CREE silently increased XP-G2 die size?

Bought some xp-g2 leds from fasttech in January,put some of them on noctigons and in gasoline,but immediately I spotted one "intruder" with unusually high die size,visible by naked eye(also you can see crappy xp-g2s with out of center die,all purchased on the same order form FT,factory rejects?):

After gasoline dedoming:

I don't have good enough camera or skills for close-up shots ,but die isn't just bigger, vias (dark dots) are different, bigger die has more vias-dots,but they are much smaller and barely visible to the naked eye,they look exactly like in pictures from CPF saabluster(strangely he didn't noticed-mentioned increased die size) :

I wonder if this is a reason for a sudden xp-g2 S3 and S4 bin availability?

Is this another cree's "performance improvement" ?

Interesting, thanks for sharing, I was wondering why the hotspot of one my throwers seemed just a tad bigger than the previous emitter. Did they do the same to the XM-L2? They got U4 bin now…

I don’t know but I think Cree screwed something up recently. The XP-G2 S3’s have been pretty damn hard to come by. They aren’t readily available. The all of a sudden they release the S4’s (right after I place a huge order for S3’s). It’s not like them to release a new BIN before wholesalers even get a supply of the current one. Something’s fishy

I’ve been using S3 3C for a few months, and have bought some from Mountain and a lot from international outdoor. I’ll pull out my calipers today and measure some of the dead XP-G2 boards I have around to see if the measurements vary. I should have some S2 2B’s around in the dead pile, so if there’s a difference between the S2 and S3 I hope to find it.

I don't think they would be rejects (based on die size) as they don't make specifications of die size in the datasheets and so they don't have to stick to a certain defined size, also we know how loose they are with the forward voltages, going slightly higher with the higher brightness bin.

I am not sure if it relevant or not but Cutter had S3 5C1 (not a tint a high bin typically, only low bins) while others where bringing the S2 bins in cool tints (typically the highest bins).

I measured the die size on 5 old Noctigon mounted XP-G2 LED’s. Unknown bins, but only S2 2B and S3 3C were ever bought, so they have to be one of the two.

1.39-1.5mm was the range I got.

The off-center die has to either be counterfeit or a factory reject. There's no way they let that out the door like that (not as a factory first, at least). In the past Cree told me there are some pretty good counterfeits out there; however, I'm not saying this is a counterfeit, because I don't know enough to say whether it is or not, but merely that there are counterfeits out there.

This is what of their sales managers told me earlier this year:

RMM

I was not expecting that. Do you believe that or is that a method of protection against underpriced LEDs and CREE wants people to buy only from the likes of Mouser, Arrow, etc?
In the past I have heard that is a corporate marketing technique to encourage buyers not to buy from unauthorized distributors, claiming flawless fakes being available on the market.

I only knew that Nichia had sued a couple of Asian manufacturers for patent infringements, but unlike what people here would be quick to say, they are not People's Republic of China companies, but Taiwanese companies: Harvatek and Everlight

Thanks for reporting. Its interesting.

Has anyone tested both LEDs to compare?

Richard, how do you avoid fakes? Do yours come straight from Cree? I know this is probably a dumb question. I just don’t know how the supply chain works. (I’ve ordered from you a few times and am very happy with my orders, I will be ordering your U4’s as soon as you get em in.)

I've just read about CREE suing a Taiwanese company

"According to Cree, the Taiwanese company has been infringing on its design and operation patents on LED chips, the chips' packaging as well as LED bulbs."

This is the 3rd Taiwanese company I see sued for LED related issues, the other 2 I posted above are quite know, this one I never heard of.

No, most of mine do not come straight from Cree (I don't sell enough to buy full reels of all of these LEDs); however, I do happen to know the chain of custody of the emitters I sell, and only buy from reputable sources--whether that be Mouser, Digikey, IOS, Cree, or otherwise.

For example, the emitters I buy from IOS generally come to them in full sealed reels. They don't always release a picture of every reel (I suspect because other fraudulent sellers end up using them in their own listings), but they do have documentation of where all of those LEDs came from, along with all related information if requested. This information can be double checked with Cree. I once had a question about a certain available tint/flux bin combination, and Cree was able to verify that that combination did not yet exist.

The U4s are coming in a full, sealed reel, as packaged directly from Cree.

Here's a video of how they come packaged (from Hank at IOS).

Thanks for explaining the process.

We must relate our threads…

More than similar issue with newest XP-G2 S4 2B emitter here: