Cree Inc. (NASDAQ: CREE) is a multinational manufacturer of semiconductor materials and devices, headquartered in Durham, North Carolina. Cree is noted for their improvements in light-emitting diode (LED) technologies.
Cree's high-power LEDs, XLamp 7090 XR-E Q4
A recent example of Cree's LED innovation was their February 2010 announcement of a prototype white LED that can produce a record-setting 208 lumens per watt while drawing 350 mA of current, nearly 14 times the efficiency of a typical incandescent light bulb.
Competing firms in the LED industry include Nichia Corporation, Osram Opto Semiconductors, Philips Lumileds Lighting Company, Seoul Semiconductor, Epistar, Everlight Electronics and GE Lumination.
History
Cree was formed in 1987 by researchers from North Carolina State University.
In 2005, Cree opened a subsidiary, Cree Asia-Pacific Ltd., at the Hong Kong Science Technology Park to serve as a center of product innovation in Asia and provide customer and technical support, particularly in the area of packaged LED lighting components.
In 2007, Cree acquired Cotco Luminant Device Ltd of Hong Kong for $200 million. Cotco is a supplier of high brightness LEDs in China.
In 2009, Cree announced an agreement to purchase a 592,000-square-foot (55,000 m) facility in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, China. The facility will be Cree’s first chip production facility outside of North America and is targeted to also house future components manufacturing expansion. Also in 2009, with a dramatic increase in the use of LEDs, Cree said its Durham plant would add 575 workers by 2012, with the first 200 hired in the first few months after the announcement.
On February 8, 2012, Cree announced the XLamp XT-E, which they claim delivers twice as much light for the same price as older LEDs.
