Mid Power LEDs performance comparison test: Nichia LEDs in first place

By Ledrise Led Professional
Jul 1, 2020

Performance wise, LEDs are not created equal. To visualize how different they can be, we compared more than a dozen models from leading LED manufacturers: Nichia, Osram Opto Semiconductors, Samsung, Lumileds, LG Innotek, Seoul Semiconductor, Cree, Everlight.

The tested type is mid-power LED, less than 0.3 watts of power, fairly small with minimal cooling requirement. Many lighting products are based on mid-power LEDs:

LED strips
LED tubes (linear fluorescent lamp replacement)
LED bulbs
Linear light fixtures
Square, round or rectangular LED panels / ceiling lights

Also included is the performance data of low cost 5050 and 3528 / 2835 LED packages, as such LEDs are still used by many lighting manufacturers, in linear LED modules, fluorescent tubes, lamps, panels or even luxury lights.

For a meaningful comparison, all selected LEDs run at 65 mA with voltage between 2.75 and 3.2 V and are divided into three color temperature groups:

Cold white (5000-6500K), CRI 80+, a choice in linear fluorescent lamp replacement (LED tubes) or luminaires for office or industry.
Warm white (2700K-3900K), CRI 80+, normally used in LED lamps, linear luminaires, cove lamps, desk lamps, for residential and catering applications.
Warm white (2700K-3900K), CRI 90+, with applications in luxury lighting, professional linear luminaires, cove luminaires for the commercial and gastronomic sector.

For each category, we analyze the most important performance attributes:

luminous flux (measured in lumens)
luminous efficacy (lumens per watt)

While de LED is operating at two temperature levels:

laboratory temperature of 25ºC junction temperature (inside the LED core)
real world 100ºC junction temperature

The data for the comparison test is taken from the manufacturer's data sheets.

Test results for Cold White (5000-6500K) CRI 80+ LEDs

Nichia 757G LEDs have the highest luminous flux and efficacy:

37.5 lumens and 210 lumens / watt at 25ºC
33.75 lumens and 189 lumens / watt at 100ºC

They also have the smallest performance difference between functioning in a laboratory, at 25ºC, and real world, at 100ºC, only 10%.

Lumileds LEDs have the second-highest performance and efficacy:

34.5 lumens and 187 lumens / watt at 25ºC
29.5 lumens and 163 lumens / watt at 100ºC

In third place are Seoul Semiconductor LEDs with:

32.9 lumens and 181 lumens / watt at 25ºC
28.62 lumens and 157 lumens / watt at 100ºC

Samsung and LG LEDs have the same good performance as Seoul Semiconductor LEDs at 25ºC, but cannot be included comparsion, as the data for temperature and luminous flux at more than 85ºC is not available. If this temperature is a mechanical limit, it can be problematic to use the LEDs at the specified current of 65 mA.

Thus, following Seoul Semiconductor LEDs are those from Osram, Everlight and Cree.

Far behind, in the last place, are the low cost 5050 and 3528 / 2835 LEDs. This difference, between them and all the other LEDs, is most noticeable.

It is so high that one can wonder why anyone would still use these LEDs for lighting applications. A luminaire with these LEDs will have such a low output that integration into a project makes little or no sense. It may have been okay a decade ago, but today it is just a waste of resources.

Test result for Warm White (2700K-3900K) CRI 80+ LEDs

Besides the expected lower luminous flux for all warm white LEDs compared to cold white the order of performance is the same as 6500K.

The Nichia 757G LED has the highest performance, followed by Lumileds and Seoul Semiconductor, with Osram, Everlight and Cree at some distance behind.

LG and Samsung could not be included at the 100ºC comparison.

5050 and 3528 LEDs are as poor performing at 2700K as they are at 6500K.

Test result for Warm White (2700K-3900K) CRI 90+ LEDs

To obtain high light quality is technologically challenging, it also impacts LEDs performance. Only some manufacturers are able to offer CRI 90+ versions of the middle power LEDs we compared.

We see differences from the CRI 80+ tests. The performance gap between Nichia and Lumileds is slightly bigger, 19% at 100ºC, and almost 35% from the third in line, Osram.