Summary
1. Cree has announced a family of LED's with approx. 140 lumens light output at 350 ma in a cool white white color that they claim are "Lighting Class" LEDs
2. The article claims that they will be introducing neutral and warm white LED's by the end of the year.
3. Other LED manufacturers have also announced improvements in light output from new products that they have introduced recently, but Cree's appear to be the brightest.
Analysis
1. Although Cree claims these are lighting class LED's, the "cool white" availability of 5000K to 8300K (per their website data sheet) make the released devices good for applications such as flashlights, or perhaps jewelry case lighting, not general purpose indoor lighting. Warm white light is in the range of 2600K to 3000K (incandescent color) and neutral white is in the range of 3000K to 3800K (florescent color). Therefore, the applications for this cool temperature are somewhat limited.
2. Warm and neutral white devices tend to be more difficult to manufacture with light output as high as cool white and most manufacturers warm and neutral white LED's have a lower light output than the cool color temperature devices.
3. Although lighting manufacturers are certainly aware of the need for these warm and neutral white light in indoor lighting applications, it is not clear that investors have clearly understood the specification issues when discussing warm white white and neutral white applications.
Jerald Kolansky consults with leading institutions through GLG
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
