BRIDGELUX Begins Volume Shipment of Low Cost-Per-Lumen LED Chip, the NLX-5
Bridgelux, Inc., a leading supplier of energy-saving LED technology for high-volume, solid-state lighting markets, today announced commercial availability of its new NLX-5 high-power gallium nitride (GaN) LED chip.
The NLX-5, when embedded in a customer’s standard, cool white LED package, provides a typical light output of 85–90 lumens (@350 mA). As a result, the NLX-5 delivers the industry’s leading cost-per-lumen performance for warm white, cool white and RGB applications today.
In a LED package, the NLX-5 is ideal for general lighting applications, such as LED street lights, architectural down lights, MR-16 lamps, as well as mobile phone and digital camera flash applications. As Bridgelux’s fifth-generation chip, the NLX-5 offers a 15-20 percent performance improvement over its predecessors. The company continues to improve the performance of its LED chips based on a low-cost manufacturing technology that has been abandoned by others in the industry in favor of thin-film LED architectures, which ultimately are more complex and costly.
“By merging our innovative chip designs with traditional sapphire-based LED chip architectures, we’ve increased LED performance on a very robust, high-yield technology platform,” said Bridgelux’s Director of R&D, Steve Lester. “Many companies have believed that high-light extraction was only possible with the removal of the sapphire substrate. Our team has pushed the technology to achieve higher performance without sapphire removal and its typically negative impact upon yield and cost. Based on current R&D results, we project that by later this year, we can provide an additional 10-15 percent improvement—with further anticipated performance improvements continuing over the next 12 months, utilizing this same high-power LED technology platform.”
The NLX-5 will provide Bridgelux customers with a low cost-per-lumen solution to help speed market adoption of solid-state lighting applications into the general lighting market. The Bridgelux chip technology is not only lower in cost to manufacture, but is also easier and more cost-effective for customers to integrate into lighting products, either as single or multi-chip LED packages.
About Bridgelux:
Focused on bringing innovation to light, Bridgelux is fast-becoming a leading provider of high-power, cost-effective and energy-efficient, yet extremely reliable, light-emitting diode (LED) solutions. The company’s proprietary epitaxy technology and innovative chip designs have enabled the company to develop advanced solid-state lighting products that offer superior quality, are lower in cost and are environmentally friendly—all without compromising optical, thermal or electrical performance. Beyond LED chips, the company is actively seeking to extend its reach to deliver value-added, application-specific solutions that will open up new markets in solid-state illumination. Founded in 2002, Bridgelux is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.
