This has been a turbulent week for the LED industry. Philips announced just a few hours ago that it has terminated the sales of Lumileds to Go Scale Capital, the company was forced to abort the US $3.3 billion business transaction, due to opposition raised by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The company probably has a potential buyer lined up, and it will be worth observing who the new owner of Lumileds will be.

Royal Philips announced that Philips and GO Scale Capital have terminated the agreement pursuant to which the consortium led by GO Scale Capital would acquire an 80.1% interest in Lumileds.

*General Lighting market is projected to have annual 9.5% growth until 2020, while automotive lighting is to grow at 4% per year.   German lighting manufacturer Osram is confident that its large investors will support its new strategy of investing in general LED lighting market, reported Reuters.

A research team from Sheffield University has recently published there latest findings of growing LEDs on semi-polar GaN or sapphire on Applied Physics Letter recently.

When the LED industry speaks about emerging markets, India, Russia, and Middle East countries are probably the top three markets that pop up in manufacturers’ minds. Rarely, do people think about testing the waters in the African market, but one Hong Kong LED lighting manufacturer has made its way into Nigeria.

The Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) in India was not aware of union Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) LED bulb policy, according to a report from Bangalore Mirror.

Option announces the acquisition of the shares of the Dutch LED lighting companies Lemnis Lighting BV Public and Innolumis Public Lighting BV and merges the two companies into a single commercial organization under the name Innolumis Public Lighting.

At an analyst day, Osram unveiled further details of its three-pillar strategy presented in November last year and of the innovation and growth initiative. In all its three pillars, the lighting company wants to benefit even more from the potential of semiconductor-based technologies and will make appropriate investments in the coming years. In the Specialty Lighting (SP) business, Osram is increasing the focus of its automotive business on LED-based products and the system business as well as investments in new technologies such as laser and OLED. In the Lighting Solutions & Systems (LSS) segment, Osram will expand its product portfolio for Smart Cities and Smart Buildings applications in the years to come, thus taking account of rising urbanization. In the LED components business (Opto Semiconductors, OS), Osram aims to become the cost leader thanks to its lead in technology, economies of scale, and factor cost benefits from the planned 6-inch LED chip plant in Kulim, Malaysia. The plant will be the largest of its kind. “We are well on our way to becoming a high-tech company. With our innovation and growth initiative we are shifting the focus to sustainable growth,” said Olaf Berlien, Chief Executive Officer of OSRAM Licht AG.

ANADIGICS announced that, on January 15, 2016, it entered into a definitive agreement and plan of merger pursuant to which II-VI Incorporated ("II-VI") has offered to acquire all of the outstanding shares of ANADIGICS common stock on a fully diluted basis for $0.66 per share net in cash, pursuant to an all-cash tender offer and second-step merger (the "II-VI Merger Agreement").  The offer price in the II-VI Merger Agreement constitutes an increase of $0.31 per share over the November 11, 2015 agreement and plan of merger pursuant to which affiliates of GaAs Labs, LLC offered to acquire all of the outstanding shares of ANADIGICS common stock on a fully diluted basis for $0.35 per share net in cash, pursuant to an all-cash tender offer and second-step merger (the "GaAs Labs Merger Agreement").  On January 12, 2016, the Company announced that the $0.66 per-share offer from II-VI (an "Excluded Party," as defined in the GaAs Labs Merger Agreement, and referred to in the Company's January 12, 2016 announcement as "Party A") had been determined by the Company's Board of Directors to constitute a "Superior Offer," as that term is defined in the GaAs Labs Merger Agreement.

Taiwanese LED manufacturer Unity Opto Technology and Sercomm Corporation, a manufacturer of broadband and wireless networking equipment forged a partnership for smart lighting R&D. After Toshiba authorized Unity Opto as its distributor in Europe, the company expected to expand market presence in Europe in the future, projecting approximately 30% revenue growth in 2016.

Leading U.S. LED company Cree will be setting back the spinout of its radio frequency and power product businesses, the company CEO Chuck Swoboda told analysts Tuesday.

Cree, a market leader in LED lighting, today announced revenue of US $436 million for its second quarter of fiscal 2016, ended December 27, 2015. This represents a 5% increase compared to revenue of $413 million reported for the second quarter of fiscal 2015, and a 2% increase compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2016. GAAP net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2016 was $14 million, or $0.14 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $12 million, or $0.10 per diluted share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2015. On a non-GAAP basis, net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2016 was $30 million, or $0.30 per diluted share, compared to non-GAAP net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2015 of $38 million, or $0.33 per diluted share.

One of the most triumphant moments in the book and recent movie The Martian comes when lead character, Mark Watney, successfully grows a potato crop on Mars. It’s more than food for survival; he’s also nourishing his spirit.  In space, there is no scent of baking bread, no wind on your face, no sound of raindrops hitting the roof, no favorite kitten to curl up in your lap. Over time, being deprived of these common earthbound sense stimulations takes a toll. Having limited access to stimuli to the senses is identified as a significant risk by NASA’sBehavioral Health and Performance team.

In an effort to study the effects of lighting on human health and diseases, the Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center (ERC) atRensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), recently installed a novel hospital inpatient lighting testbed for the study of automated lighting at theUniversity of New Mexico Health Center (UNMHC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The testbed is a demonstration of the success of the multi-institutional, interdisciplinary Engineering Research Center Program funded by the National Science Foundation.  

Olaf Berlien, CEO of OSRAM Licht AG, and Grant Wright, CEO and CFO of OSRAM Americas, unveiled the new OSRAM Americas headquarters at a ribbon cutting ceremony recently in Wilmington, Massachusetts.

Shortly after Epistar held its board meeting on Monday, numerous reports from Taiwanese media claimed the company was about to be merged. MLS, Philips and even Lumileds were named by speculators as potential buyers, following the reports Epistar’s shares climbed up to NT $29.5 (US $0.88) per share, reported TechNews. However, Epistar Spokesman Rider Chang has denied all these claims.

A sharp eyed Twitter user has spotted a code implying Li-Fi functions might be incorporated in later generation Apple iOS, reportedTechRadar and other media.

The Indian government has rolled out numerous large scaled LED bulb distribution projections across the nation, but not all Indian consumers are warming up to the low-priced bulbs, according to a report from The Deccan Herald.

The collaboration, which is partly funded by Innovate UK under the £14m Energy Catalyst Programme, follows on from work by Anvil Semiconductors and the Cambridge Centre for GaN at the University of Cambridge where they successfully grew cubic GaN on 3C-SiC on silicon wafers by MOCVD. The underlying 3C-SiC layers were produced by Anvil using its patented stress relief IP that enables growth of device quality silicon carbide on 100mm diameter silicon wafers.  

A representative from Samsung Electric has recently rebutted Korean media Edaily report recent claims it has rolled out unpaid vacation schemes for employees working in its LED business department.

Puducherry, a Union Territory of India, has launched its second phase LED bulb distribution project, The Hindu reported Puducherry Electricity Minister T. Thiagarajan saying recently.

Sigma Designs® (NASDAQ: SIGM), a leading provider of intelligent system-on-chip (SoC) solutions focused on Internet of Things ( IoT) , Smart TV and media connectivity  markets , and QD Vision, the global leader in quantum dot display technology, announced a strategic partnership to develop a cost-effective UHD TV platform with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Rec. 2020 performance. The platform will be based on Sigma’s TV SoC and frame rate conversion (FRC) chips, and QD Vision’s Color IQ™ quantum dot (QD) technology.

A town in Massachusetts, U.S. has decided to put its LED streetlight upgrade on hold, even though it had received funding from Department of Energy Resources in conjunction with the town’s new status as a Green Community, reported The Patriot Ledger.

Osram, one of the world's leading lighting manufacturers, continues to make progress with the carve-out of its general lighting lamps business. After the supervisory board of OSRAM Licht AG approved the carve-out of the unit in June 2015, the name of the new company has now also been decided. “We have opted for a combination of the terms ‘LED’ and ‘advance’ and will call the newly established company LEDVANCE,” said Olaf Berlien, Chief Executive Officer of OSRAM Licht AG. “The name reflects the trend toward LED in the lighting market as well as the opportunities arising from this development – opportunities LEDVANCE will actively exploit.”

A MIT research has caught on like wild-fire in the industry this week, since it holds the potential of reviving the nearly phased-out incandescent bulbs. The research claims that by using nano optic crystal structures, they were able to raise incandescent luminous efficiency to 6% and holds the potential of reaching 40% rivaling LEDs. However, there was a slight glitch in the press release. The cited luminous efficiency data was a bit outdated, most likely traced to 2013 results. Thanks to a reader from Epistar, who pointed us into the right direction

Hull City, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, will start to replace its 32,000 conventional streetlights with LEDs, expected to save more than GBP 1 million (US $1.44 million) per year.

St. Mary- Corwin Medical Center is a Pueblo- based medical organization in Colorado, U.S., which switched from conventional lightings to LED ones in November 2015.

Musco’s innovative LED lighting system has helped the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) solve a major issue with the surrounding community.

Use of copper as a fluorescent material allows for the manufacture of inexpensive and environmentally compatible organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) ensures high light yield. Scientists of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), CYNORA, and the University of St. Andrews have now measured the underlying quantum mechanics phenomenon of intersystem crossing in a copper complex. The results of this fundamental work are reported in the Science Advances journal and contribute to enhancing the energy efficiency of OLEDs.

Universal Display Corporation, enabling energy-efficient displays and lighting with its UniversalPHOLED® technology and materials, announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted Universal Display its 2,000th patent, U.S. Patent No. 9,231,218 (the '218 Patent) for a new family of “Phosphorescent Emitters”. Additionally, UDC’s 2,001st patent was issued on the same day, U.S. Patent No. 9,231,227 (the '227 Patent) for a novel “OLED Display Architecture”.