Nichia LEDs color temperature bins & sorting intervals

White LEDs can:

• warm white 2500K-4000K on the color temperature scale

• pure white 4000K-5000K 

• cold white 5000K-10.000K

Nichia warm white LEDs just out of the production line can have a color temperature between 2580K and 4260K.  If they were directly integrated into strips or luminaries they will yield color inconsistent products. 

 LEDs have to be further color sorted, grouped in batches known as "Chromaticity Bins".

Nichia, groups white LEDs in many Bins, thus allowing fine control of the shade of white light for a project.

The Nichia Bins for current generation LEDs start with the letters "sm" followed by a series of numbers, where the first two describe the color temperature (65 as in 6500K) while the last two narrow down the selection interval.

Nichia also offers color sorting in 3-step, 5-step and 7-step MacAdam ellipses. While we wrote a detailed explanation of LED color sorting in another article,  below is what we recommend based on the project type:

• General Lighting: 3-step sorting

• Ambient Lighting: 3-step or 5-step, where 5-step could be more affordable

• Street and Christmas lighting: 7-step

• Flashlights:  5-step or 7-step

MacAdam Chromaticity Diagram of Nichia LEDs for General Lighting 

WHITE

	sm653	sm655	sm657	sm573	sm575	sm577	sm503	sm505	sm507
x	0.3123	0.3123	0.3123	0.3287	0.3287	0.3287	0.3447	0.3447	0.3447
y	0.3282	0.3282	0.3282	0.3417	0.3417	0.3417	0.3553	0.3553	0.3553
a	0.002709	0.004515	0.006321	0.003087	0.005145	0.007203	0.003555	0.005925	0.008295
b	0.006561	0.010935	0.015309	0.007809	0.013015	0.018221	0.008418	0.014030	0.019642
Ø	-32.35	-32.35	-32.35	-31.56	-31.56	-31.56	-31.78	-31.78	-31.78

WARM WHITE

	sm453	sm455	sm457	sm403	sm405	sm407	sm353	sm355	sm357
x	0.3611	0.3611	0.3611	0.3818	0.3818	0.3818	0.4073	0.4073	0.4073
y	0.3658	0.3658	0.3658	0.3797	0.3797	0.3797	0.3917	0.3917	0.3917
a	0.003852	0.006420	0.008988	0.004071	0.006785	0.009499	0.004098	0.006830	0.009562
b	0.009009	0.015015	0.021021	0.009282	0.015470	0.021658	0.008796	0.014660	0.020524
Ø	-34.33	-34.33	-34.33	-35.95	-35.95	-35.95	-35.47	-35.47	-35.47

	sm303	sm305	sm307	sm273	sm275	sm277
x	0.4338	0.4338	0.4338	0.4578	0.4578	0.4578
y	0.4030	0.4030	0.4030	0.4101	0.4101	0.4101
a	0.004107	0.006845	0.009583	0.004056	0.006760	0.009464
b	0.008391	0.013985	0.019579	0.007872	0.013120	0.018368
Ø	-36.05	-36.05	-36.05	-36.05	-36.05	-36.05

Older generation Nichia LEDs use a different sorting method. Here MacAdam is not possible and color sorting is not as good. Example: 5mm and 3mm Nichia LEDs.

General Lighting - ANSI Bin Sorting