15 November 2010

Epistar achieves record 162lm/W efficiency cool-white LED

Taiwan’s largest LED chipmaker Epistar Corp of Hsin-chu Science-based Industrial Park says that it has developed a high-voltage (HV) chip that enables record luminous efficacy of 162lm/W (lumens per watt) for a cool-white LED.

Epistar Lab achieved the record efficiency with a large-chip 45mil indium gallium nitride (InGaN) HV-LED with a cool-white color temperature of 5000K operated at a drive current of 20mA.

The firm recently started shipping HV-LEDs with efficiency of 110lm/W, and just in late August it unveiled white HV-LED operation with efficacy of 135lm/W at a power of 1W and a color temperature of 5000K.

Epistar says that, compared with traditional LEDs, the HV-LED offers less power consumption and higher wall-plug efficiency because of its high-voltage monolithically integrated DC multi-array chip design, which improves current spreading. Also, flexibility in voltage and current adjustment can simplify the LED package and circuit design, enhancing overall efficiency, the firm claims. Due to enabling power saving, Epistar expects the new HV-LED to be used in general lighting applications. Mass production of the 162lm/W HVLED is expected to start in second-quarter 2011.

According to a report in Digitimes, Epistar also expects the efficacy of its warm-white LEDs to reach 130–150lm/W by the end of 2010 (after achieving 110lm/W warm-white LEDs in October 2009). LED lighting products accounted for about 20% of Epistar's revenue in third-quarter 2010, and it expects this to reach 30% in 2011 as LED lighting becomes its main focus as luminous efficacy continues to improve and prices drop.

See related items:

Epistar raises AlGaInP LED efficiency record at 20mA by 26% from 133 to 168lm/W

Tags: Epistar White LEDs

Visit: www.digitimes.com

Visit: www.epistar.com.tw