- 20 July 2006 -

'Bulb Buster' for the KO Family of Power-LED Chips

Sunnyvale, CA, USA, based BridgeLux, Inc. (formerly eLite Optoelectronics), a supplier of energy saving, power-LED chips, introduced the KO family of LEDs, including the only 60-mil chip available in production volumes today. A LED's low profile and compact size present unprecedented opportunities to develop innovative new packages that are not limited by a traditional incandescent or fluorescent bulb's space requirements. The KO blue family is available in 60, 40, 30 and 24-mil chip sizes (1.5mm to 0.6mm).

Power-LEDs are generally recognized as those devices that operate at 350mA and greater current, and are appropriate for solid state lighting applications requiring maximum brightness in minimum space, including automotive forward lighting, camera flashes and general illumination. The increased efficiency and reliability of solid state lighting promises to help to reduce worldwide energy consumption and conserve our planet's valuable natural resources.

According to BridgeLux CEO, Dr. Robert Walker, "The development objective with the KO series was to reduce the input voltage while increasing the overall light extraction. The net result is a fully scalable family of LED chips that yields a 10-30% increase in its light output efficiency." Decreasing the input or "forward" voltage required for a given drive current results in a device with lower overall power consumption and lower heat generation for a given amount of light, all of which contribute to producing more "lumens-per-watt."
The 1.5mm KO is the only 60-mil chip available in volume production with colour choices range from 445 to 475-nm blue, as well as high efficiency cyan and green. Die bonding options include traditional silver epoxy as well as the newer eutectic techniques.

When combined with phosphors to generate white light, depending upon packaging design, the 60-mil KO can support up to 1.2A drive current enabling a targeted white output of 140 lumens. The entire family is designed to stand up to 150C junction temperatures and 40% higher drive currents than is commonly found for similarly sized devices, all without compromising overall reliability. Dr. Walker commented that, "These chips are designed for brightness. Combining 6 of these devices produces roughly the light output of your typical 60W incandescent bulb, but requires less than one-third the power. We've nicknamed the 60-mil KO, 'the bulb buster' since we have something here that can really begin to challenge traditional lighting solutions in general purpose illumination."
With much of the early intellectual property in power-LEDs having been closely held by just a few manufacturers, LED packagers have had limited access to merchant supply sources for power-LED chips. Those that had been available were often from suppliers who also produced their own packaged devices, effectively putting them in competition with their own customers. BridgeLux encourages the industry to respect IP, and advance the technology through competitive innovation.

The company's power-LEDs are patent-protected and conformant to the recently announced intellectual property substantiation standards of the IP-Secure Lighting Alliance (www.IPSLA.org).

For more information visit http://www.bridgelux.com