19 September 2012

Osram launches Oslon Black Flat LED for automotive front-lighting systems

Osram Opto Semiconductors GmbH of Regensburg, Germany has launched the Oslon Black Flat LED for automotive front-lighting systems.

Equipped with state-of-the-art chip and packaging technology and a ceramic converter, the latest LED in the Oslon Black series is a high-performance light source for automotive applications. According to the firm, it offers high light output even at high currents, uniform distribution of light, thermal stability and particularly good contrast for seeing and being seen. Oslon Black Flat had its premier as a prototype at the International Symposium on Automotive Lighting (ISAL 2011) at Technische Universität Darmstadt and is available now.

Picture: Oslon Black Flat LED, which offers low thermal resistance, high currents and high light output at high temperatures.

Light sources for frontlighting have to be multi-talented, says Osram Opto. Not only must they illuminate the road ahead reliably in rain and fog and at night, they must fulfill various functions such as low beam, cornering lights and fog lights. They must also withstand high temperatures in the headlights. Hence, more and more automobile manufacturers are opting for flexible, efficient and powerful LED technology. The Oslon Black Flat has been designed to meet all these requirements.

The new LED contains a UX:3 chip that delivers high light output even at high currents. Luminous efficacy is 87lm/W: with a power draw of 2.3W, typical luminous flux is 200lm at an operating current of 700mA (with a junction temperature of 25°C) and 270lm at 1.2A (despite a junction temperature of 100°C).

Osram Opto says that thermal management is much simpler with the new LED due to the greater thermal stability of luminous flux even under ‘hot’ application conditions and due to a new temperature-optimized packaging process. Typical thermal resistance has hence been reduced to 4K/W. The thermal coefficient of expansion of the black QFN (quad flat no lead) package of the LED is matched to the coefficient of expansion of the metal core board. All these properties make the Oslon Black Flat particularly stable and extremely durable (giving a life-time of more than 100,000 hours at 700mA and a L70B50 solder point temperature, Ts, of 60°C, and 10,000 hours at 1.2A and 120°C).

The Oslon Black Flat was developed in Regensburg and has been designed to function without a lens, so its light can be injected very close to light guides or lenses. At 70-100Mcd/m2 (million candelas per square meter), the LED’s luminance (i.e. what the human eye perceives as the brightness of a particular surface) is 2-5 times higher than comparable LEDs in its class, the firm claims. “This is particularly important in automotive front-lighting solutions based on projection systems,” notes Peter Knittl, director Automotive LED at Osram Opto. “The greater the luminance of the LED, the smaller the external lens and the smaller the space needed,” he adds. “Headlights can therefore be made much more compact, giving designers much more freedom.”

Encapsulation of the chips directly in the package produces a defined light/dark boundary in the light pattern and - in conjunction with advanced package technology and the ceramic converter - a uniform distribution of light and a particularly good contrast ratio on the road, notes Osram Opto. The LED measures 3.75mm x 3.75mm.

The firm says that, before the end of 2012, we will be seeing automobiles and motorcycles on the roads in which the small black LEDs will be performing the most important front-lighting functions.

The Oslon Black Flat LED will be showcased at SIA-Vision 2012 in Versailles, France (9-10 October).

Tags: Osram Oslon

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