While Cree LED is well known for starting the LED lighting revolution and leading LED innovation, they are a relatively late entrant to mid-power LEDs. However, with the recent sale of Cree LED to Smart Global Holding and a reinvigorated focus on LEDs for lighting, Cree is bringing simplicity and innovation to their mainstream LED portfolio.
Cree’s latest development will make them a top player in the space, along with their high-power and COB LEDs. Even in a mature and commoditized space like mid-power LEDs, there is still plenty of room for Cree LED to engage in a long-standing tradition of application-specific optimization for their J Series LED components.
Figure 1: The Cree LED J Series LED Family
Since 2018, Cree LED has delivered high performing products in the mid-power space. They’ve expanded into a broad and high performing portfolio of all the important mid-power form factors: 2835, 5050, 3030, 2016 and 5630. They will also finish the year with industry-leading benchmarks throughout the portfolio and are poised to expand feature, function and performance.
In particular, the Cree LED mid-power portfolio delivers:
1) Simplified product navigation and selection.
2) High efficacy and superior lumen maintenance across the entire portfolio, including DLC Horticulture coverage for all members of the J Series family.
3) Robust mechanical design and production including excellent corrosion resistance.
4) Application optimized classes within each form-factor, so that a Cree LED product is available for every cost and performance objective.
5) An easy and customer-friendly part numbering system with easy identification of the product’s performance class. The system is streamlined to enable easy performance upgrades with minimum disruption to existing product qualifications.
Figure 2: Cree LED Mid Power Performance Group and Class
In a dynamic market like mid-power LEDs, product nomenclature is problematic across the industry – with the 2835 marketplace being especially confusing. While fast and furious product introductions have been good for improvements in efficiency and cost, many vendors’ product families have also become indecipherable jumbles of part numbers. Cree LED’s naming system helps customers understand performance differences by using an easy-to-understand class system as seen in figure 2, above. Color temperature, CRI and voltage class are also straightforward to decode.
Cree LED is also well known for the highest levels of reliability, and the J Series LED portfolio is no exception. All J Series 2835 LEDs are built with industry’s most robust methods, including J-loop wire bonding technology and superior corrosion resistance. These small but important quality standards set Cree LED apart as a market leader.
To support the market requirement of the increasing trend to lower-current operation, and higher board-packing density, Cree developed the J Series 2835 G Class LEDs, which are binned at 55 mA and deliver up to 228 lm/W at binning conditions. The 2835 LEDs are each optimized for customers’ actual operating conditions and excel past the competition. It’s expected the trend for lower-current and lower-operating temperature, coupled with greater package density, to be an important driver of higher efficacy ambient illumination luminaires. Expect to see further innovation from Cree LED to support increasingly low-current, high density lighting applications.
The 3030 form factor packages are commonly used for high-reliability indoor and outdoor lighting applications. The J Series 3030 High Efficacy LED family delivers drop-in performance upgrades together with the industry’s best long-term reliability and corrosion resistance. The 3030 HE LEDs are the first mid-power LED to demonstrate less than a 1-step color shift after 16k hours of high temperature LM-80 testing and have up to 20k hours of LM-80 data to prove their rock-solid lumen maintenance.
On the high-power side of the J Series portfolio, Cree LED was the first LED manufacturer to deliver over 200 lm/W at 400 mA in a 6-V 5050 and they have maintained efficacy leadership in this space for over a year. As 5050 LEDs are commonly used in outdoor applications with secondary optics, they are better optimized for use with those optics than other common suppliers. Lastly, the 5050 LEDs feature the industry-leading lumen maintenance lifetimes you expect from Cree LED.
As you develop your mainstream lighting products, consider and evaluate the J Series LEDs to find the same performance, reliability and simplicity that you have come to expect from Cree’s flagship XLamp LED portfolio.
