TSMC will set up a new plant with more than $9.4 billion in Taichung, Taiwan. The new plant has a total site area of 18.4ha and will have a building area of 430,000sqm and clean room area of 104,000sqm. It's reported to create 8,000 jobs over the next few years. Fab 15, in Taichung's Central Taiwan Science Park will be TSMC's third GigafabTM, or fab with capacity of more than 100,000 300mm wafers per month, and will also be TSMC's second GigafabTM equipped for 28nm technology.

Arima Optoelectronics Corporation (AOC) has chosen Veeco multiple TurboDisc(R) K465i GaN and E475 Arsenic Phosphide (As/P) MOCVD Systems to support production ramp. According to Marco Kuo, President of Arima Optoelectronics, they choose Veeco's MOCVD systems because of its production-proven reliability and high productivity. Most of the systems will be installed in a new joint venture company, Shanxi Province, Northern China.

Tirupati in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, India has participated in the Cree LED City® Program. Tirupati is one of India's important pilgrimage centers and a major economical and education hub in the southern region of Andhra Pradesh. To better light two of the city's busiest roads, Tirupati converted more than 140 street lights to LED fixtures.

Based on the fact that LED TV occupied 30 percent of the market in the second half last year, some experts predict the LED TV market share will be 70 percent this year.

Labsphere set up new manufacturing facility, Shanghai Lanfei Optical Equipment Co. Ltd., which is totally owned foreign enterprise in China, aiming at providing light measurement products and customer support at a local level. Three years ago, Labsphere opened its first sales office in China. It supplies LED, laser and traditional light source light measurement systems critical to China's developing solid state lighting industry.

Greenscape Capital Group released that Green Park Denver LLC has chosen The LED Company, based out of Wilmington, Delaware, as the lighting supplier to its Denver parking facility.

Veeco Instruments Inc. announced today that Neo-Neon Holdings Ltd., a leading lighting company listed on the Hong Kong exchanges, has ordered its first Veeco TurboDisc(R) K465i Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) system to support its LED manufacturing capacity ramp at its JiangMen, China factory. Veeco received the order during the recently completed second quarter.

ON Semiconductor Corporation (Nasdaq: ONNN) and SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. (TSE: 6764), today announced the signing of a definitive purchase agreement providing for the acquisition of SANYO Semiconductor Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of SANYO Electric, and other assets related to SANYO Electric's semiconductor business, by ON Semiconductor in a cash and stock transaction with a purchase price of approximately $366 million (¥33.0 billion), subject to adjustment pursuant to the terms of the transac

China's Ministry of Science and Technology made a plan to install around 100,000 streetlights in 10 major metropolises across the mainland last year. China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in charge of the implementation of the project, and is considering offering Taiwan's manufacturers half of the contracts designated for four cities in Guangdong, Fujian and Sichuan .

Neo-Neon Holdings Co., Ltd. LED lighting revenue and earnings for this year would surge further after posting an unexpected growth last year, when global economy remained plagued by recession, according to its chief executive Ben Fan. Thanks to accelerating replacements for traditional lamps with LED lamps, Fan said the firm's sales in mainland China for the first half of this year kept the same level as recorded for the whole 2009 .

Flexible street lighting under any lighting conditions Apart from LEDs, luminaire manufacturer Arquiled now fits with an ambient light sensor another semiconductor component from OSRAM Opto Semiconductors in its new luminaries. This sensor provides intelligent light management and reduces energy costs at the same time, as its brightness is automatically adjusted to any situation.

Based on seeking help from Taiwanese LED component makers to get away from growing competition of global TV brands, the China Video Industry Association scheduled to visit Taiwanese LED suppliers from the nation's major LED chip packagers and makers such as Epistar Corp. As the experts predict, LED TV will be one of the fast-growing areas in the future to replace CCFL backlight source for LCD TV panels, pointed out by deputy director of the association Bai Weimin.

Thanks to LED & High Speed Electronics, SPP Process Technology Systems (SPTS) has reached  a 200% increase in revenue in the first half of 2010.Thus it celebrates its first 9 months of positive growth ahead of the annual SEMICON West 2010 exhibition.

Bridgelux, Inc. has chosen Praxair Electronics as its partner in manufacturing operations at Bridgelux's Livermore, Calif.

Due to the scarcity of electronic components from upper stream, for production capacity entire LED industry has shrunk significantly. Also, many major international LED manufacturers have extended its delivery time to reflect to this emergency. As today, the lead time has been stretched out from 5 weeks to nearly 20 weeks. This bad situation swept the LED industry, which is in rapidly growing stage now. The serious impact does not only affect LED manufacturers, but also for distributors and trading companies who are facing huge financial penalty by postponing delivery schedule.

Micron Technology, Applied Materials, and Ultratech have participated in the imec industrial affiliation program (IIAP) on GaN-on-Si technology in Leuven, Belgium.

AIVtech International Group Co. will provide 15,000 LED-backlit LCD TVs with Europea Trade N.V..

An Executive Congress on LED lighting was hosted by Frost & Sullivan  in India at the Hyatt Regency in New Delhi.

Light Transformation Technologies LLC, the subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation, signed a settlement and license agreement with Osram Sylvania Inc..

Cree, Inc. and Philips have joined force in a comprehensive, worldwide LED patent cross-license agreement, aiming to further accelerate the growth of the LED lighting market. The agreement includes patents from both parties in the fields of blue LED chip technology, white LEDs and phosphors (including remote phosphors), control systems, LED luminaires and lamps ,LED backlighting of LCDs and patents in the Philips LED Luminaire Licensing Program.

Samsung and LG intend to offer a wider range of LED TVs this year. According to Rohit Pandit, business head for home entertainment at LG Electronics in India, LG new range of TVs is now weighted 50-50 between LED and LCD units. Samsung India deputy managing director Ravinder Zutshi  also forecasts sales of 200,000-300,000 LED sets this year, compared to 40,000 in 2009.

The LED market is developing rapidly, with US$7 billion in 2009 rising up to US$10.7 billion in 2010 and is expected to reach US$20.4 billion in 2012. The application of LED backlights by LCD TV manufacturers increased from 0.01% at the end of 2008 to 10% in the second half of 2009. It is expected to reach 27% by the end of 2010. And the application of LED backlights by LCD display producers grew from 0.01% at the end of 2008 to 5%.

Digi-Key made an agreement with Bridgelux for LED distribution. It will distribute Bridgelux products to customers worldwide. Bridgelux offers one of the industry's widest ranges of solid-state light sources, delivering 240 to 4500 "hot" lumens across a broad range of color temperatures.

AIXTRON AG announced today a new order for six CRIUS II 55x2-inch configuration deposition systems from Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics Co., Ltd., ‘SILAN’. The Hangzhou, PR China based company, placed the order in the second quarter of 2010 and will take delivery of the systems over the fourth quarter 2010 to first quarter 2011 period. The systems will be used for the volume production of GaN ultra-high brightness (UHB) blue/green LEDs.

To meet the growing demands of Asia manufacturers designing SSL, mobile phone chargers and network adapters, iWatt Inc. built a new design center in the Shenzhen Science Park in Shenzhen, China. With iWatt's recent diversification to include AC/DC LED driver ICs for dimmable LEDs, the company is positioned to tap into growing conservation initiatives worldwide to replace existing incandescent bulbs with more energy-efficient LEDs. And more than 100 lighting companies use iWatt's new LED driver ICs.

Party Secretary of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, S.K. Guo, led a more than 1000 member group to Taipei to buy US$272.73 million in products, such as auto parts, sundries, foods, LED lamp parts, electronic devices, hardware and so on. After the economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) had been signed between the two sides three days ago, the group became the first large Chinese financial delegation visiting Taiwan.

If Miri City Council (MCC) is to go ahead with its plan to use LED as the street lightings, it will be the first in the country to implement LED lighting system. According to Mayor Lawrence Lai , city council is expected to implement LED lighting system within a year. Electricity bill incurred by city council is about RM7 million on 17,500 street lights. With the installation of LED lighting systems, the city council is able to save at least 60 per cent (RM4.2 million) in electricity bills.

Epistar is scheduling to align with Delta. The alliance will contain product development and will probably have an LED chip production facility built in China. According to Epistar Sources, it is still being awaited for agreement from the board of directors, and until the board meeting at Epistar in August ,a final confirmation on this move will be made.

Driven by the rapid expansion of LED-backlit models, TV shipments in 2010 will pass 242 million units. The trend toward increased LED backlight usage is one of the most intently watched areas as an acute supply chain shortage keeps the LED market segment from growing more quickly in 2010. Due to expanding government stimulus programs and increased urbanization, China continues to be a hot LCD TV growth market in 2010, with 35 percent y-on-y growth in 2010, down from 119 percent y-on-y growth in 2009.

OSRAM Opto Semiconductors and Infineon Technologies both champion the cause of sustainable development and environmental protection. In collaboration with the OSRAM partner network LED Light for you, the German company Diana Electronic Systems has developed an energy-efficient LED lamp for the Global Nature Fund to be used in Sri Lanka. Local fishermen will use the lamps instead of their environmentally harmful kerosene lamps when fishing at night.