Upholding a positive outlook on smartphone optical and LED application markets large demands, Taiwanese sapphire substrate manufacturer Crystal Applied has kicked off production expansion projects in Yancheng City located in Jiangsu Province in China. As more manufacturers expand production capacity in the industry, finding methods to increase profits will be key to survival, said Chang Chien-ming, Chairman of the company’s Yancheng City branch.

The merge between Taiwan’s two largest LED manufacturers Epistar and FOREPI has established the trend of forming alliances in the country’s LED industry, and the dawning of the oligopoly market. Since the two company’s merge on June 30, 2014, FOREPI has received LED lighting OEM orders from Epistar. No further restructures and adjustments have been made so far. What were the actual circumstances behind the birth of the new Epistar? What exactly happened behind the scenes? In this in-depth interview with Epistar Chief Financial Officer and Spokesman Rider Chang, LEDinside probes into the company’s mindset during the recent merge.

LED EPI wafer and chip manufacturer Genesis Photonics Inc. (GPI) Chairman David Chung upheld a positive outlook for the flip chip industry at a company shareholders meeting on June 18, 2014.

Philips Lumileds continues to develop new products to satisfy the ever changing needs of the LED industry. LEDinside had the opportunity to speak with Philips Lumileds Sr. VP of Sales & Marketing Emmanuel Dieppedalle, Sr. Director of Marketing and Business Development Ray Chock, and VP of APAC Sales Alvin Tse during the Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition 2014 last week to discuss the company current situation and future outlook.

During an interview with LEDinside, BYD Marketing Director Xiao Zhiyong explained the input and output ratio for the company’s LED investment, and discussed the company’s current situation and future developments. 

The Russian lighting market has seen explosive growth in LEDs over the past year; spurred by government initiatives to increase energy efficiency in lighting products and decrease energy intensity of GDP by 40 percent by 2020. Sergey Borovkov, Managing Partner at Lighting Business Consulting LLC in Russia, spoke to LEDinside at Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition 2014 about the current market conditions and future outlook of the Russian lighting market. 

Todd Farmer, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Exterior and Industrial, Bridgelux speaks to LEDinside about the company’s observation of the streetlight market that influenced its recent launch of Outdoor Lighting Modules (OLM).

Polish sapphire crystal growth furnace manufacturer, Juropol, plans to maintain sale targets of 70 sapphire crystal growth furnaces in 2014. The company already successfully sold 70 furnaces as of 2013, out of these 50 furnaces were preorders. Looking ahead Juropol aims to sell 200 sapphire crystal growth furnaces by 2015. 

The maturation of LED lighting has given mid-power LED products star status. Philips Lumileds, a major player in the international lighting scene, has shown its resolve in taking mid-power LEDs to another level. Besides releasing four new mid-power LED products in March, the company has introduced a whole new binning method into its new products. Philips Lumileds is providing mid-power LEDs with excellent lighting quality to differentiate itself from competitors in the mid-power product market, said Sean Zhou, Regional Marketing Director, Asia, Philips Lumileds. 

Chuang-Hsin Greenergy Co. takes a unique approach to environmentally friendly lighting design. Since 2013, the company has been producing LED lighting products using bamboo and wood as their main materials. Product designer Jack Tseng talks about his designs at Taiwan International Lighting Show 2014, which took place from March 20 to 23 at the Nangang Exhibition Center in Taipei. 

In 1991, Chen Chao-cheng established SEEDDESIGN, a high-end interior lighting design company. The Taiwan based company attracted many visitors to their booth at the Taiwan International Lighting Show 2014 with their simple, elegant, and practical lighting designs. Lin Jiaqi, marketing specialist at SEEDDESIGN, speaks about the company’s lighting concept and future direction. 

Philips Lumileds is continuing its focus in the mid-power LED sector this year with the launch of four new mid-power LED products in March 2014. Sean Zhou, Regional Marketing Director, Asia of Philips Lumileds talks to LEDinside about the company’s latest developments in this field.

In 2009, India began a plan of replacing 4 million inefficient incandescent bulbs with CFL by 2012. By 2013 Indian states including Tamil Nadu announced plans of replacing some 200,000 fluorescent tube lights with LEDs. Philips and Panasonic active involvement in the Indian market in late 2013 and Jan 2014 are also indicators of LED market potential. LEDinside editorial team had a chance to recently interview Deepak Loomba, Managing Director and CEO of De Core Nanosemiconductors Ltd., who shares some interesting insights on the LED market developments in India. 

Ya-Hui Cheng is a lighting designer from Taiwan and works for The Flaming Beacon (TFB) in Australia. She holds an undergraduate degree in Interior Design from Chung Yuan Christian University of Taiwan and a Master’s Degree in Lighting Design (MALD) from Hochschule Wismar in Germany. She is currently a design member of the IALD and the PLDA.

MEW is an injection and molding equipment manufacturer in South Korea, having accessed to the market for over 25 years. From the market demands for BMC and mobile phone application such as Crystal EMC (Sensor Wiring Bonding) and Black EMC (fingerprint recognition for mobile phones), to LED industry's increasingly stringent demands for high-power LEDs (in order to meet LED terminal market cost performance), all of which drove EMC products market demand. LEDinside is honored to interview MEW CEO.

Sumio Ichiba, Product Designer and founder of Ichiba Design Studio, talks about his crystal LED Mizubashow and Lavender designs at Lighting Japan 2014, which took place from Jan. 15 to 17 at Tokyo Big Sight.

Experienced lighting designer Hiroki Takada speaks about his award winning LED luminaire Orchids at Lighting Japan 2014 that took place at Tokyo Big Sight from Jan. 15 to 17, Tokyo, Japan. Takada, who is also the founder of Takada Design, has been designing luminaires since 1999. Takada is now a Lecturer of Nagoya Art University.

Beautiful lighting designs do not always use complicated lighting technology, as demonstrated through the Jellyfish Illuminant by Kristin Birna’s, Iceland designer and co-founder of design company Gerist, at Lighting Japan 2014 during Jan. 15-17, 2014. Birna, who originally worked in the publication sector left the industry to pursue a design career. She graduated from Iceland Academy of Arts in 2008.

At Lighting Japan 2014 that took place at Tokyo Big Sight last Wednesday to Friday, LEDinside editorial team spoke to various designers at the show. For some, this was the first time they worked with LED designs, while others were seasoned veterans. Tony Yu, Design Director, Design Department for WOW LED Lighting, an Everlight Group subsidiary, speaks about his experience working with lighting.

South Korea-based Dageon Technology founded in 2000, the president Mr.Son previously had worked for LG Silitron for 12 years. For most manufacturing machines have to be imported from abroad, Dageon began to research and develop manufacturing machines, in order to contribute to the sapphire substrate market development.

Decorative super mini LED luminaire no bigger than a ball pen attracted the attention of many passer bys at Lighting Japan 2014 at Tokyo Big Sight. Founder of Kadoya Studio Rumi Fukumoto speaks about her miniature LED lighting design IEJI at Lighting Japan 2014.

High power LED package manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Lighting Corp. (TSLC) has just completed its new factory opening ceremony on Dec. 30, 2013. TSLC has inherited wafer level packaging LED silicon substrate and Aluminum Nitrade (AIN) package technology from high-power LED package manufacturer VisEra Technologies Company. The technology gives LED package components strong characteristics of narrow beam and heat dissipation. 

LED technology has made great leaps in 2013. As LED prices continue to fall, large LED manufacturers are focusing on packaging process and material to develop low cost technologies. “Package free technology” has no doubt become the most important technological breakthrough this year that has surprised the industry. Unistars has been using advanced wafer package technology, Chip Scale Package (CSP). The company has released its new CSP series product Mercury 1515 series, and is the first Taiwanese LED packager to mass produce CSP products.

People automatically associate a yellow-orange halo glowing in the dark to warmth and romance. This is the appearance of incandescent light bulbs. Though beautiful, their harmful effect on the environment leaves countries deeply concerned. The EU in September 2012 even stopped incandescent light bulbs imports into Europe.

Roger Chu, Research Director of LEDinside, a LED research subsidiary of TrendForce, interviewed two Close2Markets LED lighting executives Ulrich Kastner-Jung and Peter Spiel recently. Kastner-Jung and Spiel have pioneered LED Lighting, successfully initiated and managed LED lighting business for more than 10 years. They are well renowned experts for western lighting markets and see a huge opportunity for Asian Solid-State Lighting (SSL) players to expand. 

George Craford, the father of AlInGaP and Solid State Lighting Fellow of Philips Lumileds talks about the technology’s future application and trends in an exclusive interview with LEDinside. Craford outlines future applications for AlInGaP to include architecture, automotive, EVL, and entertainment. Philips Lumileds former CTO also talks about smart lighting trends, and the company's color changing Hue bulbs.

Nytex Composite Products Co. has launched thermoplastics to be used for heat sinks. Compared with traditional aluminum heat sinks, the use of thermoplastics will reduce manufacturing costs by 20-30 percent.

Observations of the 2013 Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition showed the LED lighting industry is maturing; exhibitors have comprehensive product lines, improved creativity, and big companies are becoming even bigger, said Lextar Electronics Chairman David Su in an interview in June. Lextar will continue to organize its product line and operation structure as the lighting market grows and the backlight market eases. According to Su, vertical integration is becoming a trend in the LED industry with more diverse integration methods. The aim of Lextar’s vertical integration is to establish a product pyramid structure with large end-product revenues. 

Qisda, one of the few Taiwanese contemporary designer lighting manufacturers, is known internationally for its industrial design. The company emerged as the top global luminaire designer at the 2010 iF Design Award China, winning four awards with its QisDesign brand LED lamps. QisDesign was also a big winner at the 2010 Red Dot Awards, nabbing the grand prize and clinching the most number of awards in Asia. In the following year, the company’s Coral Reef LED lamp was bestowed with the Best of the Best Award at the 2010 Red Dot Award. Qisda’s senior manager Jiung-Cheng Pan talks to LEDinside on the company’s marketing strategy in the European market.

Energy saving has topped governments’ agendas as global environmental issues escalate. If Taiwan and China replaced traditional lamps with LEDs, the amount of energy Taiwan could save would be equivalent to the annual electricity generated by its three nuclear power plants, while China could save 850 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually (equivalent to Taiwan’s 4-year electricity consumption), said Everlight CEO Mr. Robert Yeh. The LED replacement could solve energy shortage issues and is a smart energy saving investment with “low costs and big benefits,” said the CEO.