Especially American companies made one big mistake in the past. They tried to exercise the American custom in Europe in the same way as they do at home. Now it is obvious that this strategy failed. How is your company dealing with this phenomenon?
Stephen Greiner, Vice-President of Cree Europe: Cree focuses on a strong local presence in all main regions: North America, APAC, China and EMEA. This presence is including deep technical and commercial field support, which is functional in both directions. Support to customers and input of regional requirements into Cree Business Units in order to make sure regional needs are covered.
What actions are you taking in Europe, especially in the German-speaking countries, to create the desired image for the brand »Cree«.
Greiner: We provide advanced support to our key customers, as they are the trendsetters and pace makers in the lighting market. Further to this, we focus on co-branding activities in selected projects and showing our presence at various fairs, conferences and in different media.
Your main competitors in Central Europe are Philips and Osram. What are your expectations regarding your success in the near future? Do you expect to gain a large share of the market within the next five years?
Greiner: In regard to the market shares: In components for General Lighting we expect to defend our Nr 1 position with moderate share wins.
Which European manufacturers are already installing LEDs from Cree?
Greiner: Nearly all-leading European lighting manufacturers/brands are either using Cree LEDs or chips in production or in development projects.
What are the key benefits of your products? How does the producer benefit, if he chooses Cree products instead of traditional brands?
Greiner: Cree products offer leading edge technology in regards of efficiency (lm/W, lm/$) and quality. Further to this our SiC-technology offers highest robustness. By increasing the driving current there can be achieved a higher lumen output, compared to conventional LED technologies. Each lighting application is different; different systems require different solutions in order to achieve the performance optimum. The Cree component portfolio is developed with focus on different components for different applications. That is part of our understanding of leading the lighting revolution.
Who is the contact person of Cree for the Austrian market?
Greiner: Besides our franchised distributors for Austria as listed on our homepage our contact for Austria is Stephan Schneider in our Garching office.
How relevant is OLED going to be on your point of view and what do you think of the importance of this technology in the future?
Greiner: OLED Lighting development will go on in the next years, but we expect no significant market influence/advantage vs. LED within the next 5-10 years.
Paul Scheidt, Product Marketing Manager: I want to be clear, Cree does not make OLEDs, we only make the inorganic LEDs. We have seen roadmaps of where the technology is supposed to get to over the next 5 years, where it is projected to get to in terms of efficacy, lifetime and costs. Along all those metrics, as best as we can tell, today’s LEDs outperform OLEDs in every way. Today’s LED technology outperforms OLED technology of five years from now. We are not really sure what role OLED will be in lighting applications. They seem to have some really good applications for displays (TVs and laptop screens). There may be a very excellent future for that technology in those type of applications but in terms of general lighting applications it seems like it will just be used for wall papers or ceiling fixtures. They are used for an artistic effect but I don´t see it being used mainstream as a buyable light source.
What is the difference between the XLamp XB-D and the new XT-E White, which will be r eleased in February?
Scheidt: The major breakthrough for both new products, the XB-D and the XT-E, is the new price performance. There are both very high-performance parts at a lower price than seen before. It is a significant break-through for both parts. The main difference between the two is the size and the performance level. The XB-D is the smallest lighting class package on the market whereas XT-E is the same footprint of some of our existing parts. It offers the highest performance level. As far as which one is going to be the best, there is no correct answer. It depends on the system design, because of the small size, the XB-D will be better for smaller designs whereas the XT-E will be better if you have one lens per LED. In those types of designs you reduce your lens count and in that way you get a lower system cost.
What effect did the improvements have on the overall efficiency and the price of the lamp?
Scheidt: The XT-E is the highest lumens per watt LED available. That is the major breakthrough there. It will be the same price as for one of our older LEDs, the XP-E LED.
Are your lumen values based on laboratory values or were they achieved in practice?
Scheidt: These were achieved in practice. They are going into high-volume production. We will have parts in stock at our distributors and people can order them.
What values do the lamps have at L70?
Scheidt: For doing the L70 extrapolation we use an industry recommendation that is called »TM – 21«. That recommendation requires that we have 6.000 hours of long-term data on our parts, in order to do that kind of extrapolation. The 6.000 hours are a little bit over 8 months. We don´t have that information right now, but the tests are on their way and that information will become available soon. We expect it will be a very long lifetime, because we have a very excellent track record with our other LED´s. We are the best in the industry as far as number of LED´s tested and regarding the number of extrapolation hours.
What are you recommending your clients regarding the temperature management?
Scheidt: Temperature is important for 2 reasons. First is that, the hotter the LED gets the less relative light output it has and so you are paying the same amount for each LED. If you don´t have a very effective heat management system the LEDs will get hotter and you get less light out of each LED. That’s not a very cost effective solution since LEDs are a decent part of the bill of materials. The second effect is that, as the LEDs get hotter their expected lifetime will decrease. The long-lifetime of LED is one of the key values of LED lighting. It´s not very cost effective for system design. We have tested our packages that are similar in composition and size to a very wide range of temperatures and we specify a maximum junction temperature of 150° C. This is the absolute maximum. Generally we recommend 105° C or less for a longer lifetime.
How important are environmental conditions for the durability of LEDs?
Scheidt: We test our LEDs for moisture and they perform very well. In that regard they are designed to absorb and release moisture very effectively. The LEDs are also tested for salt spray, vibration, and ESD.
What can your costumers expect in consideration of binning?
Scheidt: We bin our LEDs on a couple of different of dimensions. It is very standard to bin for light output. The light output of the LED is binned at 1 watt of power at 85° C. We are moving to do the hot binning because it is closer to where the LEDs are going to be used. Previously, in the history the binning was done at room temperature but the LEDs are never at room temperature when they are actually in the application. They are always going to be hotter. Although 85° C is not the correct answer for all our applications we do know that 85° C is closer and more representative of the condition in which they will be used. We have moved to characterizing and binning the LEDs at 85° C for light output and color. We also do screening for CRI. (Color Rendering Index) It is a common metric in lighting for what the quality of the light is. There are standards around the world that reference that CRI metric. Some say that there must be a 70 minimum, which is a decent amount of color rendering for outdoor applications. Some specify an 80 minimum for indoor applications.
Customers are recommended to pay attention to the color reproduction values, especially for those of red lights. What can we expect from Cree-products on this subject?
Scheidt: The normal warm white LEDs that are used in indoor applications is offered in the 80 CRI minimum value. That is generally accepted as good for indoor lighting, there are some that are more demanding for CRI number, such as certain indoor retail applications and perhaps medical applications that require a higher CRI value. As far as the red, that is generally measured by one of the metric that makes up CRI called R9 which is a deep red test. Our LEDs are following the guidance of the United States Energy Star Program, which say that the R9 should be above zero value.
What do you think of the future of the lighting industry? What kind of developments can be expected within the next years?
Scheidt: We are going to see a couple of things. First, now we are at the point where LED based lights are generally at price parity with the encountered lighting solutions. If you look at street light that used a high-pressure sodium light and now they are looking at a LED light – the prices and the total costs of ownership generally favor the LED product. There is an initial price barrier for the LED product, the LED is going to cost a little bit more. But you will save a lot of money over the life of the LED luminaire. I think what is coming up is that we will continue to innovate and get brighter and cheaper LED solutions for a lot of different lighting applications. In that point it becomes a very easy answer to recommend LED solutions, right now there are easily justifiable but it is still a race between the two technologies. I think over the years the main thing you will see is LEDs becoming the preferred solution. As people become more comfortable with the technology and as price and performance continue to move along. As we have seen with the XT-E release – steps like this at a core technology level will enable that sort of thing to happen over the next few years.
What changes will the electricians have to face?
Scheidt: The main challenge for the electricians is going to be coming from the market: How to create a retrofit LED solution? Everybody wants to find a retrofit LED solution and I don´t think the industry as a whole has figured out how to do that. But we do know that the electronics involved to power a fluorescent product is completely different than what is needed for an LED product. That is probably one of the main challenges for electricians. If you change out the whole luminaire it is very easy these days, because you are just rewiring a new fixture in the place. Those scenarios are very easy but it is the retrofits that are more difficult.
Contact person for Austria:
Stephan Schneider
Sales Director Central Europe
E-Mail: stephan_schneider@cree.com
Tel. +49 89 5484 2201