Choosing an LED for your lighting system

Part Number:

RoHs: Stock:



FPGA Product Solutions
•	Impulse
•	Inrevium
•	Northwest Logic
•	Spectrum

MCU Product Solutions
•	IAR Systems

Specialty Product Solutions
•	ANT
•	Comwar Asia Ltd (CAL)
•	DeLorme
•	Soyo Technology

Display Solutions
•	Amulet Technologies
•	TouchSystems
•	UltraFlex

Solid State Lighting Solutions
•	Coolermaster
•	LED Specialists
•	LEDIL
•	OptoElectronix
•	OSRAM

High Brightness LED Demo Board

TFT-LCD display utilizing Renesas' high-performance Microcontrollers with on-chip Direct-Drive capability

LED Lighting System Device Selection Methodology: Using Nu Horizons Demonstration Board For Advanced Lighting Solutions

Home > LED Lighting >LEDs

LEDs

Choosing an LED for your lighting system is a critical decision and will affect all other elements of your design. You will need to balance initial efficacy against initial light quality; and both against cost. As you will see in the other sections of this brochure, your LED choice will influence the total system cost, final light quality and total efficacy (Illuminance) of your design by impacting your optics, driver and thermal management options.

Illumination requirements – the amount of light required over a specified area – will determine the type and number of LEDs you will need. The important LED specification to consider is the luminous flux (lumens), or the amount of light emitted by the LED at specific drive currents. Be aware that all the light that can be generated from the LED might not reach the target due to unavoidable inefficiencies in each of the subsystems (optics, drivers and thermal management). The better the individual subsystems work together, the more light will reach the illumination target area. However, there is almost always a trade-off between cost and efficiency.

Specific color requirements will determine which LED color characteristics are most critical. For example, if the illumination requirement is for white light, the Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) or the Color Rendering Index (CRI) of the LED may be important. Keep in mind that there is a trade-off between CCT and luminous efficacy (lumens per Watt). Warm white LEDs (2500K~4000K) with light resembling incandescent bulbs are less efficient than cool white LEDs (5000K~8000K) with light resembling fluorescent bulbs.

If your illumination must be uniform, the quality of the LED and variation from LED to LED become very important and “binning” options must be considered. Manufacturers test, sort, then sell high-power LEDs by their color and luminous flux (lumens). LEDs with similar color and brightness are placed in the same “bin”. The “smaller” the bin, the more uniform the LEDs in each bin will be. Bin sizes vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

Since there are currently no standards for testing LEDs on any of these performance characteristics, it is impossible to accomplish an apples-to-apples comparison of multiple manufacturers’ LEDs from published specifications alone. It is even more difficult to gauge the impact each subsystem will have on total performance. Therefore, it is necessary to build and test evaluation circuits before choosing LED.



OSRAM Opto Semiconductors has more than three decades of experience in the development and manufacture of light emitting diodes (LED). Products for innovative lighting solutions have positioned OSRAM Opto Semiconductors as a major force in shaping lighting markets and applications. High-brightness DRAGON® and OSTAR® Lighting LEDs are ideal components for general lighting applications due to their long life, compact footprints, low power consumption, excellent thermal properties and availability in a variety of white correlated color temperatures (CCT). OSRAM Opto Semiconductors’ advanced fine binning for white LEDs offers improved off-angle color uniformity color homogeneity with a 3-step MacAdam Ellipse and a typical color rendering index (CRI) of 80 and above.

Twitter

Facebook

You Tube

Join our eNewsletter!

Also Visit: Titan Supply Chain Services Corp. • Titan EMS • Nu Horizons International • Origin Electronics