LED chip manufacturer Chi Mei Technology Corp went out of business last month after a surprise exodus by the company’s board members. A staggering amount of NT$5.6 billion in unpaid debts has lead to anger from creditor banks. The phones were ringing off the hook yesterday (7) for Chi Mei’s top shareholder Innolux with calls from legal persons and investors. Innolux expressed that during today’s (8) online conference, chairman Tuan Hsing-chien will be there himself to offer explanation.

The creditor banks for Chi Mei Lighting Technology Corporation are demanding the company’s shareholder groups like Innolux Corportation and Chi Mei Corporation to repay the company’s debt. However, Innolux Corportation’s response was that the responsibility for resolving the debt was solely that of the creditor banks and that all Chi Mei employees are welcome to work at Innolux. Chi Mei Corp only expressed regret over the situation.

Aixtron’s latest Close Coupled Showerhead (CCS) MOCVD platform system, the CRIUS II, has supported the Chi Mei Group for mass production, outperforming expectations as to process stability, uniformity, and throughput. Chi Mei has installed the 55x2-inch wafer configuration CCS CRIUS II and became the first customer in Taiwan to receive this new system. The CRIUS II can easily be tuned to the optimum performance and can further be converted from 2- to 4-, 6-inch or larger wafer size production. Compared to the CRIUS, the CRIUS ...

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.

It’s reported that Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, professor emerita of Materials Science and Engineering at Columbia University in New York, filed a complaint with the U.S.

It’s reported that Taiwan’s DRAM chipmakers and backlight-module makers had announced aggressive investments in LED epitaxy-wafer production last year in anticipation of bright market future, touting to add a total of 100 metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) machines to the Taiwan industry. However, their optimism has been dampened by the global economic crisis, which has hamstrung consumer spending of various sectors including high-tech products like LED, DRAM and LCD TVs.

Recently, at Rubicon Technology’s 2Q08 earnings conference call with industry analysts, the company's president and CEO discussed the future of the LED market.