Micron Technology is requesting for $20 million stimulus fund through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to help the company expand into the LED industry and create new jobs in Idaho. LEDs (Light-emitting diodes), which use one-seventh as much energy as conventional lighting and can last much longer, can be used in lamps and fixtures, municipal streetlights and outdoor lighting such as street lamps, traffic signals and auto lights.

The top three global LED vendors, Nichia, Osram and Lumileds/Philips, are threatened by the fast growing Korean and Taiwanese companies, as competition in the global LED market becomes tougher, according to a market research firm.

Advanced Analogic Technologies, Inc., a developer of power management integrated circuits, announced yesterday a new set of flash and backlight White LED (WLED) drivers for the highly competitive feature phone market. Offering new efficiencies in power usage in highly compact packages, the AAT3176 flash driver and the AAT3351 white LED driver promise to help handset designers extend battery life and reduce product footprint.

Cree Inc is "cautiously optimistic" that demand for its products will pick up in the coming months, and it could tap the debt markets to help fund its growth, said Cree’s CEO Chuck Swoboda in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday. With no outstanding debt and more than $400 million in cash, Cree is not currently planning a debt issuance, but it would be better to issue debt before the company was in need of cash, said Swoboda.

Seoul Semiconductor announced on May 12 the launch of its 120lm/W high-efficiency, SMD type LED for general lighting. The LCW100Z1 delivers over 120lm/W with an enhanced primary optic including enhanced heat transfer and the metal substrate, according to the company, while the pricing of the LCW100Z1 is comparable to similar-sized Chip LED’s that can tolerate only half of the current.

CAP-XX Limited, developer of the supercapacitor-driven BriteFlash Power Architecture, recently announced availability of supercapacitor-optimized LED flash drivers from several power management integrated circuit (PMIC) companies to facilitate design of high-power LED flash units for high-resolution camera phones and digital cameras.

Savage Marine, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of lighting to the yacht market has halved the energy consumption of its ultra bright interior and exterior downlighters by adopting state of the art 10W LED technology from Marl to replace halogen lights.

Carmanah Technologies introduced its next generation of solar-powered LED lights at the LightFair International tradeshow and conference in New York City. As part of a new "General Illumination" (GI) product line, the company featured a range of solar-powered lights for street and parking lot applications, including the new EverGEN 1500, along with a preview of the company's new EverGEN 1700-series design. 

UPEC Electronic Corp., well known for innovative ways of combining design and LED technology, announced an enhanced version of Fish Lamp. LED technology is now regarded as the lighting solution of the future. Its unique characteristics, such as low energy consumption and extreme long-life, make the use of this technology attractive in terms of practical lighting, decoration and the special application as well.  

On Lightfair International 2009, the lighting industry’s annual trade show at the Javits Center in New York last week, LED bulbs and fixtures dominated nearly every booth on the show floor. Though most people think of LEDs as the lights blinking from inside electronic devices, they are being used increasingly to light rooms.

BluGlass Limited recently announced that it has signed a term sheet outlining the material, terms and conditions to be encompassed in an Exclusive Sales and Marketing License Agreement with BLK CO., LTD (BLK) of Korea. This term sheet is a significant advancement in the commercialization of BluGlass and marks the first steps towards a full customer agreement.

Samsung LED, a light-emitting diodes (LED) unit of Samsung, the global electronics giant, has set up its first overseas manufacturing base in Tianjin, China. Tianjin Samsung LED Co., Ltd, was established with a starting capital of 30 million U.S. dollars, according to the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (Teda) Administrative Commission. The spokesman Zhang Liang said Saturday that initial investment to the Tianjin manufacturing base would reach 90 million U.S. dollars.

Taiwan’s first Automotive Optic Design Center (AODC) has recently been inaugurated by the Automotive Research & Testing Center (ARTC) of Taiwan, with the aim of vertically integrating the island’s automotive-lighting industry. ARTC president Joe Huang (second from left) signed IAH and DLS technical-transfer and consulting agreements with private companies.

At this year’s Lightfair, some LED supplier are peddling their cutting-edge, LED lighting products resorted to trashing — literally — fluorescent and incandescent lamps in their sales pitches.   For instance, a transparent trash pail filled with standard and C.F.L. bulbs was set up at a booth belonging to Digital Light, and. A glowing, LED-powered light stood triumphantly above the refuse.   

Epistar Inc., the No.1 LED chipmaker in Taiwan, is reportedly to be acquiring Huga Optech Inc., the island`s second biggest LED provider, to ease its straining capacity, and is near the end of the acquisition.

A report on the state of the LED-based traffic light market in China has recently been published on Reports-research.com. The report indicates that the market for LED-based traffic lights in China still has significant room to grow in the future from demand in small and medium sized cities.

TT electronics Optek Technology has just announced its new multi-chromatic tuned light engines to provide lighting designers with highly consistent LED color matching capabilities. The company’s chromatic tuning process produces solid-state lighting solutions with high module-to-module consistency, such that differences in color temperature of each light engine are indistinguishable to the human eye.

Leviton Manufacturing Company, Inc., manufacturer of electrical and electronic wiring devices for OEM lighting fixture customers, and Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ: MOLX and MOLXA), supplier of interconnect products worldwide, have entered into a strategic alliance to deliver LED lighting solutions to manufacturers of commercial, industrial and residential lighting fixtures.

AIXTRON and Semileds has just announced their successful cooperated fabrication of GaN-based blue LED chips on 6-inch sapphire wafers. Not only were optical results encouraging but also the process is sufficiently close to production compatibility that the company should soon be able to reap the rewards from larger wafers.

Nexxus Lighting, Inc. (NASDAQ:NEXS) and QD Vision, Inc. today unveiled the world's first quantum dot lighting solution that combines the efficiency of LED lighting with the warm color of incandescent bulbs. The new lamp integrates a quantum dot optic with cool white LEDs to produce color-rich, true incandescent, warm white light which can provide over 80% energy savings and lasts up to 25 times longer than comparable halogen lighting alternatives.

National Semiconductor Corp. and Nuventix, Inc. today unveiled a new electronic drive and thermal management reference design that simplifies development of high-brightness light-emitting diode (LED) bulb fixtures that replace incandescent or compact fluorescent light bulbs in standard sockets. The new LED electronic drive and thermal management reference design will be demonstrated in Nuventix's booth #3260 at the Lightfair International conference in New York from May 5 to 7.

Epistar Corp, Taiwan’s largest LED provider, is now in talks with Chinese lighting manufacturers and local governments about some investment projects said the comany.

For those who are interested in creative ideas and innovative technology concepts, the “LED – Emotionalize your light” idea contest to be started online this May will offer an exciting opportunity. Via an easy submission procedure, the participants can put their own light design online, and all the participants will have the chance to win valuable prizes amounting to 7000€.

Cree announces a prototype version of the LR6 LED recessed downlight that consumes just 6.5 W of electricity, resulting in 665 lumens, an efficacy of 102 lumens per watt and a power factor greater than 0.9.

Shown at LIGHTFAIR International in New York, the high-efficiency LR6 prototype features TrueWhiteTM technology, resulting in a 92 color rendering index and a 3500 K color temperature.

Luminus Devices, Inc., today announced the introduction of the SST-50 White PhlatLight® LED, the first 5.5W monolithic large-chip LED in a surface-mount (SMT) package. The SST-50 is designed to integrate directly with existing LED lay-outs and enable the next level of performance required by fixture designers to deliver LED-based solutions for mainstream applications in the general, architectural and portable lighting markets.

Zumtobel of Austria and Royal Philips Electronics of The Netherlands have signed a comprehensive, worldwide, cross licensing agreement, under which TridonicAtco and Ledon, the Zumtobel Group’s OEM brands, will become qualified suppliers under the Philips LED-based luminaires licensing program, which is a part of the agreement.

OSRAM Opto has released the new ultra-white Oslon SSL LED in a package measuring just 3 x 3 mm. The Oslon LED has a typical luminous efficacy value of 100 lm/W, and features simplified thermal management, high reliability and a beam angle of 80°. The Oslon LED is an LED in the 1 W class and meets the requirements for use in general lighting, like in spotlights, desk lights and ceiling floodlights.

Endicott Research Group (ERG), known for its expertise in powering CCFL and LED backlights for LCDs, is developing new LED driver solutions for the solid state lighting market. Leveraging technology developed for its CCFL inverters and LED backlight drivers, ERG will be introducing a family of Smart Force(TM) LED drivers that combine full-function power supplies with energy-efficient controllers for commercial, industrial, architectural and other SSL applications.

Lumitex, Inc. announces the establishment of its West Coast R&D Center in Irvine, California, and Asian manufacturing center in Taipei, Taiwan to help develop, apply and produce illumination solutions using patented LED and fiber optic technologies for electronics applications on the West Coast and in Asia.

Bridgelux, Inc., a U.S. lighting company and supplier of energy-saving light-emitting diode (LED) based light sources, announced yesterday that the company has launched a Lighting Services Group offering its customers a wide range of design and support services. As an increasing number of lamp and luminaire manufacturers transition to solid-state lighting, new system-level design opportunities arise.