Electronics Weekly puts its questions to an industry figure: Lumileds Luxeon product manager Sudhir Subramanya, who talks about the future of LED packaging at Philips Lumileds design.

Seoul Semiconductor has recently announced the P7, a large surface mount package with a lot of power handling. Does Lumileds have intellectual property that would allow it to match this package in thermal conductivity?

Yes. We expect packages like the Luxeon K2 to handle approximately 14W.

You have the Luxeon V, Osram its Ostars, and Seoul its P7 - all multi-die packages. Do multi-die packages have a long term future or will single die packages replace them?

Yes, multi-die packages have a future. The challenge is heat and package material management.

Is Lumileds planning a physically larger package similar in construction to the Rebel?

We have not announced any plans to do this. We do have other die-on-ceramic products: Luxeon Flash and our Automotive Forward Lighting sources.

Coloured Luxeon V LEDs were fine, so why was the Luxeon V package unsuited to white LEDs with a lifetime comparable to, for example, Luxeon 1 white LEDs?

White Luxeon V products exhibited light output degradation over time due to phosphor-silicone browning.  Phosphor-silicone browning was due to the higher light output and reactions with the phosphor-silicone coating at high operating temperature.

Given the time again, could Lumileds have designed a package in the same hex footprint that would have given the full desired lifetime from white?

Without a doubt. Packaging technology has advanced significantly over the last six years and changes could be made that resolve the issue.  Our Luxeon K2 package is an example of high light output and drive current and up to around 5-6W of power handling capability.
 
For the full text of this interview see: Lumileds talks LED packaging - interview

See also: Q5 interview - Steve Landau, Lumileds [Thursday 14 February 2008]
Steve Landau is director of marketing communications at Lumileds.

See also: Q5 - Interviews with electronics industry leaders
Read all the Electronics Weekly Q5 interviews. From ARM's chairman, Sir Robin Saxby, to touchscreen technology firm Zytronic's MD, Mark Cambridge, the business leaders share their particular insights on the UK electronics industry.

See also: Electronics Weekly's roundup of content related to LEDs, with a special focus on both white LEDs and coloured LEDs:

LED technology - White LEDs

LED technology - Coloured LEDs

LED technology - LEDs general