German Car Zone

The Advanced Power TopLED from OSRAM Opto Semiconductors has graduated to the new sports car with the four rings, the Audi R8. The headlights now feature LEDs and look absolutely stunning, with the tiny light sources emphasizing the sleek curves. The LEDs provide high-visibility daytime running light without placing an appreciable load on fuel consumption.

With their impressive performance – 18 lumen at an operating current of 140 mA – the Advanced Power TopLEDs rank between Power TopLEDs and Golden Dragons in terms of their brightness. They achieve this through a combination of ThinGaN technology and chip-level conversion to produce white light. The yellow converter is located directly on the blue chip – which is not the case with the frequently used volume encapsulation method. The result is higher luminance and better optical efficiency.

The introduction of mandatory daytime running light in numerous countries throughout Europe is giving vehicle manufacturers a further opportunity to differentiate their products from those of competitors with unique headlight designs. The Advanced Power TopLED provides concentrated light from very small dimensions and has an edge length of only 500 µm. This gives stylists enormous freedom to create imaginative designs. What’s more, their high-temperature behavior meets the stringent requirements of the automobile industry for this application.

In the Audi R8 the daytime running light is provided by twelve tiny LED spotlights per headlight. The advantage over using normal low-beam headlights for daytime running light is the much lower power consumption. The LEDs are housed in an SMT package and can be further processed by the customer using standard processes. The Advanced Power TopLED will be available on the market with these specifications from mid 2007.

About OSRAM Opto Semiconductors
OSRAM Opto Semiconductors is a wholly owned subsidiary of OSRAM, one of the world’s two leading lighting manufacturers. It offers its customers solutions based on semiconductor technology for lighting, sensor and visualization applications. The company operates sites in Regensburg (Germany), San Jose (USA) and Penang (Malaysia). For the fiscal year ending in September 2005, the more than 3,500 employees of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors achieved a sales volume of 452 million euros. For more information, visit www.osram-os.com.

Article

Gallery