Higher brightness and efficacy make LEDs more affordable for automotive forward lighting

The introduction of new, hyper-efficient automotive LEDs, the OSLON Black Flat X series from ams OSRAM, marks the crossing of a cost/performance threshold. This new LED achieves even higher levels of both luminous flux output and efficacy than earlier OSLON Black Flat products. This enables automotive OEMs to so substantially reduce the amount of material and number of components in a forward lighting unit that the cost of an LED-based headlamp becomes competitive with that of a conventional halogen unit, while offering the superior features, reliability and performance for which LED technology is well known.

The new era for LED forward lighting, which is emerging with the introduction of the OSLON Black Flat X, builds on the successful platform of the existing OSLON Black Flat family of products. OSLON Black Flat LEDs are widely recognized to be the first surface-mount LED light sources to be used in automotive forward lighting. OSLON Black Flat LEDs get their name from the package style: the black package provides for high contrast of 1:200, and the flat surface-mount package can be mounted on a PCB using standard assembly equipment.

The new OSLON Black Flat X is based on the latest version of the ams OSRAM InGaN-based UX3 chip architecture. The UX3 provides more reliability, high optical power output and good thermal performance.