With the small-footprint XB-D LED, Cree intends to lower the cost, in terms of lumens per dollar, for SSL lamp and luminaire designs.

Cree has announced the new XLamp XB-D LED family that features components measuring 2.45x2.45 mm, that the company says will deliver double the lumens per dollar achievable at the system level. The small footprint will be especially suited to solid-state lighting (SSL) retrofit lamps, although Cree has said that the LEDs built with a new die structure will serve across a broad application base.

At 350-mA drive current and 85°C operating temperature, the new LED platform delivers 139 lm in 6000K-CCT, cool-white models, and 107 lm in 3000K-CCT, warm-white models. The efficacy is 136 and 105 lm/W respectively.

The LEDs feature a maximum drive current of 1A. The cool-white components can be specified with no minimum CRI value or optionally with a 70 CRI minimum. Neutral-white products feature a typical CRI value of 75 and can be specified at 80 CRI minimum. The warm-white LEDS feature a typical CRI of 80 and can also be specified at a minimum value of 80.

There are several other notable features of the new family according to product marketing manager Paul Scheidt. He said that the XB-D is the first LED family to be hot-binned across all CCTs. Scheidt said, "Competitors only hot bin in the warm-white CCTs."

The new platform includes several elements that Cree says will help reduce system cost. Obviously the smaller die has a direct impact on component cost because Cree can manufacture more components per wafer. Cree did not directly address component cost. But the company did show a table that indicates the XB-D delivers more lumens and better efficacy than competing components that measure 3.5x3.5 mm and larger.

In part the performance comes from a new die architecture and packaging scheme, along with what Cree says are inherent advantages in its manufacturing process, a claim we will discuss a bit later. A photo of an XB-D LED with no phosphor applied revealed a beveled structure around the die designed to maximize light extraction.

  Warm-white XB-D

Cool-white XB-D