New SCHOTT Solidur™ TO LED in Ceramic SMD Design Enables Complex Chip Configurations in a Single LED Module

SCHOTT recently introduced its autoclavable and highly durable Solidur™ LED product line for use in medical and dental technology to the market. Now, the company is offering its Solidur™ TO LED also in SMD design with a ceramic-to-metal sealed housing. SCHOTT is showcasing its LED products for medical technology at MEDTEC in Stuttgart, Germany from April 21 to 23, 2015 (hall 3 booth G57).

Medical devices that come into contact with the human body must be able to withstand frequent steam sterilization without damaging their performance or reducing their lifetime. Thanks to the newly developed Solidur™ LEDs from SCHOTT, it is now possible to integrate a fully autoclavable light source directly at the tip of medical devices, bringing the light closer to the area of interest.

Solidur™ LEDs have been successfully tested in more than 3.500 autoclaving cycles at 134°C. Thanks to their gas-tight housing made of inorganic, non-aging materials such as metal, glass and ceramics, they withstand temperature, chemicals, corrosion and pressure. This makes them ideally suited for use in medical devices, such as endoscopes or surgical instruments.

SMD-capable Solidur™ TO LED for complex requirements in a single LED module

With the new Transistor Outline (TO) LED in SMD design, SCHOTT has now introduced another addition to the Solidur™ LED family: Compared to standard TO LEDs with electrical contact pins, the SMD-version of the TO LED enables more complex connection structures and LED chip configurations.

“The ceramic substrate of the SMD TO LED allows for example the combination of different LED chips within just one sterilizable LED module. Chips that offer visible, infrared or ultraviolet wavelengths can be integrated and controlled separately. This can mean that complex configurations and housing geometries that were previously only possible with several individual light sources could now be realized in a single TO-size LED,” says Dr. Frank Gindele, Head of R&D for LEDs at SCHOTT Electronic Packaging.

The SMD design also allows other components to be integrated, such as sensors for temperature management or ESD protection diodes. “This makes our SMD-capable TO LEDs suitable for temperature critical applications such as endoscopy”, explains Gindele.

Alternative LED platforms available for medical devices: Solidur™ Ring LED and Mini LED

The second product platform in SCHOTT’s series of fully autoclavable LEDs for medical applications is the Solidur™ Ring LED: its “ring design” enables completely shadow-free illumination of the area of interest. Typical medical applications could include laparoscopes, otoscopes as well as other rigid and flexible endoscope types or surgical devices that need autoclaving.

As the world's smallest hermetic and fully autoclavable High Brightness LED currently on the market, the Solidur™ Mini LED is both “tiny & tough”. Thanks to the miniaturized size of only 2.3 mm in diameter it offers new design possibilities in endoscopic and surgical instruments or enables illumination for devices that previously had to function without a light source. The requirements regarding size and autoclaving can now be fulfilled.