February 10, 2012 at 12:46 PM

Two releases came out within a few days of each other that make very similar claims for very different reasons, with neither of them providing the real data that would back the claim.

On Monday, Plessey announced that they were cutting the cost of high-brightness LEDs by going to 6” GaN-on-Si technology; they were acquiring CamGaN, a Cambridge spin-out. They make their cost comparison to SiC or sapphire technology.

Then, on Tuesday, Cree announced that it was doubling the lumens/dollar (or, conversely, cutting the cost of a lumen in half) for its SiC technology. While that doubling was with respect to its prior family, the general tone of the release was that this “…addresses the largest obstacle to mass LED lighting adoption, initial cost, and enables LED lighting systems to replace their inefficient ancestors.”

So the general impression is that both of these take cost (and, by implication, pricing) where it’s never gone before. And yet, even though the main message in both is about cost or price, there is no price information anywhere in either release.

Now, I’m generally not a big follower of pricing information in press releases; I’m much more interested in the “how” than the “how much.” But when your story is about price (ultimately), then it seems like that’s relevant information. Even if just a general range.

Nonetheless, neither company responded to a request for more information on pricing. Not even a “thanks for your interest, but we can’t give you that.”

You can find more about Plessey’s release here and Cree’s here. “More,” however, doesn’t include price.

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