Cree Brings Revolutionary LED Luminaire Design and Evaluation Services to China

Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE), a market leader in LED lighting, announces new technology centers in China, further expanding Cree TEMPO (Thermal, Electrical, Mechanical, Photometric, Optical) Services in these key markets. The groundbreaking technology centers support demand for Cree products and services throughout China and demonstrate Cree’s commitment to accelerate broader market adoption of LED lighting. TEMPO Services provide LED lighting manufacturers a comprehensive suite of evaluation services for LED luminaires – ensuring customers have information needed to design and market quality LED products.

The new technology centers will offer a range of TEMPO Services to meet the unique needs of lighting manufacturers in China, including the popular Cree TEMPO 21 and TEMPO Thermal Simulation Services. Cree’s experience indicates that many of the common quality issues and failure modes seen in Solid State Lighting products are not detected by currently available standardized tests. TEMPO 21 examines critical aspects of quality that commonly go unchecked such as chemical compatibility, driver spikes, dimmer compatibility and electrolytic capacitor analysis.

"Cree delivers our customers end-to-end development support and the opening of our new technology centers in Shenzhen and Shanghai is further evidence of our commitment to their success,” said Tang Guoqing, senior advisor, Cree Hong Kong Limited. "TEMPO Services can give manufacturers competitive advantages by helping them avoid costly design mistakes and by providing access to a broad range of test environments that are, in many cases, cost-prohibitive for them to build and operate.”

Effective LED luminaire thermal design is essential to ensure reliability and optimum performance. TEMPO Thermal Simulation predicts the thermal behavior of LED-based fixtures, including junction temperature, heat sink temperature, temperature profile and airflow profile. TEMPO SPOT gives customers access to complex, costly equipment to measure the photometric performance of luminaires and replacement lamps. Every TEMPO Service delivers an accurate, easy-to-understand TEMPO report that includes all testing results and relevant performance data.

For a complete list of TEMPO Services available in the new technology centers, please visit www.cree.com/tempo.

In addition to the new China centers, Cree currently provides TEMPO Services out of its U.S. Cree Technology Centers located in Durham, N.C. and Santa Barbara, Calif. For more information on Cree Services, please visit www.cree.com/tempo. You can also visit Cree at Booth B02, Hall 4.1 at 2012 Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition, June 9-12.

About Cree

Cree is leading the LED lighting revolution and making energy-wasting traditional lighting technologies obsolete through the use of energy-efficient, mercury-free LED lighting. Cree is a market-leading innovator of lighting-class LEDs, LED lighting, and semiconductor products for power and radio frequency (RF) applications.

Cree’s product families include LED fixtures and bulbs, blue and green LED chips, high-brightness LEDs, lighting-class power LEDs, power-switching devices and RF devices. Cree products are driving improvements in applications such as general illumination, backlighting, electronic signs and signals, power suppliers and solar inverters.

For additional product and company information, please refer to www.cree.com. To learn more about the LED Lighting Revolution, please visit www.creeledrevolution.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements involving risks and uncertainties, both known and unknown, that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated. Actual results may differ materially due to a number of factors, including customer acceptance of LED products; the risk that actual savings will vary from expectations; the rapid development of new technology and competing products that may impair demand or render Cree’s products obsolete; and other factors discussed in Cree’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 26, 2011, and subsequent filings.

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