Cree is showing no signs of slowing down when it comes to improving the little solid state lighting devices that they are well known for. In a statement yesterday, they announced a new breakthrough in efficacy at 303lm/W. Some of you may think this is another one of these lab experiments where the conditions are pushed outside of anything that would be considered “real world”, but that’s not the case. This record setting experiment was done at room temperature, A CCT of 5150K, and at 350mA. Many times these performance numbers are taken at cold temperatures, high CCT and low currents to eek as much efficiency as possible out of the setup, so it’s fantastic to see Cree making this a practical demonstration of their technology.
As usual, this is a lab experiment, so we won’t see these kinds of performance numbers in commercial products for a while. That’s certainly not to say that we won’t see them in the near future, as Cree has already put out an LED with an efficacy of over 200lm/W (the MK-R), even though the setup to get that kind of efficacy isn’t all that practical. Either way, it’s a great sign of things to come.
[Cree]
