LED Color Mixing: Basics and Background
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CLD-AP38 REV 1D TECHNICAL ARTICLE LED Color Mixing: Basics and Background TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Introduction ...................................................................................1 This application note explains aspects of the theory and practice The Need for Color Consistency in LED Illumination ..................2 of creating color-consistent, LED-based illumination products LED Binning ...................................................................................3 and shows how to use Cree XLamp® LEDs to achieve this end. Colorimetry and Binning Basics ...................................................3 LEDs, as with all manufactured products, have material and Color-Space Basics .................................................................4 process variations that yield products with corresponding Idealized Illumination Colors – the Black Body Curve ..........7 variation in performance. LEDs are binned and packaged to MacAdam Ellipses: The Variability of Perception, Expressed balance the nature of the manufacturing process with the in Color Space .........................................................................9 needs of the lighting industry. Lighting-class LEDs are driven Partitioning the Color Space – Binning ................................11 by application requirements and industry standards, including Chromaticity Bins ..................................................................13 color consistency and color and lumen maintenance. Just as Flux Bins .................................................................................14 traditional lamps are sold by brightness (typically indicated by Using Colorimetry and Binning Information in Illumination wattage) and color (warm or cool white), LEDs are binned for Specification ................................................................................15 brightness (luminous flux) and color parameters (chromaticity). Additive Nature of Photometry and Colorimetry .................16 The Basic Approaches ..........................................................17 Three Approaches .......................................................................18 Use Cree EasyWhite Components........................................19 Color Mixing in the LED System ...........................................19 Examples ...............................................................................21 Photometric Dependencies .......................................................23 Conclusion ...................................................................................23 MP la OM/X C . cree . Copyright © 2010-2016 Cree, Inc. All rights reserved. The information in this document is subject to change without notice. Cree®, XLamp® and Cree, Inc. WWW EasyWhite® are registered trademarks and the Cree logo is a trademark of Cree, Inc. ENERGY STAR® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Environmental 4600 Silicon Drive Protection Agency. This document is provided for informational purposes only and is not a warranty or a specification. For product specifications, Durham, NC 27703 please see the data sheets available at www.cree.com. For warranty information, please contact Cree Sales at [email protected]. USA Tel: +1.919.313.5300 LED COLOR MIXING THE NEED FOR COLOR CONSISTENCY IN LED ILLUMINATION Figure 1: The Need for Color Consistency Spans all Illumination There is nothing like a picture to illustrate a visual point such as color variation. The photograph in Figure 1 clearly shows the need for every illumination technology to deliver consistent color. ThisTechnologies photograph is an example of the challenges Cree, in conjunction with the lighting industry, is trying to meet for LED lighting applications. Figure 1: The need for color consistency spans all illumination technologies Figure 1 is a photograph of an array of high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps illuminating the facade of a building. It shows the undesirable results of inconsistent color temperature and the degradation of performance of luminaires as they age. Increasingly active industrial policy in the United States and throughout the world is resulting in a rigorous set of performance requirements for LED lighting applications. The first industrial policy that mandated illumination technology for LED lamp requirements was the 2007 document, “ENERGY STAR® Program Requirements for Solid State Lighting Luminaires.” This was followed by requirements for LED lamps, enumerated in the 2010 document “ENERGY STAR® Program Requirements for Integral LED Lamps”, which proposed stringent requirements, significantly above those for compact fluorescent lamp (CFL).1 Each of these documents contains requirements for correlated color temperature (CCT), color rendering index (CRI), lumen and color maintenance for an ENERGY-STAR-approved LED illumination product and have been subsequently revised2,3. CCT requirements are excerpted in Tables 1 and 2 below. 1 See www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/prod_development/revisions/downloads/cfls/Criteria_CFLs_V4.pdf 2 www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/product_specs/program_reqs/Integral_LED_Lamps_Program_Requirements.pdf 3 www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/product_specs/program_reqs/Final_Luminaires_V1_2.pdf?7b7d-2473 Copyright © 2010-2016 Cree, Inc. All rights reserved. The information in this document is subject to change without notice. Cree®, XLamp® and EasyWhite® are registered trademarks and the Cree logo is a trademark of Cree, Inc. ENERGY STAR® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This document is provided for informational purposes only and is not a warranty or a specification. For product specifications, please see the data sheets available at www.cree.com. For warranty information, please contact Cree Sales at [email protected]. 2 LED COLOR MIXING Table 1: ENERGY STAR requirements for integral LED lamps, per program requirements (V1.4) Reference Standard/Test Sample Size/ Characteristic Requirement Method Specific Requirements Lamp must have one of the following designated CCTs (per IES LM-79-08 10 units per model ANSI C78.377-2008) consistent with the 7-step chromaticity • 5 base-up quadrangles and Duv tolerances below. ANSI/NEMA/ • 5 base-down ANSLG C78.377-2008 At least 9 of the 10 samples must Nominal CCT Target CCT (K) and Target Duv and meet the specification CCT and Duv Tolerance Tolerance 2700 K 2725 ± 145 0.000 ± 0.006 3000 K 3045 ± 175 0.000 ± 0.006 3500 K 3465 ± 245 0.000 ± 0.006 4000 K 3985 ± 275 0.001 ± 0.006 Table 2: ENERGY STAR CCT requirements for indoor LED luminaires, per program requirements (V1.2) Characteristic Requirements CCT requirements: all indoor The luminaire (directional luminaires), or replaceable LED light engine or GU24 based integrated LED lamp (non-directional luminaires luminaires) shall have one of the following nominal CCTs: • 2700 Kelvin • 3000 Kelvin • 3500 Kelvin • 4000 Kelvin • 5000 Kelvin (commercial only) The luminaire, LED light engine or GU24 based integrated LED lamp shall also fall within the corresponding 7-step chromaticity quadrangles as defined in ANSI/NEMA/ANSLG C78.377-2008. These requirements highlight the need to achieve defined, repeatable results with the manufacturing output from an LED supplier. LED BINNING LEDs can be characterized in multiple ways. For color mixing, the two most important dimensions are color expressed as chromaticity (CCx, CCy), and luminous flux, measured in lumens (lm). These parameters are collected as part of the LED component manufacturing process and are the basis for the component binning discussed in this document. COLORIMETRY AND BINNING BASICS It is easier to explain the world of LED colorimetric binning and mixing by reviewing a bit of high-level color science. Colorimetry is the science of the human perception of color and contains a framework for analyzing both the spectral distribution of illumination and the human characteristics of color perception. Copyright © 2010-2016 Cree, Inc. All rights reserved. The information in this document is subject to change without notice. Cree®, XLamp® and EasyWhite® are registered trademarks and the Cree logo is a trademark of Cree, Inc. ENERGY STAR® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This document is provided for informational purposes only and is not a warranty or a specification. For product specifications, please see the data sheets available at www.cree.com. For warranty information, please contact Cree Sales at [email protected]. 3 LED COLOR MIXING Figure 17: Light is the visible portion of electromagnetic spectrum coved from 380 nm to 780 nm Figure 2: Light is the visible portion of electromagnetic spectrum ranging from 380 nm to 780 nm A lighting designer may seek to deliver a warm, neutral or cool illumination source. Knowledge about the lighting application will allow the designer to ensure the correct lighting decisions are made for that space. Understanding the following key concepts that relate colorimetry and LED binning will enable the designer to specify the proper LED solution. Copyright © 2009, pg. 18 1. ColorCree, space, Inc. the formalism to objectively describe any perceptible color. 2. Color temperature, more precisely the correlated color temperature, characterizes the hue of an illumination source as a temperature on the Kelvin scale. 3. The empirical data and models of human perception and variability in color and vision that provide additional framework for the way in which color bins are created. The perceptual psychologists’