<div class="htmlview paragraph">Within the last years light emitting diodes are entering the market for automotive exterior lighting. More and more applications such as CHMSLs, brake-, tail-, and indicator-lights are realized with LEDs. For these areas new high flux packages with high stability and best thermal conductivity are necessary.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">This article presents new premolded SMT-devices with an integrated copper heat sink. Based on thermal and mechanical FEM - simulations new package designs to reach the wished characteristics will be discussed, such like usability of conventional IR-soldering methods, high temperature cycling stability, low thermal resistance and high optical flux.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">In this paper power LEDs will be compared with conventional LEDs, especially the electro-optical characteristics in different circuit designs, the investigations of thermal management, based on various package densities and PCB - materials. Additionally the assembly and application possibilities. The result of the comparison will show the advantages and disadvantages of different LED - devices for various applications and will give a guideline which LED is best qualified for possible exterior lighting designs.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">In the near future with increasing chip efficiency even headlights appear to be possible. Therefore we will give an prospect of possibilities to use LEDs also for such lighting purposes.</div>