Ce-doped SiO x N y and SiAlON matrices are promising materials for blue LED applications. The uniqueness of this approach stems from the fact that SiO x N y , as a host, combines specific properties of individual SiO x and SiN y matrices like solubility, efficient emission, 5 eV gap etc. with a broad excitation range (400 to 500 nm) of Ce 3+ due to the 4f-5d transitions. Furthermore, the codoping with aluminum enhances the Ce 3+ emission. In this work, we fabricated electroluminescent devices using SiO x N y : Ce 3+ and SiAlON: Ce 3+ as an active layers and studied the resulting emission under optical and electrical excitation as a function of nitrogen, cerium and aluminum concentrations. I-V measurements were conducted to determine the SiO x N y : Ce 3+ layer electrical parameters. The transport through the devices obeys a Poole-Frenkel conduction mechanism. It was demonstrated that by optimizing the SiO x N y :Ce 3+ material growth parameters an improvement of electroluminescence yield can be achieved with maximum intensity achieved for devices with Ce content of 4 at.%.