebore (Nov 19, 2008)

The R2 is over 100lm/watt already at 350mA(IIRC it was around 110-120.) it was only a matter of time. 

The amazing thing is it's doing it at less than 5000k. Most of the lab LEDs that are breaking records are over 5000k. 

C'mon trickle down effect in to SSC. Where is LumiLED in all of this action even Osram is back in the top efficiency game.


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## ICUDoc (Nov 19, 2008)

I have been very impressed by the way Cree announces things, and we often see products on the shelves a few months later- here's hoping we get the same service this time. High efficiency AND nice colour temp- wow!


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## 2xTrinity (Nov 19, 2008)

tebore said:


> The R2 is over 100lm/watt already at 350mA(IIRC it was around 110-120.) it was only a matter of time.
> 
> The amazing thing is it's doing it at less than 5000k. Most of the lab LEDs that are breaking records are over 5000k.


I have actually expected color temp to go down to the 3500k-4500k range for lumens/watt to increase. Our eyes are much more sensitive to the red/yellow/green wavelengths from the phosphor than the blue generated from the LED. So to get higher lumens/watt, a white with a higher ratio of yellow/green compared to primary blue output will be necessary.

This improved eye sensitivity to lower CCT has been offset by the fact that up to this point, neutral and warm white LEDs have had less efficient phosphors in terms of optical power. But to the extent they can overcome those difficult and make the warmer phosphors as efficient as the cool white phosphors have been, lumens/watt will be higher for lower color temperature.



> C'mon trickle down effect in to SSC. Where is LumiLED in all of this action even Osram is back in the top efficiency game.


My guess at this point is that these improvements have as much or more to do with the phosphor as they do the base LED. This means that the improvements wont' automatically "trickle down" to SSC as simply as swapping in a new chip. 

My suspicion is that in the past, when SSC was consistently posting higher lumen/watt numbers than Cree was that their phosphor package was more efficient. Now I believe Cree may have caught up up or surpassed them in phosphor efficiency. In reality the improvement is probably a combination of improved dice and improved phosphor, but as an outside observer it's almost impossible to tell how much of which has improved. My post is pure speculation.


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## Sgt. LED (Nov 19, 2008)

CRAP

Now I am outdated again.


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## jtr1962 (Nov 19, 2008)

2xTrinity said:


> My suspicion is that in the past, when SSC was consistently posting higher lumen/watt numbers than Cree was that their phosphor package was more efficient. Now I believe Cree may have caught up up or surpassed them in phosphor efficiency. In reality the improvement is probably a combination of improved dice and improved phosphor, but as an outside observer it's almost impossible to tell how much of which has improved. My post is pure speculation.


At the wavelengths involved maximum theoretical phosphor efficiency is in the low 80s and practical phosphors are already in the mid-70s. In other words, phosphor improvements will only get us a few percent improvement. Assuming this LED is in the 82% area as far as phosphor efficiency, this implies a blue die with a conversion efficiency of around 60%. If the phosphor conversion is only about 75% efficient, then the blue die would be around 65% efficient. Regardless, a blue die converting between 60% and 65% of the electrical energy to light at 350 mA is a significant development.

I'd love to see the results at lower currents but just looking at the numbers it appears they've solved the issue of efficiency droop somewhat. Remember that my lumens testing of the R2 put the efficiency around 105 lm/W at 350 mA but about 40% more, or 150 lm/W, at 20 mA. This LED probably wouldn't exhibit a similar change or that would imply ~230 lm/W at 20 mA, a figure which would be highly doubtful. In other words, efficiency probably doesn't drop as much with current.

Now for Cree to put these improvements into a practical product....


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## IsaacHayes (Nov 19, 2008)

..........And for me to drive them at 1amp + !!


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## saabluster (Nov 19, 2008)

IsaacHayes said:


> ..........And for me to drive them at 1amp + !!


I can't wait to run them at 3A!:naughty:


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## Gryloc (Nov 19, 2008)

Just to stir the pot, is there any possible relation with the emitter mentioned in this old release?

If you use these efficiency claims to create a lm/I curve similar to current generation emitters, can anyone guess if these two emitters are related, or if you can get 1000lm from this 160lm/W emitter? I do not have time to toy with numbers now (dang exams), but maybe afterward, I will play with the numbers...

This is great news, but can it be vaporware as well (like the single die 1000lm emitter linked above)? Cree sort of hit a wall with efficiency lately, with the Q5 staying nearly at the top for over a year. Cree does not seem to be budging after the release of the R2, and I had my doubts over whether a R3 or R4 would ever see the light of day. If Cree does develop another efficiency jump like what we seen with the first XR-E, then that will be an amazingly painful one-two punch to Lumileds. I still have hope for Lumileds though...

-Tony

EDIT:
Oh, and as an afterthought (after seeing the above post), I cannot imagine how flooded saabluster's house is right now. All that drool. He may drown in it and go to LED heaven. Seriously, this would be good news for OMG Enterprises.


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## saabluster (Nov 19, 2008)

There is probably some of the same technology being used with this new one but they are different dies. The one you linked to was larger than 1mm x 1mm.



Gryloc said:


> Just to stir the pot, is there any possible relation with the emitter mentioned in this old release?
> 
> If you use these efficiency claims to create a lm/I curve similar to current generation emitters, can anyone guess if these two emitters are related, or if you can get 1000lm from this 160lm/W emitter? I do not have time to toy with numbers now (dang exams), but maybe afterward, I will play with the numbers...
> 
> ...


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## Gryloc (Nov 19, 2008)

Actually, never mind. I completely misread your post. Please ignore this post...

Thanks for clarifying...


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## saabluster (Nov 20, 2008)

Gryloc said:


> Oh, and as an afterthought (after seeing the above post), I cannot imagine how flooded saabluster's house is right now. All that drool. He may drown in it and go to LED heaven. Seriously, this would be good news for OMG Enterprises.


Glub Glub:green: 



Funny, I didn't even see your comment the first time around. If *only* I had some inside contacts. I think I need to work on that in the coming year.


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## StarHalo (Nov 20, 2008)

Why isn't there somebody from Cree demonstrating these things to us here on the forum? You'd think there'd at least be one guy who'd at least want to show off a prototype.."This Fenix LD01 has a 300 lumen high mode..."


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## IMSabbel (Nov 20, 2008)

Just to curb the enthusiasm a bit, this is not really news, and only a couple of lumens higher than their last record a year or so ago.

If you make a milllion led dies, a few of them will be more outside the 2 sigma range. They got _one_ of those, remember?


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## saabluster (Nov 20, 2008)

IMSabbel said:


> Just to curb the enthusiasm a bit, this is not really news, and only a couple of lumens higher than their last record a year or so ago.
> 
> If you make a milllion led dies, a few of them will be more outside the 2 sigma range. They got _one_ of those, remember?


I hardly think this is something they just pulled off the production line. These have to be grown in the lab under special conditions to get *that* much better than the existing dies.


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## qwertyydude (Nov 20, 2008)

I want my S5 bin led come on cree!


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## MSI (Nov 21, 2008)

If they follow their current bin coding pattern, then we get the following bin codes:

R2 114 - 122
R3 122 - 130
R4 130 - 138
R5 138 - 146
R6 146 - 154
T2 154 - 162
T3 162 - 170
T4 170 - 178
T5 178 - 186
T6 186 - 194
U2 194 - 202
U3 202 - 210
...

From P4 to R2 there is a jump of 5 bin codes (40% lm increase), and from R2 to T4 (where this new emitter gets placed) there is a jump of 7 bin codes (47% lm increase). Pretty impressive!

According to LITEmania, Osram will release 150 lm/watt Golden Dragons in January 2009, so I guess Cree will have to start delivering higher bin codes than R2 real soon to be able to keep up with the competition.


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## jtr1962 (Nov 21, 2008)

Actually, it's about 7% between bin codes so here's what I came up with:

R2 114 - 122
R3 122 - 131
R4 131 - 140
R5 140 - 150
R6 150 - 160
S2 160 - 171
S3 171 - 183
S4 183 - 196
S5 196 - 210
S6 210 - 225
T2 225 - 240
T3 240 - 257
T4 257 - 275
T5 275 - 295
T6 295 - 315

Not much point going beyond T bin as 315 lumens at 350 mA is probably all we're ever going to see from any white emitter, even RGB white. For phosphor white maximum theoretical efficiency (i.e. 100% efficient blue emitter, minimum possible phosphor losses) is somewhere around the T4 bin.

Practically speaking, I highly doubt we'll see T bin phosphor-based whites but S bin should hopefully be reality in the not too distant future.


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## LEDAdd1ct (Nov 23, 2008)

Oh dear, there's a pool of drool on the floor...again....


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## tsask (Nov 23, 2008)

I'd like to see what the industry's "sleeping giant", OSRAM Sylvania has say about this. The story continues......


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## lukestephens777 (Nov 23, 2008)

I'm curious to see what Lumileds have in store...


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## WadeF (Nov 29, 2008)

Can you imagine one of these in a Dereelight DBS driven at 1.2A or more? 

Can anyone guess what kind of emitter lumens these would produce at 1A, 1.2A? Right now an R2 is probably around 270-280? So would we be looking at around 400, for over 300 out the front lumens from a 1x1 LED? That will be some blazing throw.


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## txgp17 (Nov 29, 2008)

Imagine that emitter on a 4x4 die, in a Malkoff Drop In.

OUCH.


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## effulgentOne (Nov 29, 2008)

This announcement will save me money:
"I don't need that now, I'll just wait for the new LEDs so it won't be obsolete..."

However, I will waste copious amounts of time figuring out how bright I could make certain lights, and how long they would run, and the benefits of a warmer color temperature, and, and ...

So I guess it all evens out. :tinfoil:


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## effulgentOne (Nov 29, 2008)

First thought:

Increased efficiency -> less heat -> more power for the same heat

I wonder if these will be capable of higher currents than today's LEDs?


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## liquidsix (Nov 29, 2008)

Awesome, I thought we hit a wall as far as efficiency goes, and that led manufacturers were more concerned with lowering the color temperature. I mean the Q5 came out around june of '07, and the R2 was about november or decemberish (?) and we haven't seen any new bins in about a year.

I wonder if cree will slowly release new bins, or do a quick jump to mass marketing the 'T2' bin? My guess is that it will be quick, the Q2,Q3, and Q4 never really had a moment to shine before the Q5 came.


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