Recently, Irish company Nualight, which specializes in LED-based food display illumination, has announced its selection by leading retailer Tesco in a EUR1million deal to implement its energy-saving LED lighting product in Tesco Ireland’s stores.

School goes GREEN

Recently, Aluwave AB signed a development and supply contract for a light engine based on its LED-bearer material Alunat™. The contract value is estimated to 10 MSEK over four years and the unnamed customer is a European based multinational lighting manufacturer. With strong requirements on technical solution and quality Aluwave AB was selected and in order to reach high light output in combination with low power consumption and long product life the properties of Alunat™ was required.

It’s reported that Raja Parvez, CEO of Rubicon Technology, Inc., a leading provider of sapphire substrates and products, discussed the importance of the shift in the LED industry to larger diameter sapphire substrates in order to speed adoption of LEDs into high volume, high performance, green applications such as commercial lighting and large area display backlighting units.

Lighting in the future, as far as fact is concerned, is heading in the same direction. Ten to 15 years from now incandescent bulbs, fluorescent tubes and CFLs are going to be lightings of the past because of rapid advances in the field of organic light emitting diodes, or OLEDs. These are electronic devices made by placing a series of organic thin films between two conductors that begin to emit a bright light when an electrical current is applied.

It’s reported that LED chipmaker Epistar Corp. has landed hefty contracts to build the chips for Samsung and begun shipping the chips last month.

Recently, Lighting Science Group (LSCG), a global developer and integrator of intelligent and efficient LED solutions, announced that it has installed several integrated LED systems to create an interactive, dynamic lighting experience for the newly opened Club Devo in Goes, Netherlands. Using close to 100 percent LED technology for its lighting needs, Club Devo is the first nightclub in Europe believed to implement LED lighting systems on such a large scale.

It’s reported that Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), with its One-Chip AC LED technology, has been selected a winner of the 2008 R&D 100 Awards competition sponsored by the U.S.-based R&D Magazine.  

LEDs have been used widely for decades in other applications—forming the numbers on digital clocks, lighting up watches and cell phones and, when used in clusters, illuminating traffic lights and forming the images on large outdoor television screens. Until recently LED lighting has been impractical to use for most other everyday applications because it is built around costly semiconductor technology. But the price of semiconductor materials has dropped in recent years, opening the door for some exciting changes in energy-efficient, green friendly lighting options.

It’s reported that Kim Lighting, a leading manufacturer of outdoor architectural lighting, released a much-anticipated white paper on the lighting industry's overall failure to properly bring commercial outdoor LED lighting to market. Titled "Why Today's LED Site and Area Luminaires Are Not Measuring Up," the white paper explores the challenges associated with using LED technology for outdoor lighting to achieving results that are sustainable and do not sacrifice performance.  

It’s reported that Taiwan-based LED chipmaker Epistar has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against competitor Huga Optotech, seeking NT$200 million. Epistar filed the lawsuit with Taiwan's intellectual property court, claiming that Huga's blue and green LED products infringe on its patent.

Optimal Light Partner (OLP) has developed a patented fiber-optic light system that enables a powerful light source to be mounted separately from where the light leaves the lamp. An example is street lamps with light source mounted at ground level. The main benefit with this approach is simplified maintenance, and also that the light source can be protected from extreme environments. The product has already been commercialized.

It’s reported that Neo-Neon Holdings, one of the world's largest decorative lighting companies, plans to enter the LED chip-making sector, making it more vertically integrated. The company already has its own LED packaging capabilities and manufactures a wide range of LED lighting products.

OLEDs are beginning to be used in TVs and cell phone displays, and big names such as Siemens and Philips are throwing their weight behind the technology to make it a lighting source as well. The OLED printer was made by General Electric Co. on its sprawling research campus here in upstate New York. It's not far from where a GE physicist figured out a practical way to use tungsten metal as the filament in a regular light bulb. That's still used today, nearly a century later.

It’s reported that Cree and Zumtobel Group, the Austrian professional lighting company, have announced a “long-term strategic agreement” that will see Zumtobel sell Cree’s recessed downlights in the European market. The first-year sales target is 50,000 units of the 230V version of Cree’s LR6 luminaire.

A new LED lighting system has been selected by UK supermarket giant Sainsbury’s to light the interior of its freezer cabinets across 350 stores. In all, some 15,000 pieces of Philips Affinium LED freezer lighting modules have been installed, each containing Luxeon LEDs from Philips Lumileds.

It’s reported that Holiday Creations/Diogen Lighting, Inc. and Evident Technologies, Inc. have signed an exclusive licensing and purchase agreement to enable quantum-dot LEDs to be commercialized in the seasonal “light-strand” market in the US and Canada.

It’s reported that lighting leaders from OSRAM Opto Semiconductors and OSRAM SYLVANIA's LED Systems business units, together with the California Lighting and Technology Center (CLTC) at UC Davis, California, unveiled an interactive LED demonstration wall that offers a tangible look at current and emerging LED lighting products and system solutions.

It’s reported that Ultratech, Inc., a leading supplier of lithography and laser-processing systems used to manufacture semiconductor devices, announced it received a multiple-system order from U.S.-based SemiLEDs Corp., a leading supplier of high-brightness, laser-emitting diodes (HBLEDs).

Recently, Optek Technology has developed a series of LED module strips for signage and channel-letter applications. The LED strips are available in three models: OVM18F4x7 Series 4 and OVM12F3x7 Series 3 LED module strips, and OVQ12S30x7 Series flexible LED light strips Available in red, amber, green, blue and white, the LED strips provide fast response times and low power consumption

Recently, Lighting Science Group Corporation (LSGC) announced that the Superior Court of California for Sacramento County has issued a preliminary injunction against Philips Solid State Lighting Solutions, Inc., Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. and Philips Electronics North America Corporation(collectively "Philips"), preventing Philips from using or relying on certain confidential or trade secret information obtained from LSGC.

It’s reported that Osram GmbH will cease production of OLED-based displays and close the related fab in Penang, Malaysia. In the future, the company will focus on lighting solutions, also based on OLED technology.

It’s reported that the OLED lighting market will reach almost US$4.5 billion by 2013 and grow to $5.9 billion by 2015. It’s disclosed that in the past year the prospects for OLED lighting have made great leaps forward due to improvements in OLED performance and manufacturing.

It’s reported that India's US$1.5 billion lighting industry is growing 15% a year and bringing in new technologies. At the Light India International Exhibition and Conference early in 2008, the focus was on saving energy in lighting and the spotlight was on LEDs.

It’s reported that a new lightweight LED screen developed by UQ Business School's Enterprize business plan competition finalist, LAADtech, proposes to make outdoor advertising more versatile and easier to install. LAADtech, along with six other outstanding finalists, will compete for the $100,000 prize at the UQ Business School Enterprize Pitch Day on Thursday, October 16 in Brisbane.

It’s reported ResearchInChina releases Global LED Industry Report, 2008. Since 2002, LED has been developed rapidly caused by the wide application in mobile phones. With the improvement of LED luminescence efficiency, LED has got rid off the reliance on mobile phone industry and enters the semiconductor lighting era. LED development has the following four trends:

It’s reported that Tekcore Co. wants to become one of Taiwan’s top three manufacturers of LED epitaxy wafers and chips by 2010.

Recently, J.H. Chang, manager of Technology Center for Service Industries under the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), backed by an official contract to lay a solid foundation under the "intelligent LED mood lighting sector" in Taiwan within four years, organized approximately 13 Taiwan-based manufacturers from all segments of the LED-lighting industry to form an alliance.

It’s reported that Neo-Neo Group will be the first Taiwan-based LED-lighting maker to be fully integrated-running manufacturing facilities to handle, from top to bottom, the entire production process in the LED industry, with moving to produce epitaxy wafers in September this year.

It’s reported that more than half of the 4.6 million 2-inch-equivalent sapphire wafers used for LED growth in 2007 were consumed by Taiwanese companies. The market for sapphire materials in electronic applications looks set to reach $400 million by 2012. Sapphire materials serve two main applications in the electronics field: GaN-based LEDs, and RF switch devices for mobile phones.