Cree R&D LED reaches 186 lumens per Watt

Of course the Chinese are going to learn from whatever market their products are selling into. And how is this 'stealing'? I've heard of bizarre interpretations of reverse engineering, but this is ridiculous.

@Graybeard: Go to Sears and check out their Dremel oscillating saw.scraper/sander for $100, made in China. Now go to Harbor Freight and check out the one for $29, also made you-know-where. Now tell me they are different apart from the color of plastic on the case and tell me Dremel licensed the design.

@Jeff H: What part of "first production plant outside North America" in this weeks-old announcement is ambiguous? URL is here, cut and paste into browser as is... triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2009/11/09/daily5.html A sales and apps support office is not manufacturing, nor is an installation like the Ice Cube (I've been to Beijing this time of year...). And "you betcha" as far as my preference to the quality and innovation of American designed and made electronics, which is rare nowadays, and the significant kinds of innovation that used to come from Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, and IBM Watson are even rarer and deserving of at least a golf clap. As an American, I'm no slouch in design engineering - are you?

Yes, I care about what country a design breakthrough occurs, it is the country that I live in, --- that protects intellect and provides profit and jobs. This is not greed, it is honest commerce! Anyone who suggest only 5 years to enforce patents knows absolute nothing about the amount of time, effort, and investment it takes to develop a new technology and then acheive a reasonable ROI. This kind of thinking would be the death of motivation and innovation, which is the case in most other countries.

Cree has been operating a China facility for quite some time. They are just expanding their operation. Cree supplied LEDs for the "Water Cube" Olympic facility.

These guys truly do amazing work and it's in America to boot. Yay! I can't help but wonder if a competitor is imminent, given Cree's announcement of 160lm/W not too long ago. Life is going to get mighty interesting when the pirates in Cree's newly announced China facility steal, understand, and copy (possibly improve?) Cree's product - at that point we may actually see a high efficacy HBLED for under a buck in onesies, versus the $9 "value priced" XP-G's we see at Digikey now. Until we see the HBLED folks go to forward pricing models, versus nearsighted, catch 22, low volme, "value pricing" that we see today, it'll be really tough for HBLED to hit the mainstream for any app needing more than one device per luminaire. I think HBLED marketers' hands need to be forced, as they're fat, dumb, and happy now, and I think the Chinese fab effort will initiate a different pricing model a year or so after it's up and running. And not just because of the allegedly cheaper labor costs.