Low Wattage Metal Halide lamps where developed in the late 1980’s to provide a solution for small area floodlighting. The first made where double ended HQI TS lamps, and then single ended HQI T lamps followed for use in downlights in retail environments to provide more light from a given area, more “punch”. Light fixture manufacturers such as connect Lighting, Sill and Reggiani were the first manufacturers to adopt these light sources and develop fittings to incorporate Metal Halide lamps. The market leader was Osram and its sister company Wotan Lamps with their HQI-T and HQI-TS lamps. Other lamp manufacturers soon followed suit , BLVwith HIT and HIT-DE , Philips with MHN-T and MHN-TD, Sylvania with HSI-T and HSI-TD and GE with their Arcstream range.

In 1994 Philips Lighting developed a successor to the HQI-TS low wattagemetal halide lamp, the low wattage metal halide ceramic lamp CDM-T  and CDM-TD that used a ceramic arc tube instead of a quartz arc tube. They became an instant success.