A main cause of LED failures is improper thermal management. Many performance characteristics of LED components are influenced
by the operating temperature, so LED system designers need a basic understanding of thermal design and performance. All Cree XLamp
LED product data sheets detail the performance characteristics that are impacted by temperature. Also, Cree’s internally developed
software, the Product Characterization Tool (PCT), can be used to calculate the specific responses to thermal effects. Some performance
characteristics experience a recoverable change, such as light output, color and voltage, while others, such as lifetime, can experience a
non-recoverable degradation due to high operating temperatures. However, exceeding the maximum operating temperature specification,
which is typically a 150 °C junction temperature, can cause permanent and/or catastrophic damage to XLamp LEDs, so care must be
taken to operate LEDs below this limit.