Philips and Cree both announced their revenues for 2016. Philips results showed a slight dip in overall revenue, but continual double digit growths from its LED lighting business. Cree on the other hand reported a slight decline in its overall revenue of about 8% compared to the same period last year.

Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2017 at Las Vegas that runs from Jan. 5-8, 2017 kicked off the first week of the year. Several interesting trends noted at this year’s show, first off smart lighting has been particularly quiet this year. Soraa has been the only company to announce its first smart LED bulb, Helia, which delivers a light color temperature close to natural sunlight.

One more day to go before the New Years, so how did the industry fare in 2016? LEDinside organized a couple of articles reviewing some top trends in technology advancements and international mergers. A couple trends that are becoming more evident over the past year is different research institutes searching for more energy efficient and lower cost materials, while international mergers between Western technology companies and Chinese investors are under more government scrutiny. We expect protectionism measures to become increasingly common in the next few years, especially under new U.S. President Donald Trump’s government.

Patent suits left an indelible mark in the LED industry in 2016, Seoul Semiconductor took the lead this week warning 29 companies over potential patent infringement issues. Nichia also announced it had won two legal YAG patent suits against Everlight in Dusseldorf District Court in Germany and the local appeal court. Cree also has settled a long pending patent infringement case with Feit Electric for an undisclosed amount, and the two companies have signed a patent license agreement.

Towards the end of 2016, more mergers and acquisition talks have been concluded. CFIUS opposition against Go Scale Capital acquiring Lumileds for US $3.3 billion earlier in January resulted in the wipe out of US $1.3 billion in company value for the LED chip and component maker. Lumileds parent company Philips Lighting sold the independent legal entity for US $2 billion to Apollo Global Management.

The finale of Aixtron’s sale to Grand Chip Investment ended with the Chinese investor dropping the deal after U.S. President Barack Obama prohibited the German equipment maker from transferring key U.S. patents and assets to the acquisitor, due to national security concerns. In brief, Aixtron’s equipment can be used to make GaN wafers that are used in U.S. military applications including Patriot missiles. The German equipment maker is currently considering to sell parts of its business off instead, after the deal with the Chinese investor failed.

Aixtron and Grand Chip Investment defy CFIUS objections to cancel the deal over U.S. national security concerns, and are appealing to U.S. President Barack Obama to approve the case in the next 15-days. The German Economic Ministry halted the acquisition business transaction, shortly after U.S. government representatives presented evidence suggesting Aixtron’s might pose a national security threat, which a Wall Street Journal reported mainly involves GaN epiwafer growing technology, a material that could be made to use improve military equipment such as radar.

Latest developments in Germany this week are making a Chinese investor takeover of Osram, and the outlook of the approval of IDG Capital consortium’s acquisition of LEDVANCE appear rather dim. Germany’s biggest labor union has become one of the latest advocates against a Chinese merger of Osram, as it seeks to keep factory jobs and others in the country.

Osram launched many automotive lighting products this week, including automotive LEDs and OLED taillights. The company has also announced two major partnerships including licensing its LED epiwafer patents to a major Japanese company, and sealing a smart LED lighting deal with Tvilight.

There is increasing German government interference in LED and semiconductor related transactions this week, Osram’s decision to sell its general lighting business to Chinese consortium headed by IDG Capital and included lighting company Forest Lighting (MLS) has been delayed and put on hold.

Micro-LEDs, why do we love you so much, when commercialization will take another five to ten years? Despite the long incubation period ahead before micro-LED screens can reach mass production stage, Facebook’s VR subsidiary Oculus announced it absorbed Irish micro-LED company InfiniLED. The strategy seems eerily familiar with the one launched by Apple years back in 2013, when it took Luxvue under its wing, so Oculus and its parent company Facebook are potentially eyeing micro-LEDs for its next generation VR headsets.

Osram has been very active over the last past months, and recent market rumors have resurfaced about interested Chinese buyers. This time the rumored acquisitor is its Chinese rival San’an Opto, who will mostly be looking into merging Osram Opto, according to LEDinside sources. San’an Opto is rumored to be offering a generous EUR 7.2 billion for the German LED company, but there are also some estimating the German company can fetch a sales price of nearly EUR 8 billion.

Wait…..its Wednesday right? So why are LEDinside editors posting this? Due to the upcoming Chinese Moon Festival, we will not be in office from Sept. 15-16, 2016 and will not be updating our site during this time. So we’d like to wish all our readers Happy Chinese Moon Festival in advance, as we battle against natural elements caused by raging Super Typhoon Mernati in Taiwan.

Unveiling of the iPhone 7 this week has wowed many, it introduced a dual camera system for the first time and a four-pieced LED lighting that raised lighting output by 50%. The LEDs comprises two warm white and two cool white LEDs. Rumors of the OLED screen…well, we’re not seeing it in the phone yet. So the wait for an OLED screened iPhone probably won’t be over anytime soon.

This week, GE Lighting made an important announcement to its employees regarding its changing market strategy in Asia and Latin America, and the company’s redirecting focus to its more profitable regional markets and products.

Several interesting developments happened in the OLED sector this week, with the Taiwanese government announcing it will be pouring US $3 billion to develop flexible AMOLED and PMOLED industries in the nation. The flexible display technology will be co-developed with ITRI, and the government aims to form a comprehensive OLED supply chain in Taiwan and reducing the country’s reliance on material imports. Cadillac also showcased its OLED concept car in California on Friday, where it is employing four large OLED panels for its Escala concept car dashboard.

GE Lighting is involved in the Olympic Games Rio that runs from Aug. 5-21, 2016, in ways more than just LED lighting installation projects. The company developed LED lights that can help monitor athletes performance.

U.S. researchers claim to have found a new method to overcome green LED droop issues. GCS Holdings sell to San’an Opto faces similar fate as Lumileds, with U.S. authorities blocking the acquisition transaction over undisclosed concerns. Samsung rumored to be investing huge sums in 3D NAND flash memory and OLED panels.

The acquisition of the year happened on Tuesday, when Osram stated top Chinese LED chip package manufacturer MLS along with two other investors absorbed its general lighting business, LEDVANCE. If you had been following LEDinside since last November, MLS General Manager Lawrence Lin had spoken on multiple occasions about ongoing talks, and that it was close to sealing the deal just a couple weeks ago. Osram authorized trademark usage and as part of the deal MLS will be buying white LED chips from the German lighting giant’s plant in Malaysia once the fab enters mass production phase.

Osram and Epistar have been especially active this week. The German lighting giant has announced many new developments one week ahead of its latest financial result announcement. Changes in the company structure include the appointment of their new CFO Ingo Bank, OLED taillights being supplied to BMW, and acquisition of U.S. LED module manufacturer Novità Technologies.

Cree has sold off its profitable GaN driver and RF business to Infineon for $850 million, so it can focus on its LED business, said the company. The Asian Development Bank announced it will be financing about US $50 million in Malaysian state Melaka smart LED streetlight project, which involves retrofitting 100,000 streetlights. LEDinside also had the chance to speak to Lawrence Lin, General Manager of MLS or Forest Lighting, about the company’s strategic distribution partnership with YACG in Taiwan, and its current LED package strategies.

Will Micro-LED displays appear in Apple Watches 3 in 2017? LEDinside is not sure. However, these new display technology could be a major game changer for the LED industry, potentially making it the next killer app. Rival Samusng Display has come up with a 3-in-1 OLED device that can transform into a wearable smart watch, smartphone and even tablet.

Nichia is very focused on new patent suits, and filed not one but four new suits. The patent suits, include those involving U.S. LED bulb distributors Feit Electric, Meridian, Lowe’s and L G Supplier (not LG Supplier). These three suits are centered around the 250 patent, which involves resin and LED chip leadframe structures. The last suit targeting B&Q self-branded LED bulbs mostly has to do with YAG patents, and unlike the first three is clamping down on home improvement company’s branded bulbs.

Our research team has released their latest LED package market demand report for May 2016, micro-LEDs displayed by ITRI at Computex 2016. DOE has unveiled its 2016 SSL R&D plan, which highlights LED and OLED technology developments.

The Pakistan government has announced it will be including LED lights in its fiscal year 2016-2017 budget, the emerging market is expected to present high growth rates of CAGR 45% till 2020, but the source of the projections remains unclear.

Chinese investors Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund (GCI) is proposing to acquire Aixtron for EUR 6 per share, which would bring the acquisition value to about EUR 670 million. The investment will mostly be used for accelerating Axitron’s MOCVD R&D, and receiving the needed capital. Company management, structure, and patent portfolio will remain unchanged after the acquisition.

Reports from Taiwanese media have pointed out StrongLED might have acquired Osram Licht smart LED bulb OEM orders. The alliance formed between the two competitors in the smart light market is aimed at countering Philips Lighting’s advancements in the smart lighting sector, according to the report from Commercial Times. The group’s LED component business Osram Opto, sheds insight about new 10 degree binning color technology, aimed at providing more realistic view of color performance.

Cree has been very active in courts lately, settling a two year-long patent dispute with Knightbright, while filing a patent infringement counterclaim against Feit Electric. According to LEDinside analysts, the company is focusing its attention on collecting revenue from licensing patent royalties.

It has been confirmed that Philips Lighting will be issuing an IPO instead of being put up for sale, Philips will gradually sell more than 25% of its stake in the lighting business. Additionally, the company’s IPO announcement will disappoint several investors, such as Go Scale Capital, Melrose, and Apollo to name a few that had previously been interested in submitting bidding proposals. The company’s lighting arm in Thailand has also decided to shut down its fluorescent bulb factory as market penetration of LEDs escalate in the local market to more than 34%.

LEDinside has released two important research reports this week, in case you missed our research director Roger Chu’s talk at Taiwan International Lighting Show 2016 (TILS 2016) last week, you can find the complete summary of his talk from the contracting Chinese LED chip market piece. In addition, the company has unveiled the top 10 LED package manufacturer rankings in 2015. Nichia has defended the top ranking position, and Everlight edged up one spot. Taiwanese LED package manufacturer Lite-On has also squeezed into the top 10 rankings for the first time, for more details please see below.