Cree has just announced what we have been anticipating for a while now; the XT-E white. While it’s not besting the XP-G in terms of overall output (it’s close) and efficiency, The XT-E white will bring some of the same features that the XB-D did.
The XT-E white is using the same silicon carbide technology that the XB-D introduced last month that should help bring costs down, and shares the same die structure as its royal blue counterpart. This should combine to make an LED with good efficiency, lower costs, and slightly wider light distribution when compared to the XP-G. Making the footprint directly compatible with the XP-G will make life easier for integrators too.
Performance wise, the new LED is boasting up to 148lm/W at 85C in cool white configurations with voltage ranges very similar to the XP-G. It looks like Cree is putting the phosphor into the dome itself rather than applying it directly to the die. This may help reduce some color separation issues at wider angles that have been seen with newer high power LEDs like the XM-L.
Much like we found with the XB-D LED feature we posted a few weeks back, this LED is a little too new to see how pricing will change for this new product, but you can bet that it will be a very affordable LED for the performance given based on what we saw with the XB-D pricing. Silicon carbide is the way the industry is moving, and it’s going to be bringing prices down to much more competitive levels.
[Cree]
