Contrary to popular marketing notions, a recent poll by Leapfrog Lighting, places quality as a highly significant factor in choice of LED bulbs. With 82.5% of business owners rating quality of light as extremely important or important, energy savings, environmental benefits and lower cost of ownership are no longer the decisive factors in a buying decision. Only 5.8% of those polled indicated quality was "not important."

Digital Lumens and Xicato today announced a strategic partnership to bring wireless intelligent solutions to professional indoor applications, drive adoption, and lower the cost of ownership of energy efficient, smart lighting.

L.J. Star Inc., a supplier of sight glass lighting, has released a new white paper that discusses the results of a study used to determine which color temperature of white light is best suited for illuminating the interior of stainless steel process vessels. A good view is essential for observing the characteristics of the process medium and for verifying process steps such as clean-in-place. 

LEDinside research team has published three reports this week one on the sapphire for LED application market in China, the LED commercial lighting sector, and also on manufacturers outlook for the year. A report also sheds light on the shady replacements made to LED components that have enabled the cheap LED prices in China. In the Taiwan market, UPEC Electronics announces its withdrawal from the LED package business. Emcore and Nichia also finally arrive to an agreement over LED patent infringements. For more please see below:

As the Dragon Boat Festival approaches in China on June 1, 2014, the market has entered a new luminaire discount season, according to a report by Chinese-language media Kyushu Building Network. Top luminaire brands have all increased prices because of rising raw material and logistic costs. However, since lighting products are not daily commodities most consumers have been less sensitive towards incremental price increases. Some industry experts project prices will be up as much as 10 percent next year.

LED luminaires in the Chinese market might see a glimmer of hope for larger market shares as Compound Fluorescent Light (CFL) prices soar, according to a report by Chinese-language media Kyushu Building Network.

LED package manufacturer Everlight has been actively developing their LED lighting brand, according to the Economic Daily News. The company merged with Germany luminaire manufacturer WOFI for less than NT $400 million (US $13.3 million) last year, which adds an extra NT $100 million to its monthly revenues. Everlight has recently announced plans to acquire another European luminaire manufacturer this year to continue expanding the company’s market presence. 

Nichia Corporation (“Nichia”) and Emcore Corporation (“Emcore”) reached an agreement to settle a patent infringement lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, in which Emcore acknowledges the validity of the USP 7,295,587, and makes a payment to Nichia for past damages and for royalties in the future.

GE Lighting and ByteLight today announced they will showcase the next generation of LED lighting fixtures that communicate with shoppers’ smart devices while in-store, enabling retailers to provide exciting new location-based services using GE LED infrastructure. The innovative solution featuring GE’s Lumination™ LED Luminaire - IS Series is being unveiled at LIGHTFAIR® International 2014 (LFI®) in Las Vegas, June 3-5, in GE Lighting’s booth #4208.

What sets the Chinese LED luminaire market apart from others? It all really boils down to prices. The product’s technology, lifetimes, and warranty are all nothing more but a floating mirage. Buyers will always choose the cheapest LED luminaire, but should not expect manufacturers to willingly lose money by making acceptable quality products at these prices. Below is a comparison between LED bulb and ceiling spotlights to illustrate the manufacturing costs involved.

Speculations about the iWatch have been floating around the internet, with every analyst giving their take of what technology they think Apple will use. After reading through hundreds of articles posted by U.S. media discussing new Apple patents and technology acquisitions, Tencent has compiled a list of the top five plausible technology and materials that might be seen in the iWatch.

Cree introduces the new XLamp® XM-L2 EasyWhite® LED, delivering more than 1,100 lumens of color-consistent light from a 5mm x 5mm package and enabling a 38 percent gain in light output and efficacy as a drop-in upgrade to the first-generation XM-L EasyWhite LED. Built on Cree’s EasyWhite technology, which combines the industry’s tightest color binning and intense light output from a single LED, the XM-L2 EasyWhite LED is optimized to replace halogen technology.

Due to aggressive market competition in the LED backlighting market, Taiwanese LED manufacturer UPEC Electronics announced termination of its LED backlight package manufacturing business recently, according to a UDN Evening News report. 

Apple was granted a new patent for the use of LiquidMetal by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday. The company could be planning to use LiquidMetal in conjunction with sapphire glass displays to form an integrated chassis for future iPhone models. 

In the latest development of the long legal battle between Foshan Electrical Lighting and company stockholders, Guanzhou High People’s Court recently informed lawyers that it upheld previous rulings of the intermediate people’s court in keeping the case in Guangzhou courts, according to a report by Guangdong Yangcheng Evening News Digital Media.

Plessey Semiconductors Ltd today announced that it has purchased another CRIUS II-XL MOCVD system for use in the manufacture of Gallium Nitride LEDs on Silicon wafers (GaN-on-Si). The company is further expanding its production capacities in this area. The Close Coupled Showerhead system recently delivered with a 7x6-inch configuration will supplement an existing production system from AIXTRON.

Electronics USA is shedding new light on high-performance energy efficient LED (Light-Emitting Diode) lighting solutions for commercial applications.

The rebounding LED lighting market spurred Chinese package manufacturers to expand in 2013, with expansions expected to be concentrated in 2014 as a result. But with chip production capacity expansion cycles taking much longer in comparison, subtle changes in the LED chip supply and demand relationship have occurred. With dispersed suppliers and chip prices more susceptible to price fluctuations, chip manufacturers have been unable to greatly raise prices leading to intensified chip shortages.

Shanxi Securities recently investigated San’an Optoelectronics (San’an Opto) to gain a better understanding of the company’s production capacity and manufacturing situation. 

The Public Lighting Authority of Detroit (PLA) announced its LED streetlight initiative in January this year. Detriot proposed a plan to retrofit over 50,000 street lights with LED bulbs over the next two years, saving the city a total of US $1.5 million annually, according to The Detriot News. Street lights will be provided by three firms – Cree, Leotek Electronics, and Walker-Miller Energy Services said Light Authority CEO Odis Jones. 

After recent reports of Panasonic and Sony abandoning OLED TV, the two companies might be returning to the OLED arena through a joint partnership with Japan Display, according to a Reuters report.

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science has awarded four Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants targeting advances in solid-state lighting (SSL) technology:

Thailand has seen a drop in energy consumption of one percent over the past four months, said Zhang Shuncai, Department Head of Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT). This drop in energy consumption correlates directly to the current economic situation. There is a chance for a further decrease to 2 percent by the end of the year if political instabilities continue. 

As LED TV market penetration rates reached 95 percent in 2013, the product’s market penetration rates are close to full saturation this year. With high LED TV market penetration rates, LED-backlit TVs are close to overtaking CCFL backlight modules in 2014. In 2014, direct-lit LED TV penetration rates are expected to exceed 50 percent, and clinch the leading position from edge-lit type TVs for the first time.

LED chip manufacturer Epistar has received orders from large European manufacturers including Philips after the launch of their new HV LED products in Germany earlier this year, according to Economic Daily News. The company has had an increase in orders due to the efficiency and cost advantage of the HV LED products. Production capacity operations this quarter have already reached maximum. 

Osram’s latest 2013 financial report revealed LED sales had a 29 percent revenue share, however, the German company projected the figure will “exceed 50 percent” by 2017.

The smart lighting industry involves the use of lighting control systems that deliver correct amount of light when needed. It deals with the technology where lights can automatically perform various operations at set times or under set conditions. It makes use of intelligent lighting control systems to intelligently control light, based on various parameters such as; occupancy, movement, color temperature, amount of natural/daylight and so on. The customers of lighting control systems apply a set of such lighting control strategies using specific technologies and methods to control consumption of light energy. 

EMCORE Corporation, a provider of compound semiconductor-based components and subsystems for the fiber optics and space solar power markets, announced that it has settled the patent infringement case brought by Nichia Corporation before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

It is hard to resist the urge of picking up a dandelion along the side of the road and blowing on it, sending its hundreds of seed scattering in the wind. Studio Drift, based in The Netherlands, combine the soft romantic characteristics of the dandelion into their innovative lighting creations.

Optic inspection is still the mainstream wafer defect detection method in the inspection and metrology field, while E-beam will continue to be a niche market, said KLA-Tencor Chief Marketing Officer Brian Trafas during the opening ceremony of the new training facility held at the company’s Hsinchu branch on May 23, 2014.