Osram has stacked two die to produce almost 1W of infra red light from an LED.
"With its 1mm2 thin-film chip stack, at a driving current of 1A it generates almost twice the output of the standard chips that have been used up to now," claimed Osram. "Preferred applications are those which require high radiance so that small optics can be used. This is important, for example, in pedestrian protection systems and night vision systems in vehicles."
The device is part of the firm's Platinum Dragon series, and has the same package so that existing designs can be used without modification.
1W output from 1A input comes at a forward voltage of 2.9V.
Emission wavelength is 850nm, "a compromise between maximum spectral sensitivity for CCD and CMOS cameras, and suppressed visibility for the human eye", said the firm.
Other applications are foreseen with CCTV cameras, automatic number plate recognition, and with 3D cameras for gesture recognition in TVs and games consoles.
"For this, high modulation frequencies of the light source, typically 20 to 50MHz, are required which can be easily achieved with the new infrared Dragon," said Osram.
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