Cree Inc., of Durham, North Carolina USA, announced the company’s new NX technology platform. Cree says that the NX technology will power its next generation of lighting-class LEDs. The new NX technology platform incorporates advances in a number of components and technologies including simpler manufacturing processes, new package designs, and a more efficient phosphor system. Another advance of the NX technology platform is Cree’s Dmax™ LED chip.
According to Cree, the technology platform enables the new Extreme Density (XD) LED family that boasts up to four times higher lumen density than its previous generation of high-power LEDs. Cree says that this new technology platform eliminates current constraints for a broad range of lighting applications such as industrial lighting, color-mixing, and directional lighting.
Cree says that the NX platform eliminates the problems after reflow soldering of rotating and tilting LED chips. Such issues can reduce manufacturing yield, create thermal conduction problems, and decrease reliability. An additional benefit of the NX technology is 4x less optical losses compared to competing LEDs placed close together. This improvement translates to less wasted light and higher efficiency for lighting products. The NX platform also enables better color mixing, Cree contends. Human-centric circadian lighting and horticultural lighting employ such color mixing designs.
“Cree continues to deliver LED innovation that fundamentally changes the rules and propels the industry forward,” said Dave Emerson, Cree LEDs senior vice president, and general manager. “Our new NX technology platform builds on Cree’s advancements in epitaxial structure, chip architecture, and light conversion, and leverages Cree’s lighting applications expertise. Unlike other technology platforms adapted from LCD backlighting applications, our NX technology platform was designed from the beginning to dramatically improve the performance of LEDs in lighting applications.”
The XLamp® XD16 LED is the first in the new family of XD LEDs. The XD16 delivers a lumen density of up to 264 lm per square-millimeter. Cree contends that this lumen density is 50 percent higher than the highest lumen density LEDs currently available.
Cree optimized the XD16 specifically for applications that require high light output and high lumens-per-watt, such as high bays and street lights. In addition, XD16 LED uses a ceramic substrate and addresses challenges with optical design, thermal design, assembly, and reliability that other competing LED technologies experience.
The company will release engineering samples of XLamp® XD16 LED by late spring and will make production quantities available by the end of summer. For more about the NX technology platform and XLamp XD family of LEDs, visit www.cree.com/nx.
