Toshiba has announced that it will launch mass-production of white LEDs on 200-mm (8-in) silicon substrates this month. The TL1F1 1W LED is the first product and will deliver 112 lm at 350-mA drive current. With larger wafers and access to automated back-end manufacturing tools in depreciated IC fabs, it stands a good chance to lower the cost of LEDs and accelerate solid-state lighting (SSL) deployment, although obstacles remain in reaching the optical efficiency of sapphire-based LEDs.

The race to gallium-on-silicon (GaN-on-Si) has been a heated one and Toshiba, among others, will claim a win in the race to begin production. The company said back in July that it hoped to begin production in October and came close to hitting that target using the technology that it had licensed from Bridgelux earlier.

Details on the new LEDs aren't fully available beyond the luminous flux mark mentioned previously. That spec is almost certainly applicable to a cool-white LED because it's likely Toshiba would have used the highest flux spec in the family at announcement.

Based on the statement in the release that the announced product is a 1W device, that would put the forward voltage at about 2.85V and efficacy at 112 lm/W. Bridgelux has said that it produced GaN-on-Si LEDs in the lab with an efficacy of 150 lm/W.

For comparison, Cree announced the new XM-L2 LED family last week that is similar in size. The Cree LED measures 5×5 mm while the Toshiba LED measures 6.4×5 mm. Cree said the XM-L2 LED can deliver 186 lm/W in cool white at 350-mA drive current. Still, it's not fair to judge the Toshiba offering until we see a detailed data sheet.

Toshiba said it is planning to produce 10 million units per month. The company did not say how long it will take to reach that rate.