Lumileds, Toyoda step up LED brightness
People taking photographs in dark surroundings with camera-enabled cell phones are set to benefit from two new LEDs from Lumileds.
The California-based LED manufacturer has just released Luxeon devices that have been specifically designed for the flash function of such phones.
Lumileds says that its LEDs will enhance the brightness of a typical flash on a camera phone by a factor of 12.
The surface-mounted Luxeon Flash LXCL-PWF1 LED has an output of 40 lm at 1 A drive current, while the LXCL-PWF2 delivers double this luminous flux.
Camera phones featuring the Lumileds technology ought to come in particularly useful for taking pictures at a range of 1-2 meters in the dark.
The latest camera phones feature high-resolution light detectors with many more pixels than previous designs. These require a higher light intensity than previous generations of phones to produce a good image and consequently a brighter flash.
Luxeon says that major handset manufacturers across Europe, the US and Asia will roll out phones featuring the Luxeon device for the 2004 holiday season, traditionally the period in which the most handsets are sold.
Meanwhile, Toyoda Gosei says that it has produced a white LED with unprecedented brightness for backlighting of cell phone handset screens.
The device features a blue LED and a yellow phosphor, producing a brightness of 1300 mcd with a 20 mA drive current.
Packaged in a heat-resistant resin, the LED is said to have a lifetime 50% longer than similar devices.
Toyoda Gosei will begin mass production of the devices after first sampling to customers in March 2005.
