For a long time, Nichia, Osram Opto., Cree, Toyota Gosei and Lumileds have jointly shaped an enormous and powerful patent shield with cross-license agreements within the world LED industry and the five lighting goliaths have been charging, more or less, whoever tried to sell LED products abroad. However, as those patents are about to expire, Taiwan- and Korea-based Companies rise with their new patents and the expansion of Chinese businesses is posing threats, the industry is slowing transitioning away from the old oligopoly.

The LED industry had quite a peaceful time in 1H17. Apart from a few M&As, the most-discussed technology would be Micro LED. Lots of high-tech giants worldwide have already started a series of R&D and the number of participants is getting bigger. The supply chain of Micro LED, although of limited mature technologies, is slowly shaping up. Here, LEDinside lists out major events and milestones made on the path of developing Micro LED in the first half of 2017.

Kyulux, Inc., expertizing in next generation organic light emitting diode (OLED) technology, and WiseChip, a noted manufacturer of organic light emitting diode (OLED) products, announced that the two companies plan to release a commercial product utilizing 4th generation Hyperfluorescence OLED light emission technology. This will be the first commercial product using this new generation of organic compounds in a commercial display product.

Samsung Electronics announced it has installed its first ever commercial Cinema LED Screen at Lotte Cinema World Tower in Korea. Designed as a High Dynamic Range (HDR) LED theater display, the Cinema LED Screen creates a more captivating and vibrant viewing experience through next-generation picture quality and true-to-life audio thanks to collaboration with HARMAN Professional Solutions.

Philips Lighting announced a new report jointly produced by Philips Lighting and the World Council on City Data (WCCD) which reveals that cities could make energy savings and CO2 emission reductions of almost two-thirds through the introduction of smart LED street lighting.

Osram is planning on establishing a joint venture with Continental, a German automotive manufacturing company, to develop products for automotive lighting, reported Reuters.

SemiLEDs Corporation, “SemiLEDs” or the “Company,” a developer and manufacturer of LED chips and LED components, announced its financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2017, ended May 31, 2017.

Nichia, the noted Japan-based LED firm, on 29th June filed a lawsuit with the Düsseldorf District Court in Germany against Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC Corp. and e-commerce solution provider Digital River Ireland Ltd., accusing them of the infringement of its LED patent.

The court rendered the judgment in favor of Nichia's claims for permanent injunction, also rendering of accounts and damages. Furthermore, the court confirmed Nichia's claim for recall of the accused products from the commercial customers and destruction of the accused products being owned or in possession by WOFI. The judgment is not final and can be appealed.

It has been spreading like crazy that in 2H17 three iPhone models- the high-end iPhone 8 featuring an OLED display, iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus that continue to use LCD displays- will hit the shelves. Latest sources leaked Apple might increase OLED display use in its products and all the three new iPhones to roll out in 2018 are likely to sport OLED displays. That possibly implies orders Apple places with LCD display providers Sharp and Japan Display Inc. (JDI) would plummet. It will be much of a shock to JDI which earns over 50% of its revenue from Apple’s phone screen demand.

Lumileds announced that funds affiliated with Apollo Global Management, LLC (together with its subsidiaries, “Apollo”), and Royal Philips completed their previously disclosed transaction, resulting in Lumileds operating as an independent company. Lumileds develops lighting solutions for the automotive, mobile, IoT and illumination segments, enabling customers to push the boundaries of light.

Sumitomo Chemical, the Japan-based chemical giant, is reported to have successfully developed new technologies to facilitate more cost efficient OLED display manufacture. According to Nikkei, the new materials and equipment the company introduced could possibly bring down the current production cost of OLED panels by 50%, which is able to further reduce the selling prices of OLED TVs and expand the penetration of OLED products.  

The confirmation of Samsung Display (SDC) being Apple’s AMOLED panel supplier for the upcoming iPhone devices has spurred other smartphone brands and panel makers to aggressively invest in this display technology. The latest display market forecast by WitsView, a division of TrendForce, finds that AMOLED is set to become mainstream in the global smartphone market in the near future with the penetration rate reaching to almost 50% by 2020.

Could the fire of war in the OLED display market be as heavy as that in the memory industry? Samsung Display is reported to construct the world’s largest OLED display factory. Such a massive production ramp-up is believed to be the Korean display maker’s move to make competitive prices of its OLED products to confront the growing threats from Chinese contenders.

It seems Apple is planning on finding one more source of OLED displays for its iPhone. The Korea Herald reported that last month Apple talked with LG Display to invest around USD 1.75-2.62 billion into its new OLED plant, called E6.

Early in March, the Chinese investment consortium- with IDG Capital,LED packaging manufacturer MLS CO., LTD. and Yiwu State-Owned Assets Operation Center as the members- completed the acquisition of LEDvance from Osram. Originally a general lighting business unit of Osram, LEDvance, with the support of its new owners, extended its product line from standardized and traditional light sources to advanced LED lamps and intelligent products for smart lighting.

Aurora lighting, the international LED lighting and technology organisation, has partnered with leading automobile manufacturer, BMW, to carry out its first smart lighting pilot scheme following the recent announcement of its new enterprise connected lighting platform, AXiO.

Smart cities is definitely one of the latest buzzwords, together with the Internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, smart data and visible light communication (VLC). Interesting enough, it is actually the presentation of these factors integrating all together on a scale of a city. Everything in a city–transportation, communication, security, water and power supply, and other community services–through networks, computing, analysing, and data transfer, can be more efficiently managed and improved. This is how a smart city is conceived.

Taiwanese LED packaging company Everlight announced a fairly stable revenue of 2Q17. The company is said to have performed better than in 1Q17 and its sales of 2H17 is anticipated to outnumber that in 1H17. As the traditional peak season of this year is right around the corner, the overall demand, mainly for applications such as IR LED, interior and exterior automotive lighting and fine pitch displays, will soar. Yet, Everlight’s supply of conventional lighting and LED backlighting products will slump.

Wipro Lighting became the first Indian Lighting Company to participate in the CISCO Live event which was scheduled from 25 – 29 June 2017, Las Vegas, USA. The company unveiled and showcased it’s smart & connected lighting solutions at the event. With over two decades of experience in standalone & connected lighting control system installations, Wipro Lighting is at the forefront in providing smart, intelligent & connected lighting solutions for modern work space requirements and applications.

The first half of 2017 has passed and the world has been waiting for the new iPhone, which is projected to be launched either late in this year or in 1Q18. However, according to CNBC’s report on 20th June, gadget lovers could probably have a few more things to expect, Apple’s smart glasses ‘iGlass’, for instance.

Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display lately has been receiving market attention. Not only have Korean companies been working on the development, but recently, according to BusinessKorea, even Chinese firms have jumped into the competition.

DOWA ELECTRONICS MATERIALS CO., LTD. (Headquarters: 14-1, Sotokanda 4-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Capital: ¥ 1,000 million; President: Akira Otsuka), a subsidiary of DOWA HOLDINGS CO., LTD. (same address; Capital: ¥36,400 million; President: Masao Yamada), has developed a deep ultraviolet LED chip featuring the industry’s highest output power in the world, with a peak wavelength of 280 nm, output of 75 mW and dimensions of 1 mm × 1 mm. The company has also been prepared for a mass production for these new produc...

Sharp, the Foxconn-controlled company, is possibly to partner with ASTRODESIGN, a Japanese video and signal processing tech company, to jointly develop video processing systems able to support displays with 8K ultra-high definition, as Nikkei Asian Review carried in its report on 26 June.  With Sharp’s strengths in the development of sensor technology for LCD screens and cameras, and ASTRODESIGN’s capability to upgrade digital broadcasting, the system can be used in cameras, displays and other image processing devices.

LG Display (LGD) suffered a serious disruption to its production of large-size LCD panels on June 24, when a deadly accident occurred at its P8-1 panel fab in Paju, South Korea. The Gen-8.5 has been shut down for repair and investigation by the local authorities. WitsView, a division of TrendForce, states that this incident will have a major impact on the supply of large-size panels in the third quarter. While panel quotes have softened during the second quarter, the third quarter will see a return of seasonal demand from device vendors. The accident at P8-1 will contribute to a tightening of the supply and help prop up prices to some extent.

While the public thought Sharp might focus fully on the manufacture of 8K resolution television screens after the first one was made public two years ago, according to the Japan Times, the LCD TV maker now seems determined to step into the market of OLED display by establishing new product lines- one in the city of Sakai, Osaka, and the other in Taki, a town in Mie Prefecture.

South Korean LED manufacturing Giant Seoul Semiconductor and Japan-based Toshiba Materials held a press conference introducing SunLike, a new LED technology supported by Toshiba’s TRI-R phosphor solution, in Frankfurt, Germany. The SunLike LEDs with TRI-R phosphor technology simulate sun in terms of emission spectrum, eliminating excessive blue light and appearing to be more friendly to human eyes and circadian rhythm.

Today Current, powered by GE announced it is partnering with Sainsbury’s to make it the first grocery retailer in the U.K. to power all its supermarkets entirely by LED lighting.

Lite-On Technology on 22nd June held its shareholder meeting of 2017, on which it reported a cash dividend of NT$ 2.92 with a dividend payout ratio of 72% and a dividend yield of 5.8%.

In the 2016/17 financial year the Zumtobel Group posted a marked improvement in earnings and was able to more than double its net profit year-on-year to EUR 25.2 million. While profitability was increased, revenues were impacted by negative currency effects and a challenging business environment.