CREE NX : XD16 __ OFFICIAL RELEASE __

The future is possibly brighter than expected! Let’s hope this new platform is flashlight and DIY friendly…

http://www.cree.com/news-media/news/article/new-cree-nx-technology-platform

http://www.cree.com/led-components/landing-pages/nx

DEC 6 2017 update:

http://www.cree.com/led-components/products/xlamp-leds-discrete/xlamp-xd16

Not a lot of real info seems mostly marketing talk now.

Small bright LEDs , easy to reflow and combine is what I take from it. But because it seems geared at combining to make street lights and such idk how much flashlight use they’ll have.

Let’s wait what type of leds this leads to. I’m pretty optimistic about the story, the technology sounds really good and has the potential of very small die leds with high output like we want for flashlight use!

I think The Miller is right. This marketing poster doesn’t give much info. And it doesn’t seem to be much of a revolution in LED tech - more like evolution along the lines of where Cree was already (seemingly) going. But, as djozz said, if it results in smaller, more lumen-dense emitters, it may still be a move in the right direction for flashlight use as well. We’ll just have to wait and see. I hope they get that first one out (for a reasonable price) pretty soon, so somebody here can test it and dispel some of the mystery!

Interesting. It reminds me of the Nichia E21A and E17A’s compact package design and ability to be placed close together. 264 lumens/mm^2 isn’t that high if the die area is being considered, but is much higher when instead the package area is being considered, which is probably the case here. Hopefully the die will extend to the edge of the package and can handle a lot of current. This would enable us make large area high surface brightness “single die” emitters, like the XHP35, but as big as we want.

Another 4 die LED. Extreme density.
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2017/04/cree-announces-new-nx-packaged-led-platform-adds-to-the-rsw-street-light-portfolio.html

Cree did not provide many details about the first XD16 LED due on the market. We presume that the 16 refers to a package measuring 1.6×1.6 mm. In the current Cree portfolio, the XD16 might be considered in the same class as the XQ-E LEDs. White XQ-E products top out at around 334 lm. Based on the stated lumen density levels, the new XD16 LEDs might hit the 800-lm level.

What may be interesting is if these can be tightly packed and allow us to customize 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, etc die sets all in parallel if we so choose… assuming 800 lumens/emitter then we could have ~7000 lumens out of a ~XM footprint at 3V and domeless?? Just speculating… We’re allowed to dream right??? :partying_face:

It it may be installed in M43 like flashlight,several dozens of it with active cooling…with 4*20700…mmm

“264 lm per square-millimeter”
but that’s not the highest like they say, the flat black is 1x1mm and does 300-400 lumens stock, and can do close to 800 when driven near the max…

Came across this picture somewhere:

Interesting, the question is does the die extend to the edge or is it only part way like the 144a?

From Cree’s promo:

Too bad, not sure they will prove very useful for flashlights like that, much like the 144A.

More like the E17A and E21A actually.

Even if there is a bit of a gap, putting nine of them together would get one of them dead center in the array. 3x3, 5x5, 7x7, 9x9, and so on, all have a central led. Knock off the corners for more rounded profiles. The larger the array the more “round” it can be.

lol, brain fart, those are what I was thinking of.

I agree with this but they are only rated at what, 200 lumens each? a 9x9 grid would match an xhp35 for rated output. I am not sure that they will offer anything over existing high output LED’s personally other then possibly the ability to run them at 3V.

I saw that picture too. That’s actually what got me thinking more about them. Realizing that there will be hotspots/deadzones even with tightly packed arrays, I think there’s still a good chance you can get a decent beam with odd-number square arrays (as Hoop also pointed out). Maybe think of the artifacts like an MT-G2… just worse. haha :wink:

There’s also this:

@TA I do believe they’ll be way more than 200 lumens (XD16 anyway). My estimations are about 600-700 CREE rated and roughly 800-900 BLF rated. That means that a 3x3 array would be around 7000 lumens. I’m thinking throw potential rivalling and XHP35 HI with “expandable” lumens and hotspot.

A 9x9 grid would have 81 dies, far exceeding the output of existing single high power packages.

If these have the good output usual with cree dies they could really offer new flexible ways to get a lot of lumens in a small area. It will be interesting to see what the beam looks like with an odd number array. As mentioned above the beam center should have good intensity unlike the current 4 die arrays. But the rest of the beam would still have lower intensity resulting from the averaging of luminance from the dies and gaps between the dies.

When TA said 9x9 I'm assuming he meant to say 3x3 or 9 LED array. I've found myself almost doing the same. He's too sharp of a gent to think we're talking about an 81 LED in a flashlight. Of course this is BLF so I'm sure someone will think that :BEER: