Coupled Thermal-Electrical Simulations Shed Light on LED Performance

摘要

Light Emitting Diode (LED) manufacturers sort their products into "bins" based on forward voltage, with the purpose of delivering the most consistent light possible. Despite the tight grouping of forward voltages in these bins, manufacturing tolerances continue to lead to significant variations in both current draw and temperatures inside the LEDs, resulting in a range of colors, even within the same batch. These discrepancies also undermine the most noteworthy selling point of the LED: its long operational life. Zumtobel, a leading supplier of integral lighting solutions for professional lighting applications, has addressed this problem by investigating the highly interconnected process between the thermal and electrical characteristics of LEDs using coupled simulations with STAR-CCM+ and NGSPICE.