Cree already advertises an LED lamp it says reaches 200 lumens per watt under some circumstances.

NPR: Goodbye Fluorescent Bulb? Philips Says Yes.

And it is squeezing brighter images from its projectors, a feature measured in lumens per watt.

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U.S. Department of Energy projections published in April 2012 showed the government had expected the industry would only achieve efficiencies of 160 lumens per watt for LED lamps by 2015.

NPR: Goodbye Fluorescent Bulb? Philips Says Yes.

Mark Van Den Berg, managing director at VantagePoint, says Bridgelux has been able to reduce costs ten-fold and improve performance (on a lumens per watt basis) at least three-fold since 2006.

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The result is a relatively warm light, between 3, 000 and 4, 000 kelvin, that generates more than twice as many lumens per-watt as Philips' current LED bulbs.

ENGADGET

Early pico phones delivered about five lumens per battery watt.

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The technical milestone the company claims to have achieved is the ability to produce 200 lumens of light per watt.

NPR: Goodbye Fluorescent Bulb? Philips Says Yes.

Efficacy, a measure of how many lumens (a measure of light) can be generated per watt, rose from 15 in 2000 to 160 last year.

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