Last week Samsung denied plans of implementing unpaid leave for its LED business sector, and in an act to seemingly to quell negative rumors regarding its LED business, the company unveiled its latest mid-power LED package LM561B+ for high quality color performance last Thursday.

GO Scale Capital and Royal Philips announced that the parties have terminated their March 2015 agreement for GO Scale Capital to acquire 80.1% of Royal Philips' LED lighting components and automotive lighting business, Lumileds. After close to one year of best efforts by GO Scale Capital and Royal Philips to obtain approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in United States (CFIUS), the parties have been unable to resolve CFIUS' unspecified concerns.         

LED bulb procurement prices in Madhya Pradesh, located in central India, have dropped another 10% from INR 73 per bulb (US $1.08) to INR 64.41 per unit, according to an official statement on Sunday.

Japanese OLED panel manufacturer Japan Display announced it will be mass producing OLED panels in 2018, which has led many tech media including Engadget and Apple Rumors to speculate Apple might be launching an OLED screened phone in the near future.

Seoul Semiconductor a global leading LED components manufacturer from Korea, and the Austrian company LUMITECH, a leading manufacturer of components for Human Centric Lighting announced a licensing agreement for PI-LED technology patents. These patents govern the industrial trade mark rights of LUMITECH’s PI-LED technology, which can implement tunable white from 2.500 to 7.000K with perfect colour rendering in a high and constant efficiency. Based on the license agreement, Seoul Semiconductor has the right to offer tunable white components based on the leading PI-LED technology, worldwide.

Bulbs.com, the largest online distributor of lighting products, now sells the new award-winning Sengled Snap LED bulb that combines a wireless HD camera for outdoor monitoring with an energy-efficient LED light bulb. 

MechaTronix advanced LED pin fin coolers foreseen from Zhaga book 3 and Zhaga book 11 mounting holes, as well as an advanced pattern for direct mounting of COB LED modules. Besides better performance under tilted position the weight of these LED pin fin coolers is far lower than extruded star shaped LED coolers with similar performance.

ComfyLight AG today announced the launch of a Kickstarter campaign to fund production of its smart light bulb that actively protects your home from intruders. The campaign will go live at www.comfylight.com/kickstarter on January 22nd, 2016, and aims to recruit early backers for this unique security solution.

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.

In an exclusive interview with LEDinside, Beatrice Witzgall, founder and CEO of LumiFi shares her valuable insights and opportunities in the smart lighting industry. The award winning lighting designer, who has been in the lighting industry for over two decades, shared how she transformed  experience accumulated from working with prestigious lighting design firms L’Observatoire and I3D to developing smart lighting products.

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.

Royal Philips, the global leader in lighting, today announced the unveiling of a first-of-its-kind, large-scale lighting installation at a major university campus that leverages Power over Ethernet (PoE) as part of the recently opened Watt Family Innovation Center at Clemson University. As a founding innovation partner of the center, Philips implemented a PoE-based indoor lighting system combined with LED lighting to provide flexible work spaces that encourage collaboration between faculty and students, optimize space management in the facility, and improve energy efficiency. This new lighting solution will deliver up to 70 percent in energy savings compared to similar buildings using conventional lighting.

Global Tech LED announces their new Low Cost, USA made, versatile 260W LED High Bay fixture, the Gemini. Available in both clear and white acrylic fixture housing, this stylish LED fixture can save energy costs of up to 75% and an ROI of less than one year for a typical store LED conversion. The Gemini may qualify for rebates in your area, please contact Global Tech LED for details.

In an effort to advance the lighting industry, executives from Hubbell Lighting will take an active role in the Department of Energy's (DOE) 13th annual SSL R&D Workshop being held on February 2-4, 2016 in Raleigh, N.C.

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.

In the newly constructed Schmuttertal secondary school in Diedorf Germany, micro sun shielding louvres from the Osram subsidiary Siteco create natural lighting in the classroom buildings, auditorium and sports hall. The school benefits in several ways – in addition to energy savings, the daylight system also supports the school’s architectural and educational concept.

The National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing has staged Aida with the lighting designer Vinicio Cheli and a whole group of Italian professionals known worldwide: stage designer Ezio Frigerio, director Francesco Micheli, costume designer Francia Squarciapino, and Sergio Metalli, who dealt with the video projections. Cheli was asked to design the lighting for Verdi's opera.

Cree, expands its industry -leading portfolio of lighting-class LEDs with the addition of the XLamp® XQ-A LED to the XQ LED family. The compact, ceramic-based XQ-A enables lighting manufacturers to quickly and cost-effectively expand their product portfolios by leveraging an LED design that is similar to that of the proven and reliable XQ-E. With a broad range of color options and optical symmetry, the XQ-A LED is the smallest LED building block available for designs that use white and color LEDs.

HELLA, the lighting and electronics specialist, is equipping the BMW 3-Series with optional dynamic LED headlamps, LED rear combination lamps, interior lighting and a variety of energy-efficient and safety-enhancing electronic components.

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced components, announced that LM561B+, the company’s new mid-power LED package line-up with high light efficacy, is now offered with 3-step MacAdam ellipse bins and quarter bins across the range of all CCTs (from 2700K to 6500K), for use in premium luminaires. By leveraging the chromaticity control standard with the LM561B+, manufacturers will be able to make lighting products that deliver greater uniformity and consistency in light color without any visible difference in the color output between packages.

With the ready2mains™ Programmer, information such as configuration parameters can be quickly transmitted via the mains cabling to the LED Drivers of indoor and outdoor luminaires. There is no need for an additional communications interface or any rewiring. Commands are transferred in digital format – simply via phase control. 

MaxLite releases its third generation of Small LED Flood Lights as energy-saving replacements for quartz halogen and metal halide fixtures in commercial and residential outdoor lighting applications.

Following certification by the FAA and EASA, operators of Airbus A320 Family aircraft are now able to upgrade the emergency floor path marking to the latest version of STG Aerospace’s market-leading saf-Tglo® photoluminescent system,  SuperSeal UltraLite (SSUL).