Ultratech is about to set up a new international headquarters in Singapore on December 6, 2010 to better serve its large customer base in Asia. And it is scheduled to begin shipping lithography systems to customers in Q1 of 2011. The Singapore facility will engineer and manufacture its lithography systems and other related products, including lithography steppers for advanced packaging and HB LEDs and modules for the laser spike anneal systems.

Due to Samsung’s plan to roll out new LED-lit liquid-crystal display TVs in December after nearly half a year of suspension to clear its stock of CCFL TVs, Taiwan Unity Opto Technology, the major TV backlights supplier to Samsung and LG, schedules its revenue with an estimated NT$12 billion (US$400 million), to soar 70% in 2011 over 2010, aiming to control over 10% of the world market for L

Linktec Technologies, manufacturer of various professional electronic connectors, teams up with world-class LED lighting firm, Applied Quantum Bright Technologies Co., Ltd., a company with rich professional expertise, for vertical integration and alliance. Linktec obtained sole distributorship of AQBT’s high power lighting fixtures in Taiwan. This alliance enriches Linktec’s product lines and services.

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), international NGO the Climate Group and HSBC reported that they would start India’s largest LED Street-lighting pilot program in Kolkata, which installed over 270 lights on several of the city’s arterial roads.

With the LED TV development, the demand for LCD TV became weaker, which brought a price war for vendors to stimulate market demand. In North America market, it is reported that LCD TVs vendors started to cut down the price for a 32-inch LCD TVs, especially in Wal-Mart, the price for a 32-inch model was only US$199.

As report goes, Taiwan’s biggest manufacturer of silicon ingots, Sino-American Silicon Products Inc., plans to buy furnaces that GT Solar will build to grow sapphire ingots to promote sales related to LED manufacturing. At a recent institutional-investor conference, executives from Sino-American disclosed the company will rise the output current output 60,000 wafers up to 180,000 wafers a month by the end of 2011,  fueling speculations that the company would buy GT Solar`s equipment.

Reportedly, Samsung Electronics showcased a prototype of a 19-inch TV equipped with an OLED panel made by using an inkjet printing method at FPD International 2010, a trade show on LCD and OLED flat-panel displays (FPDs).

Recently, LED chipmaker Epistar thought those reports was a rumor, that Epistar, Lumens and backlight unit (BLU) maker Hansol LCD would set up a joint venture in eastern China, with 10 billion won (US$8.84 million), 30 billion won and 10 billion won investment respectively. Epistar spokesman Chang Shie-Shien noted that Epistar hadn』t known anything about the deal and nothing related to it was being discussed.

Nuventix, Inc., LED industry thermal management specialist and electronics cooling innovator, announced it is seeing significant adoption of its SynJet technology across Europe, most notably in store installations of the region's largest retailer. SynJet LED coolers maximize lumen output and extend the life of LEDs in the stores of Carrefour's new hypermarket concept, Planet Carrefour. With SynJet, Planet Carrefour stores are bathed in bright light while using less energy.

Verticle ,an LED chip company from Dublin, California, has created the world's first hexagonal LED chip named as HoneycombTM LED Chip, which is a vertically structured LED chip developed especially for high power LED applications.

Osram Sylvania has released a  piece of news that home improvement store Lowes will unseat the 60-watt incandescent bulbs with 12 watts Sylvania's general-purpose LED bulb. According to Osram Sylvania, the Ultra A-Line bulb will be available online in November and in all Lowe's stores by the second quarter of 2011. The price will $39.98, while Home Depot is selling a 60-watt replacement LED from Philips at the price of $39.97.  

Lighting Science Group Corporation has hired John Bono to serve as its vice president for strategic accounts. Bono will play an integral role in the management of existing strategic accounts, and the pursuit of new strategic accounts.  He will report to Ted Russ, Lighting Science Group’s chief business development officer.  

To dress up Christmas trees, Santa's Best Craft, LTD., a GE Lighting licensee, is expanding its line of GE brand holiday lighting with Color Effects(TM) outdoor color-changing LEDs and adding new Easy Shape Technology(TM) to its pre-lit indoor Christmas trees. These LEDs are Energy Star(R) qualified, using 20 percent of the energy traditional lights consume and lasting up to 10 times longer.  

LED Horticultural Lighting Enabled by OSRAM Opto Semiconductors

With the development of LEDs, more and more manufactories started to emphasize their own technical patents, which also bring some patents competition and cooperation.

It is estimated that Unity Opto Technology revenues for 2010 would reach NT$7 billion (US$228 million), up 75% from 2009, and went up to NT$12 billion, up 71.4% in 2011. In 2010, Unity’s LED backlighting TV increasing orders mainly from customers in South Korea, Japan and China, and it would continue in 2011. a leader of Unity said, Unity wanted to global market share for LED backlighting products to rise from 10% in 2010 to up to 15% in 2011, and the revenues to increase from NT$1 billion in 2010 to NT$2 billion in 2011.

Taiwan-based CCFLs and LED light bars maker GIO Optoelectronics，is a member of the Chi Mei Group. The company noted, GIO mainly supplied LED light bars for Chimei making LED backlight units used in LCD TV panels. Due to increased orders from Chimei, GIO had reached full utilization of its CCFL and LED light bar production capacities.

Lumex has developed its QuantumBrite Flexible LED Backlight technology.

LG Electronics starts to sell 10 LED LCD TVs, including three premium FULL LED LCD TVs with 42, 47 and 55 inch screens and seven edge-lit LED LCD models with screen sizes ranging from 22 to 42 inches in Japan from November 19. Over 60 retail stores in major cities such as Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya will adopt LG TV models. The LX9500, a "Best of Innovation" award winner at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, is placed at the top of the company's line-up.

New SafeSite® Series LED Linear Offers Complete Lighting System with Superior Power Factor, Exceptionally Low Interference and Much Longer Life than Traditional Fluorescent Fixtures; U.S.-Manufactured to Meet Buy American Act in Roxboro, NC

AUO has built a partnership with Arizona State University’s Flexible Display Center (FDC) to develop mixed oxide TFTs to speed the commercial availability of active-matrix OLED flexible displays. As AMOLED in conventional glass displays are already beginning to gain market traction for applications such as smart phones, the FDC-AUO partnership will continue to expand its application with bringing the benefits of AMOLED displays, including full-color, full-motion video, to flexible substrates.

Reportedly, California will become a test lab in 2011, to test nationwide consumers’ reaction to new federal lighting efficiency laws taking effect throughout the country on January 1, 2012.   Under Title 20, the Golden State's energy commission has the authority to regulate lighting products used by consumers and businesses.

To comply with a strict energy policy which aims to cut down CO2 emission and energy consumption from the Chinese government’s “11th Five Year Plan”, big enterprises in the mainland start seeking energy-stingy LED lamps to replace traditional lamps in their plants. According to LED-lighting makers, sales of T8 light tubes and light bulbs lit up by LEDs will obviously ramp up throughout this quarter.

Larson Electronics has added the LEDLB-4ETM LED machine light with optional magnetic mount to its range of industrial LED lighting.   Mounted within any enclosed machine, this LED light can provide operators additional lighting for setup, processing or inspection as standard overhead lighting runs out.  

Track Lighting Retrofit Positively Impacts 50 Timberland Stores

At SFT Lighting’s “Intelligent Control LED light source” press conference held at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC) on November 9, 2010, SFT Lighting and CREE officially signed the first order of high power LED chips in the amount of RMB 100 million (~USD 15 million, at 1 USD = 6.64 CNY).

Recently, Circuit protection device maker Polytronics Technology estimated its sales in 4Q10 to decrease 15%, but it would be a smaller drop compared to in the same time last year. In October, the company’s consolidated revenues was NT$106 million (US$3.5 million), down 15.6% on month but up 17.3% on year. In the first ten month of 2010, its consolidated sales were NT$1.17 billion, up 46.5% from the same period of 2009.

Taiwan LED chipmaker Epistar and Formosa Epitaxy, LED backlighting started to pick up in November 2010 and would increase in March 2011, with the vendors completing inventory adjustments. Epistar indicated that vendors had begun to order production with completing inventory adjustments, especially from Korea-based packaging houses.

A new trend of energy saving, E-CMOS provides the new HV LED driver IC - high efficiency, high energy saving, and heat-sinked without transformers. According to the rise of global environmental protection and the reduction of carbon emission, the traditional incandecesnt light is replaced by new LED lighting in the market. However, the insufficient luminous and heat problem are still major issues.

Recently, Nichia has filed two lawsuits.