The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science has awarded four Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants targeting advances in solid-state lighting (SSL) and building-integrated heat and moisture exchange technology:

Phoseon Technology, the leader in UV LED curing solutions, today announced a major milestone for UV LED light sources. As a result of Phoseon's rigorous reliability efforts, lifetime testing of lamps has now surpassed 50,000 hours of operational on-time with lamp irradiance being greater than 80% of its original output when the test first began five-plus years ago. For perspective, utilizing a single shift workweek of 2,000 hours per year, 50,000 hours equates to 25 years of UV LED operating on-time. 

Saffron aims to bring Silk, a smart LED bulb capable of color tuning to people’s circadian rhythm throughout the day onto the market by January 2016.

Osram was not only acting as an industry partner at the fifth tour of the largest electric vehicle rally in the world, the WAVE (World Advanced Vehicle Expedition), but also mingling amongst the competitors with a car fitted with OSRAM products. WAVE 2015 took place from 12 to 21 June, with a route over several locations from Plauen in Germany to St. Gallen in Switzerland.

Cree LED business will undergo restructures, which the company estimates will cost a total US $85 million. According to Roger Chu, Director, Research Division, LEDinside, the company has been hurt by LED bulb price wars. Startup 3D LED company Aledia has successfully completed its round B financing, and has been backed by IKEA GreenTech and automotive lighting company Valeo. Valeo has a 10% stake in Aledia, and appears to be interested in using 3D LED technology in its future automotive lighting products. Merck continues to show interest in OLED technology and has invested in another manufacturing plant in Germany. The company aims to become one of the leading OLED material companies by 2018.

The Guangdong Province in Southern China incurred the greatest losses in China’s lighting industry, according to monthly statistics compiled by National Bureau of Statistics.

Latest market rumors from Korea have noted South Korean display manufacturers are trying to persuade Apple to use flexible OLED screens in its future iPhones, reported Business Korea.

For the three Danish regions collectively known as Greater Copenhagen, the vision for reducing global warning and creating green growth is quite clear and very ambitious.

A court in The Hague has made an unprecedented ruling and ordered the Dutch government to cut carbon emissions by at least 25% within five years, reported The Guardian.

Eaton Cooper announced recently it has dropped the Cooper name for its lighting business, details of the transition can be seen in the statement below from Mark Eubank, Preident of Eaton’s Lighting Division.

Market competition in the North American bulb market has pressured Cree to restructure its LED business, said Roger Chu, Director, Research Division, LEDinside.

LG and Google have recently formed a joint marketing campaign to promote OLED TVs, reported The Korea Times.

Cree, a market leader in LED lighting, today announced that the board of directors has approved the following: A restructuring of the LED Products business A $500 million stock buyback authorization for fiscal year 2016 The fiscal year 2016 annual operating plan that targets: Revenue to increase to $1.8 billion +/- Non-GAAP operating margin increasing to approximately 8% Free cash flow of approximately $75 million

Valeo announced that it has purchased a 10.5% stake in Aledia, by subscribing to a portion of Aledia’s capital increase. Aledia is a technology start-up dedicated to the development of cutting-edge LED technology for general and automotive lighting.

Panasonic intends to halt fluorescent lights in Indonesia by the end of June 2015, and will be laying off about 700 employees at the plant, reported Nikkei Asian Review.

A recent report from BMW Blog has quashed rumors that the laser headlights would be arriving in the U.S. market by fall this year.

Through its Transportation Lighting and Safety program, the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is evaluating the potential for new lighting technologies and approaches to improve driving safety at night, including new car headlight systems. For the study, vehicle manufacturer Audi AG has provided the LRC with an A7 equipped with adaptive high beam “matrix lights” that allow drivers to benefit from using high beams all the time while selectively dimming a portion of the beam in the direction of other drivers to prevent glare. In the Audi system, the beam pattern is split into numerous individual LEDs arranged in a grid or “matrix” that adapts to the surroundings in real-time. The lighting system is being evaluated by LRC researchers this June.

AIXTRON, a worldwide leading provider of deposition equipment to the semiconductor industry, announced today that Epileds, a leading supplier of LED chip products, has qualified the Company’s AIX R6 tool for LED epitaxy mass production.

Lighting Science Group, a leading manufacturer of LED lighting solutions, announced today the appointments of three experienced sales leaders who will add broad business and industry expertise to its global sales team. Daniel Yasi joins the company as Senior Director of Commercial and Infrastructure Channels. Oscar Ibarra also joins LSG as Director of International Infrastructure Sales. Additionally, David Rubin joins the team as a Director of Commercial Markets. Dan, Oscar and David will play key roles in supporting and growing the Lighting Science product portfolio, with specific concentrations on expanding the commercial and infrastructure channels both domestically and internationally.

Exagan, a start-up innovator of gallium-nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology that enables smaller and more efficient electrical converters,announced it has raised €5.7 million (US $6.38 million) in first-round financing that will be used to produce high-speed power switching devices on 200mm wafers.

Merck, a leading company for innovative, top-quality high-tech products in healthcare, life science and performance materials, laid the cornerstone for a new OLED materials production plant in Darmstadt today. Production of high-purity OLED materials for use in state-of-the-art displays and lighting systems is scheduled to start in the approximately 2,000 square meter building in July 2016. With the investment, which amounts to around EUR 30 million (US$ 33.78 million), Merck is strengthening its position in the OLED business. Merck aims to be a leading supplier of OLED materials by 2018. The company wishes to make use of its experience in the liquid crystals business, where it is the global leader.

Transphorm, an early stage semiconductor company focused on redefining power conversion, today announced a US $70 million investment round led by global investment firm KKR. KKR’s investment follows initial rounds of funding led by funds affiliated with Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Foundation Capital, Google Ventures, Soros Quantum Strategic Partners, INCJ, Fujitsu, Transphorm will use this funding to support its growth, product innovation and expansion.

A source within Egypt’s Electricity Ministry has disclosed plans of distributing 1.7 million LED bulbs in the next four months, reported The Cairo Post.

Aledia, a developer and manufacturer of next-generation 3D LEDs based on its Gallium-Nitride-on-Silicon platform, announced today the closing of its Series B financing round and the execution of development and supply contracts with major LED buyers. 

LEDinside team would like to wish everyone in advance a Happy Dragon Boat Festival! We will be on holiday tomorrow, so apologies if there are no further article updates this week.

Adoption of LED automotive lights has grown over recent years, but traditional halogen and Xenon HID lights still dominate the headlight market, said the company CEO Pierre-Yves Lesaicherre during an exclusive interview with LEDinside at Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition (GILE), China from June 9-12, 2015.

Top Taiwanese LED chip manufacturer Epistar has been aggressive in its patent strategies, and has acquired key LED filament bulb patents to build up its core advantages, reported Liberty Times recently.

Osram is making further progress regarding its realignment. In an extraordinary meeting, the supervisory board of OSRAM Licht AG approved the carve-out of the general lighting lamps business. As an independent entity, the business will be able to operate more freely on the market and realize strategic options, such as partnerships, more easily. Jes Munk Hansen, until now CEO of the Americas region, will lead the lamps business in the future. "Today's supervisory board decision lays the foundation for our strategic orientation toward growth, innovation and technology leadership," said Olaf Berlien, Chief Executive Officer of OSRAM Licht AG.

Led by Young Duck Kim, a postdoctoral research scientist in James Hone’s group at Columbia Engineering, a team of scientists from Columbia, Seoul National University (SNU), and Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) reported today that they have demonstrated—for the first time—an on-chip visible light source using graphene, an atomically thin and perfectly crystalline form of carbon, as a filament. They attached small strips of graphene to metal electrodes, suspended the strips above the substrate, and passed a current through the filaments to cause them to heat up. The study, “Bright Visible Light Emission from Graphene,” is published in the Advance Online Publication (AOP) on Nature Nanotechnology's website on June 15.

Pixelligent Technologies, producer of PixClear®, the leading producer of nanocrystal dispersions for demanding applications in LED lighting, OLED Lighting, and Optical Coatings and Films markets, announced today that it closed US $3.4 million in new funding. The funds will be used to support accelerating customer growth throughout the world and to increase its manufacturing capacity to 40+ tons per year starting in 2016.