CREE >>he referred to the brightness gap as a "persistent rumor."<<
unclewest, I copied the information referred to from a filing with the SEC made by CREE. The filing was a Registration Statement. It was dated 1/13/00 and it was filed on 1/14/00. The information appears on page 38 under the heading Competition. Again, this is the line:
"LumiLeds Lighting, a joint venture between Agilent Technologies and Philips Lighting, which currently market blue and green LED products that are brighter than our high brightness blue and green LED devices."
If the company is saying one thing in its filings with the Federal Government and another thing in public speeches than that would worry me.
Here is the full text from which that line was taken, where they talk about their lower cost and smaller size in an apparent effort to make up for their lower brightness. Also are other excerpts from that 80 page document that address the brightness issue:
[page 17] "We derive
the largest portion of our revenue from the sale of blue and green LED products.
We offer LEDs at two brightness levels: high brightness blue and green products
and standard brightness blue products. "
[page 33] "We are focusing current development efforts on further improving the brightness
of our high brightness LEDs. We believe that increased brightness will further
enhance our ability to compete against LEDs fabricated from sapphire substrates,
which are presently brighter than our high brightness products."
[page 38] "Our primary competition for the blue and green LED products comes from Nichia
Chemical Industries, Ltd., Toyoda Gosei Co. Ltd. and LumiLeds Lighting, a joint
venture between Agilent Technologies and Philips Lighting, which currently
market blue and green LED products that are brighter than our high brightness
blue and green LED devices. In addition, Uniroyal Technologies, Inc. has
announced its intention to begin production of blue and green LEDs in January
2000. Existing competitors historically have been successful in the market for
outdoor display applications because of the brightness demands of outdoor
displays, as well as the decreased price sensitivity of the outdoor display
market. We believe our brighter blue and green LEDs have enabled us to compete
successfully in this market because our LEDs can be used in the same
applications at a lower cost than competing products. At the same time, we
continue development to improve the brightness of our LEDs to enhance our
ability to compete in this market.
We believe that our approach to manufacturing blue and green LEDs from SiC
substrates offers a more cost-effective design and process than our competitors,
who use a sapphire substrate. Our smaller chip design, which is compatible with
industry trends toward package miniaturization, enables the diode to use less
material and permits more devices to be fabricated on each wafer processed,
lowering the cost per unit. In addition, our industry standard vertical chip
structure allows manufacturers to package the LED on the same production line as
other green, amber and red LEDs, eliminating the need for special equipment
necessary for chips made from sapphire substrates. Furthermore, our SiC-based
devices can withstand a higher level of ESD than existing sapphire-based
products and therefore are more suitable for applications that require high ESD
emission ratings, such as automotive applications.
We believe that other companies, including certain of our customers, may seek to
enter the blue and green LED market in the future. For example, Osram OS and
Shin-Etsu have licensed some of our LED technology, which may facilitate their
entry into our LED markets. We believe that Osram OS is currently producing LEDs
using technology licensed from us. The market for SiC wafers also is becoming
competitive, as other companies in recent years have begun to offer SiC wafer
products or announced plans to do so."
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