Bridgelux just recently announced a new breakthrough in getting the cost of high power LEDs lower. Bridgelux has been a pioneer in the development of using silicon as a substrate material, rather than sapphire, or silicon carbide, which are far more expensive to produce.
The big problem with using silicon as a substrate is that the rate of expansion of the silicon (Si) and gallium nitride (GaN) is different enough that as the die heats, the GaN layer bows and cracks (GaN expands faster than Si). It seems as though Bridgelux has developed a proprietary buffer layer process ensures that bowing and cracking does not occur. Considering that LEDs produced on Si can be manufacturerd on traditional semiconductor processes, this has the ability to reduce LED cost up to 75%. That's pretty huge.
What is also great here is that the output from the LEDs produced from this process are on par with current sapphire and silicon carbide LEDs. Bridgelux demonstrated neutral white LEDs running at 160lm/W, and up to 59% efficiency.
To me, this all sounds fantastic. Hopefully they can keep within their two year projected timeframe to release these to the market. It can't come fast enough.
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