Cree announces industry's first Red-Green-Blue-White multichip LED and XLamp Color LED

DURHAM, USA: Cree Inc., a market leader in LED lighting, is expanding its high-power color LED product offerings.

Cree is unveiling the industry's first multichip MC-E LED with red, green, blue and white chips -- all in a single package. It is also pairing new LED chip innovations with its industry-leading XLamp XP-E package to deliver the highest performance family of discrete, high-power color LEDs available.

The XLamp MC-E color is a unique package design, combining white, red, green and blue LED chips in a single component. The first of its kind in the industry, this compact component provides design flexibility for color-changing LED applications that require high flux from a small lighting source, such as entertainment and architectural lighting.

With the industry's highest performance, the XLamp XP-E color LEDs provide up to 22 percent more flux than the existing XLamp XR color portfolio, with an 80 percent smaller footprint. The XP color portfolio is available in flux bins, at 350 mA, up to:

* Royal Blue: 500 mW
* Blue: 39.8 lumens
* Green: 107 lumens
* Amber: 56.8 lumens
* Red: 56.8 lumens

Compared to the current XLamp XR color LEDs, space between the LED die can be reduced by 75 percent with the new XLamp XP-E color LEDs and 94 percent with the new XLamp MC-E color LED.

This reduction in spacing can allow better color mixing and shadow reduction for color-based applications, including decorative, architectural and entertainment lighting. Cree is sampling the MC-E and XP-E color LEDs, with production quantities targeted for Q3 calendar 2009.

"We have leveraged the LED chip and packaging innovations developed for our lighting-class white LEDs to deliver real performance gains in high-power color LED applications," said Paul Thieken, Cree marketing director, LED components. "The combination of technology innovation and package flexibility gives designers working with Cree's color LEDs increased brightness, flexibility and control."