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To: FLSTF97 who wrote (1847)	2/5/2000 11:55:00 AM
From: mauser96	Respond to of 10713

Despite the inherent coolness of LED compared to incandescent lamps, there are heat problems. LED luminous intensity is roughly proportional to the amount of current applied to the LED. Increasing the light by clustering multiple small LED or by designing the LED to operate at higher current both give rise to problems with heat. This heating problem with multiple LED is aggravated by the fact that the multiple wire bonds and junction points are also affected by thermal stress. Many small heat producing objects packed close together are likely to have a problem radiating or conducting heat away, even if each of them alone doesn't produce all that much heat. I suspect this is a problem that can be ameliorated with some clever engineering, and doesn't represent a real barrier to further adoption of LED lighting. Present uses of large numbers of LED like outdoor displays and traffic lights show that it has been solved, at least for lighting units not operating in small enclosed spaces. theledlight.com discusses some of this heat problem BTW, since you don't consider Blue LED to be a chasm event, is it blue lasers you are looking forward to? Personally I'm not all that enthused about blue lasers because I suspect several vendors will share the market, and I'm not even sure Cree will be one of them. I am more excited about future use asmicrowave and RF devices and utility switches but that's a long way off.