TSMC will set up a new plant with more than $9.4 billion in Taichung, Taiwan. The new plant has a total site area of 18.4ha and will have a building area of 430,000sqm and clean room area of 104,000sqm. It's reported to create 8,000 jobs over the next few years. Fab 15, in Taichung's Central Taiwan Science Park will be TSMC's third GigafabTM, or fab with capacity of more than 100,000 300mm wafers per month, and will also be TSMC's second GigafabTM equipped for 28nm technology.

LedEngin completed its Series D financing. NGP Energy Technology Partners ("NGP ETP"), a leading energy technology fund with $496 million of capital under management. The financing will be used to increase the LedEngin product portfolio, increase manufacturing capacity and to increase its worldwide sales and marketing network. Because of its unique and innovative packaging and optical technology, LedEngin is poised to take advantage of robust growth in the LED market.

Cree reveals the industry's smallest warm and neutral bins,multichip XLamp® MP-L and MC-E EasyWhite™ LEDs. It offers a single two-step MacAdams ellipse bin per color temperature, optimized to achieve incandescent-like color consistency and eliminating the need to purchase multiple small bins and perform complex color mixing.

General Electric and Konica Minolta have achieved 56 lumens-per-watt efficiency, proving that flexible, white OLED lighting devices can be made at low cost using "solution-coatable" materials.

The Kremlin State Palace becomes one of the largest architectural LED installations worldwide with over 200,000 DMX channels. Its main auditorium is encased by towering walls which, during the recent contemporary update led by architects from the studio OTASH, were plated with RGB LED panels creating two vast curvilinear LED screens (25mx60m).

Arima Optoelectronics Corporation (AOC) has chosen Veeco multiple TurboDisc(R) K465i GaN and E475 Arsenic Phosphide (As/P) MOCVD Systems to support production ramp. According to Marco Kuo, President of Arima Optoelectronics, they choose Veeco's MOCVD systems because of its production-proven reliability and high productivity. Most of the systems will be installed in a new joint venture company, Shanxi Province, Northern China.

Tirupati in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, India has participated in the Cree LED City® Program. Tirupati is one of India's important pilgrimage centers and a major economical and education hub in the southern region of Andhra Pradesh. To better light two of the city's busiest roads, Tirupati converted more than 140 street lights to LED fixtures.

Hella reveals a new line of "Green" LED street-lighting products, aiming at replacing conventional lighting on streets, parking lots and commercial property over North America.

Based on the fact that LED TV occupied 30 percent of the market in the second half last year, some experts predict the LED TV market share will be 70 percent this year.

Labsphere set up new manufacturing facility, Shanghai Lanfei Optical Equipment Co. Ltd., which is totally owned foreign enterprise in China, aiming at providing light measurement products and customer support at a local level. Three years ago, Labsphere opened its first sales office in China. It supplies LED, laser and traditional light source light measurement systems critical to China's developing solid state lighting industry.

Tiger Optics schedules  to introduce ALOHA, the world's first ammonia analyzer for HB LED-related applications, at the Semicon West trade show in San Francisco.

Greenscape Capital Group released that Green Park Denver LLC has chosen The LED Company, based out of Wilmington, Delaware, as the lighting supplier to its Denver parking facility.

Veeco Instruments Inc. announced today that Neo-Neon Holdings Ltd., a leading lighting company listed on the Hong Kong exchanges, has ordered its first Veeco TurboDisc(R) K465i Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) system to support its LED manufacturing capacity ramp at its JiangMen, China factory. Veeco received the order during the recently completed second quarter.

Located in Zhongshan Soccer Stadium and Zhongshan North Road, a building with a crystal and eye-catching of design is EcoARK, which will be on show in 2010 Taipei INTE'L Flora EXPO. The main feature is its exterior wall which is built by 1.52 million plastic bottle, and turn into the beautiful fancy bottles which completely show the green life and is the combination of fashion, eco and green building of the pavilion.

ON Semiconductor Corporation (Nasdaq: ONNN) and SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. (TSE: 6764), today announced the signing of a definitive purchase agreement providing for the acquisition of SANYO Semiconductor Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of SANYO Electric, and other assets related to SANYO Electric's semiconductor business, by ON Semiconductor in a cash and stock transaction with a purchase price of approximately $366 million (¥33.0 billion), subject to adjustment pursuant to the terms of the transac

Italian designer Francesca Castagnacci created a pair of heels which were made from strands of fiber optics as thin as human hair and lit by a LED.

Aiming at driving up to 30 LEDs in a display, Linear Technology has developed a 60V, 1MHz step-down DC/DC converter. The LT3596 can drive up to three strings of LEDs, each with up to ten 100mA LEDs in series, delivering efficiencies of over 90% with a 48V input.

China's Ministry of Science and Technology made a plan to install around 100,000 streetlights in 10 major metropolises across the mainland last year. China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in charge of the implementation of the project, and is considering offering Taiwan's manufacturers half of the contracts designated for four cities in Guangdong, Fujian and Sichuan .

Neo-Neon Holdings Co., Ltd. LED lighting revenue and earnings for this year would surge further after posting an unexpected growth last year, when global economy remained plagued by recession, according to its chief executive Ben Fan. Thanks to accelerating replacements for traditional lamps with LED lamps, Fan said the firm's sales in mainland China for the first half of this year kept the same level as recorded for the whole 2009 .

Clear-Lite Holdings, Inc. offers a series of more affordable LED Reflector bulbs. The first line offering of LED's for home and office use: a 7w and 9w "A" Shape, a 4w Candle Shape, , 7w PAR20, 11w PAR30, 17w PAR38, 6w, 8w, 10w Globe Shape and an 18w LED T8 replacement. Besides the LED commercial street lights announced last month, ClearLite will be offering an assortment in both dimmable and non-dimmable.

LEDinside, a research division of Trendforce Corp., has made the latest price trend report, pointing out that the LED price for backlight application remained stable in Q2 due to a robust demand and shortage of upstream materials. It predicts that there should be limited pressure to lower the price in Q3 as the supply of LED materials gradually stabilizes and large-size backlight application demand continues.

Flexible street lighting under any lighting conditions Apart from LEDs, luminaire manufacturer Arquiled now fits with an ambient light sensor another semiconductor component from OSRAM Opto Semiconductors in its new luminaries. This sensor provides intelligent light management and reduces energy costs at the same time, as its brightness is automatically adjusted to any situation.

Sharp Corp designed new LED light bulbs as chandeliers with enhanced brightness of 96lm/W and lower weights as part of its "ELM" series to expand its LED business. Six types of LED light bulbs are available: two E17 base light bulbs, two light bulbs for chandeliers and two E26 base light bulbs.

Based on seeking help from Taiwanese LED component makers to get away from growing competition of global TV brands, the China Video Industry Association scheduled to visit Taiwanese LED suppliers from the nation's major LED chip packagers and makers such as Epistar Corp. As the experts predict, LED TV will be one of the fast-growing areas in the future to replace CCFL backlight source for LCD TV panels, pointed out by deputy director of the association Bai Weimin.

Thanks to LED & High Speed Electronics, SPP Process Technology Systems (SPTS) has reached  a 200% increase in revenue in the first half of 2010.Thus it celebrates its first 9 months of positive growth ahead of the annual SEMICON West 2010 exhibition.

Bridgelux, Inc. has chosen Praxair Electronics as its partner in manufacturing operations at Bridgelux's Livermore, Calif.

LUXEON Rebel PC Amber improved its phosphor converted amber hot/cold factor and light output. It’s not only available for automotive and specialty markets, but also for the illumination market. Hot/Cold factor has risen up12% at 80C. Lumens and lumens per watt (efficacy) performance exceed that of all other amber power LEDs.

According to LEDinside, the research division of Trendforce Corporation, the large-size LED backlight demand visibility is expected to extend into Q3. However, as TV sales conventionally enter the down cycle in Q1, the LED backlight orders reflect that the seasonality effect will occur in early  Q4. Therefore, whether the LED lighting in Q4 can prop up the market demand will become an important observation focus.

Due to the scarcity of electronic components from upper stream, for production capacity entire LED industry has shrunk significantly. Also, many major international LED manufacturers have extended its delivery time to reflect to this emergency. As today, the lead time has been stretched out from 5 weeks to nearly 20 weeks. This bad situation swept the LED industry, which is in rapidly growing stage now. The serious impact does not only affect LED manufacturers, but also for distributors and trading companies who are facing huge financial penalty by postponing delivery schedule.

Micron Technology, Applied Materials, and Ultratech have participated in the imec industrial affiliation program (IIAP) on GaN-on-Si technology in Leuven, Belgium.