Taiwan LED makers say the LED industry may recover earlier than other industries, with the application range of LED expected to become wider this year and more and more LEDs being installed into notebooks, monitors, LCD TVs as well as lighting fields. Several factors have driven up the global LED industry, and for mainland China, the bright outlook mainly owes to the encouragement from the government, concluded the industry watchers.

With the global economy stepping down sharply, China is still under the pressure of keeping Economic Growth Rate no less than 8% this year, which has been indicated a tough challenge by many signs. In the end of last year, the State Council of China urgently put forward the Ten Measures to Increase the Domestic Demand and Promote Economy Growth, planning to devote a total amount of 4 trillion RMB, about 5,860 billion U.S dollars, to stimulate the economy growth, and half of the budget will be devoted into infrastructure construction.

Sharp Corp recently released 10 models of LED street lamps which are designed with lenses for widening the illumination area, with one of the models equipped with solar battery.

In spite of the global economic downturn, demand for LED lighting will continue growing in the next year, forecasted Cree CEO Chuck Swoboda in a Tuesday interview with Reuters.

Energy Focus, a fiber-optic and LED lighting provider, said Tuesday it would develop LEDs for the U.S. Army to replace rockets flares which are used to provide infrared light to soldiers wearing night vision goggles on the battlefield.

Last year in San Jose, California, the local government had turned off streetlights in some district to meet the environmental goals, while this year, more LED lamps could be installed in the next few months to get the same result. To reach Mayor Chuck Reed's Green Vision aim of powering the city's 62,000 streetlights with renewable energy, the city’s Transportation and Environment Committee will come up with some steps on April 6.

Avnet Electronics Marketing, an operating group of the global technology distributor, Avnet, Inc., and the Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to cooperate in the promotion of the energy-saving LED lighting industry.

Kulicke & Soffa Industries, Inc. yesterday launched its new ConnX-VLEDPSTM automatic ball bonder. Before this official announcement, ConnX-VLED had made its first appearance during March 17-19 at SEMICON China 2009 in Shanghai. As an extension of the company’s leading ConnXPSTM ball bonder, ConnX-VLED also comes with high brightness and high-power LED lamps generally featured by devices specifically designed for vertical LED applications, offering a best solution for diverse LED applications.

Broit Light, a company based in Wayzata, Minnesota, USA has last week launched its initial production of LED bulbs at its production facility in Long Lake. The start-up company has claimed to have come up with a line of more energy-efficient and adaptable light bulbs.

These Pimpstar rims we’ve never seen before have been newly invented by Dub Custom Wheels. These Pimpstar rims can display images as you roll down the street, and they are programmable using a Wi-Fi equipped laptop.

Infineon Technologies AG has recently released a low-cost LED driver IC which offers thermal protection and high output current accuracy for high-power LEDs in general lighting applications.

After Samsung’s video of LED-equipped sheep flock to promote its new LED TVs, Honda has followed suit in the innovation with the upcoming commercial for its new Insight.

Chi Mei Optoelectronics, a component provider in Taiwan, has decided to manufacture new LCD screens for notebooks with LED backlights in 2009. The first to come will be a 13.4-inch display with LED backlight which offers a 500:1 contrast ratio, suitable to be used in thinner notebook models. Another display product will be 15.6-inch in size, featuring a brightness of 250-nit, a 8ms response time and a 1,600 x 900 resolution.

Arrow Electronics and Fraen have recently signed an agreement which will enable Arrow to extend its LED lighting range in the UK and Northern Europe. As a leading optic provider, Fraen is specialized in engineering and designing optical components for individual LEDs. The leading-edge products provided by Fraen include: high-efficiency TIR and reflector solutions; software-optimized aspheric profile; multiple beam angles; optimized lens holders; and a complete range of lenses and reflectors.

A new LED light bulb which is claimed as “the best light bulb in the world” has been released on Friday by the Fortuna-based C. Crane Company in Humboldt County, California.

In New York, in the center field of the new Yankee stadium which has cost $1.3 billion to build, now stands an immense 103 foot LED HD scoreboard which is six time larger than the screen at the old stadium. The 103-by-58 foot, 1080p HD scoreboard is a Mitsubishi Diamond Vision LED product. Embedded with 8,601,600 LED lamps, for a total of 5,925 square feet, the scoreboard can throw up as many as four simultaneous images, with picture-in-picture capabilities. At that enormous size, the puckered, sweat-oozing pore of your famous pitcher will be the size of a real human.

Dominant Semiconductors recently added new high intensity white (DSW-NSG) and warm white (DSF-NSG) which feature longer life and higher light intensity to its Right Angle DomiLED series, replacing the existing DSW-USD device.

A deep UV LED using diamond semiconductor has been developed by National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology of Japan (AIST), with the details of the development planned to be disclosed at the 56th Spring Meeting of the Japan Society of Applied Physics taking place from March 30.

TXU Energy has just had its parking garage retrofitted with LEDs to reduce energy costs. Lighting Science Group Corporation announced yesterday the completion of the retrofit after replacing the existing 175 watt metal halide light fixtures with state-of-the-art 78 watt light-emitting diode (LED) low bay parking garage fixtures for the garage.

Lime Energy Company and Nexxus Lighting, Inc. have recently announced their cooperation to install the new Array™ Lighting LED of Nexxus in numerous projects of Lime Energy to provide customers with energy-saving and environmental-friendly products.

Future Lighting Solutions and Khatod Optoelectronic has announced yesterday a distribution agreement that would make a broad line of Khatod’s secondary optics for power LEDs available in all major markets all over the world, with the portfolio of products including 190 single, double, triple and quad optics as well as color-mixing optical systems with multiple beam angles and configurations, featuring the industry’s largest selection of optics for LUXEON Rebel LEDs.

A one year program to evaluate the use of LED outdoor street lights has been launched by the town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Duke Energy Carolinas.

A DOE researcher has achieved a big progress in his research on organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) by partly solving the problem of weak blue diode in white OLED lights.

Sarnoff Corp. has launched a new company to focus on the thriving LED lighting market. Lightscape Materials Inc., which is the name of the new venture, has received $3 million in Series A funding from Wisepower Co. Ltd. and Foosung HDS Co. Ltd with the two companies joining Itochu Corp. which is an early stage investor and distributor in Asia for Lightscape Materials.

Diodes Incorporated, a leading global provider of semiconductor products, has recently released a family of LED driver ICs which require the support of only four components and operate at switching frequencies up to 600kHZ, which makes possible the use of fewer and smaller external components to be required by driver circuits.

Everlight signed a non-exclusive cross-license agreement with OSRAM GmbH (“OSRAM”), providing the companies (including wholly-owned affiliates) with access in certain areas to each other’s patented LED technology.

A new LED lighting system targeted for commercial facilities has recently been developed by Daiwa House Industry Co. Ltd. in collaboration with Nabesho Co. Ltd. and Kyocera Corp.

Seoul Semiconductor Co. will be a supplier of 300 thousand pieces of LED for “LED Farming Demonstration Project” which is organized by Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry of Japan with the purpose to demonstrate the application of LED in farming lighting.

According to survey by LEDinside, the total Feb 2009 revenue of listed Taiwan LED suppliers reached NTD 3.74billion, up 33% than Jan 2009 (YoY-25%), with the revenue of LED chip manufacturers at NTD 1.496 billion, up 46% and that of LED packaging manufacturers improved by 25% at NTD 2.243 billion comparing to January.

Samsung Electronics Co. has launched today its first LED TV products in global markets. The new line of LED flat panel TVs include Series 8000, 7000 and 6000, coming from 32-inch to 55-inch in sizes. With LEDs as the primary light source, the new TVs feature ultra-high contrast ratios compared to the traditional TVs using Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps. And the motion blur and image judder problems typically affecting LCD TVs have also been substantially reduced in the new LED TVs, said the company.