Highlights this week:

Several tragedies struck the industry this week. Renowned architect Dame Zaha Hadid, known for her bold modern building designs unfortunately passed away at the age of 65 from a sudden heart attack on April 1, 2016. Sadly, this is no April Fools prank. Hadid’s design firm confirmed that the architect died in Florida, U.S.

Fire broke out in Epistar’s N3 plant in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Fortunately, the company’s LED wafer production lines were unaffected by the fire, and fire insurance is expected to cover most of the loss.

LED automobile lighting manufacturers will also be alarmed by a recent study conducted by the IIHS in U.S. Most LED headlights received marginal or poor ratings from the organization, even in high end luxury car brand models including Benz, BMW, and Lexus car models. The best performing LED headlight was found in Toyota Pirus V out of 31 car brand models surveyed.

[Editor's Note: LEDinside will not be updating the website from April 4-5, 2016, since it will be Tomb Sweeping Days in Taiwan. We apologize for any inconvinence caused to international readers during this time period.]

Editor recommendations

1. Is OLED Ready to Slaughter LED Backlight in Smartphone Applications?
2. Fake Philips Lighting LED Bulbs Found in Yinshang County in China
3. Three Major Chinese Automotive Lighting Manufacturers Business and Development Strategies
4. U.S. Court Rules Enplas Infringed Seoul Semiconductor LED Lens Patents
5. Shanghai Felio Acoustics Denies Affiliated Company INESA is Constructing A New LED Plant in France
6. Foshan Lighting’s Net Profits in 2015 Hurt by Investor Lawsuit
7. KGI: Apple to Launch AMOLED Smartphone in 2017
8. IIHS Study Finds LED Headlights Performance Mediocre in Most Car Models
9. Foxconn Acquisition of Sharp Offers Apple Alternative OLED Supplier
10. Epistar Operations Unaffected by N3 Plant Fire
11. Renowned Architect Dame Zaha Hadid Dies at Age of 65

Innovative technologies

• Spanish Researchers Stimulates Boar Sperm with Red LEDs
• South African Researchers Demonstrate Laser Beams with a "Twist"

New Standards and Resources

• ANSI Accredited Standards Committee C78 Reconfirms Slide Projector Lamp Standards for Tungsten-Halogen Lamps
• NEMA Business Conditions Indexes Spikes up Sharply in March

Government projects

1. City of Phoenix Plans Ahead of 90,000 Street and Parking Lights Upgrade
2. City in New Mexico Installs Different Brightness LED Streetlights in Residential and Traffic-intensive Streets
3. Western Australia Replaces All Traffic Lights with LEDs
4. Stirling Council in UK Saves up with LED Streetlights
5. Reading Council in UK Rolls out LED Streetlight Replacement Project
6. UK Towns to Spend Millions in LED Streetlight Upgrade
7. Consumers in Maharashtra District in India Offered Few LED Bulb Payment Options

Industry news

1. OPPLE Lighting Rolls out New Strategies for Expansion
2. ETI’s Independent Director Resigns
3. Everlight Boosts Revenue with VR and Other Niche Market Applications
4. University of California Research Center Adopts TNSC's MOCVD Reator for DUV LED
5. TNSC Invested in Chinese Venture Company Jilin OLED
6. Community LED Streetlight Upgrade Thwarted by Florida Power Utility Company
7. A Look into LED's Architectural Potential
8. LIA's New Laboratory to Debut In Early April
9. OSRAM Showcased an LED/OLED Rear Lamp Demonstrator at Light + Building 2016
10. Panasonic's "100 Thousand Solar Lanterns Project" has Donated over 50K Lamps
11. Nanoco to Demonstrate Cadmium-Free Quantum-Dot Enabled LED Lighting for Agriculture at Indoor Ag-Con Event in Las Vegas
12. Airbus Renovates Cabin Design with LED Lights
13. Build Eco Xpo (BEX) Asia 2016

New products

1. Lumileds Reveals New Mid Power LED for Harsh Environments
2. Oclaro Introduces New Non-Hermetic DFB Laser Diodes for 100Gbit/s Transceivers
3. Microchip Adds Two New Digitally Enhanced Power Analog Controllers to Product Lineup
4. MEAN WELL Releases 320W Constant Current and High Voltage Output LED Driver
5. GOOD LINING Launches LEDs for Outdoor Applications
6. Fluxwerx Launches Three New LED Luminaires for Indoor Applications
7. Venture Lighting Launches New High Bay LED Lamps for Industrial Applications
8. Try LED-lit Sync Footwear if You Want to Grab Attention at Clubs
9. Team Group Releases LED-lit Memory
10. Control a GaN Power Stage with a Hercules LaunchPad Development Kit
11. Orion Releases New LED Troffer Retrofit with Replaceable Light Engine
12. LED Engin Releases New High Power LED with Seven Colors on a Single Emitter

Lighting projects

1. Smartworld's Dubai-based Headquarters Upgarded with Philips Lighting and Cisco Digital Ceiling Framework
2. Time Waterfall Illuminates Hong Kong's Cityscape
3. US City's Infrastructure Becomes a Work of Art
4. Pitt Rivers Museum is Aglow with LED Lamps from Soraa
5. Artists Transform Chicago's Garfield Park Conservatory into a Sea of All Colors