Litecool (http://www.litecool.co.uk), has opened a new clean room facility to research, develop, prototype and test new LED packaging technologies. The laboratory includes all the equipment needed to mount bare LEDs into packages, COBs and arrays. This will speed up time to market for new packaging technologies from Litecool.

Litecool's new LED packaging lab in UK. (Photo Courtesy of Litecool)

The clean room hosts several wire bonding and die bonding machines as well as encapsulation and curing capabilities. This will enable Litecool to build their own LED packages and lighting arrays from scratch. Particular research programmes that will be run in the lab include the development of the Lumen Block™, trials on new dielectric and die attach materials, manufacturing development and cost down activities. Litecool has developed its own thermal testing facility and has a thermally controlled integrating sphere for optical testing meaning that the full R&D lifecycle from concept to pre-production is now in-house.

“There aren’t many packaging R&D facilities in the UK so we decided to open our own. It will significantly reduce the lead time for us to get concepts to market. Prototypes can now be made in a matter of days not weeks. We have a number of exciting concepts to put through the Labs so expect to see some great things come out soon.” James Reeves, CEO, Litecool.

“I haven’t seen investment in such a facility in the UK for decades. It is great to be part of it and to help push through some exciting new packaging technologies.” Elwyn Wakefield, Chief Packaging Engineer, Litecool.