AIXTRON AG recenlty announced that the Institute of Semiconductors of The Chinese Academy of Sciences, located in Beijing, PR China, has placed an order for one Close Coupled Showerhead (CCS) 3x2 inch MOCVD system. Ordered in the first quarter and to be shipped in third quarter 2009, the new tool will be used for the research and development of semiconductor lasers and LEDs.

At the Society for Information Display’s (SID’s) Display Week 2009 conference in San Antonio, TX, Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas (SMA) announced an expansion to its LED-backlit and touch screen display product lines. Two new TFT-LCDs – one 5.0-inch panel with resistive touch and one 7.0-inch panel – deliver LED backlighting rated at 50,000 hours of operation. Additionally, both panels feature built-in LED drivers, saving engineers time, effort, and expense.

NEC LCD Technologies, and its sales and marketing channel in the Americas, NEC Electronics America, Inc., last week announced the development of a new amorphous-silicon color thin-film-transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD) module that achieves an ultra-wide color gamut for 100 percent of the Adobe® RGB color range by incorporating a newly developed LED light-source unit into the backlight system and a newly developed color filter.

At the Western Railway in India, commuters will soon see new LED screens at suburban stations with improved clarity and with speakers attached. A sample LED screen has already been installed at Andheri station. If it works out, similar LED screens will be seen at other stations soon. Three years ago, LCD screens were installed at stations by SV Media Private Ltd, but they were removed afterwards. Last year, 90 LCD screens were installed near the booking office windows, but these are mute and rather small in size.

The Peace Bridge, a landmark crossing between United States and Canada, has achieved a dramatic new look with the energy-saving light emitting diode (LED) technology. The $1.2 million project was funded by the federal government's Transportation Enhancement Program, with support from the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority.

UPEK®, a global provider of enterprise and consumer biometric fingerprint solutions, yesterday unveiled its TouchLight™ technology which integrates light emitting diodes (LEDs) for user prompting and feedback directly into the company’s broadly adopted fingerprint sensors. UPEK is demonstrating TouchLight integrated LED technology at the Computex Trade Show in Taipei, Taiwan June 2-6, 2009.

Dow Corning has established a new silicone production unit exclusively for LEDs in Jincheon, Korea, to support the global LED market and meet the needs of its customers in Asia. The Jincheon site will manufacture silicone intermediate materials and encapsulants for use in LED packaging applications, protecting LEDs from environmental elements such as humidity and moisture, and providing stress relief and UV resistance. Silicone encapsulants thereby increase light output and minimize heat build-up.

The Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University and Universal Display Corporation yesterday introduced the first a-Si:H active matrix flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display to be manufactured directly on DuPont Teijin's polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrate.

HPLighting has devoted substantial R&D effort on enhancing its proprietary technologies and has successfully renovated a revolutionary substrate structure and proprietary automated packaging process to produce a series of cost effective new generation compact sized high power LEDs. The new proprietary automated packaging process enables SHOCK series to offer accurate and stable manufacturing yields and shorter lead time for a competitive edge over cost and delivery. 

In order to complete the Primax product portfolio and fulfill lighting market demand, DOMINANT is now extending this series with high Color Rendering Index (CRI) products in 0.2-Watt white and warm white versions, NA2W-PSC and NA2F-PSC. These high CRI products are compliant to United State Energy Star guidelines; fulfilling minimum CRI required of 75.

DuPont Displays Inc announced that it developed new OLED materials designed for coating process. The OLED panel manufactured using DuPont Displays' new material

Some 64m2 of Martin Professional LC Series™ LED panels are being used as dynamic, movable set columns for “The Visit of the Royal Physician” (Livlægens Besøg) at the Copenhagen Opera House, one of the most modern opera houses in the world.

OSRAM Opto will show the latest developments for CCTV and night vision systems in Nuremberg at the Sensor+Test, the international trade fair for sensor, measuring and testing technologies. At the joint “Cluster Sensorik” booth in Hall 12/233 OSRAM will present their flagship, the infrared OSTAR Lighting and also the infrared OSTAR Observation, Golden Dragon and Power TopLED with lens.

A new report from Strategies Unlimited says that increasing demand for blue-violet laser diodes, UV LEDs, and other devices will provide significant growth of advanced substrates such as GaN and AlN.

Cree, Inc. today announced increased revenue and earnings targets for its fiscal fourth quarter ending June 28, 2009. Cree now targets revenue in a range of $143 million to $150 million with GAAP earnings of $0.07 to $0.09 per diluted share and non-GAAP earnings of $0.15 to $0.17 per diluted share, based on an estimated 89 million diluted weighted average shares. Targeted non-GAAP earnings exclude expenses related to the amortization of acquired intangibles of $0.03 per diluted share, and stock-based compensation expense of $0.05 per diluted share.

Solomon Systech Ltd, a semiconductor company providing display IC products and system solutions based in Hong Kong, has announced the SSD1306, an OLED driver designed for saving total system cost. With only three capacitors and a built-in charge pump, the device can support the OLED module at high performance using a low voltage supply of 3.3V to 4.2V.

Seiko Epson Corporation today announced it has established inkjet technology that enables the uniform deposition of organic material in the production of large-screen organic light-emitting diode (OLED) televisions. The new technology is said to represent a major step toward the realization of 37-inch and larger full-HD OLED TVs by resolving the uneven layering that had previously been an issue with the inkjet method.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a ruling on May 22, 2009 that rejected Epistar's appeal of the International Trade Commission's (ITC's) interpretation of the claims in Philips Lumileds' U.S. Patent No. 5,008,718 (the '718 patent).

Luminus Devices Inc., developer and manufacturer of PhlatLight LEDs, today announced the appointment of Keith T.S. Ward as its President, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors.

Obducat’s new lithography system is ready to be launched. The system, named Sindre 400, is the world’s first fully automated system for high volume manufacturing of LEDs. Sindre 400 is a vital contribution to the development within CleanTech, since, thanks to greatly increased energy and material efficiency, it reduces the use of natural resources.

At Tokyo's Beautyworld Japan Expo 2009, the U.K.-based company Energist introduced the latest ReGen Light Treatment system.

AIXTRON AG yesterday announced that Hualei Optoelectronic Ltd., based in Hunan Province, P.R. China, has issued a purchase contract for multiple CRIUS(R) MOCVD systems. The tools for production of high brightness LEDs will be shipped from Q2/09 through Q4/09. This contract represents AIXTRON's largest ever single order for MOCVD systems from China. Part of this order has been recorded as order intake in Q1/2009.

Sony plans to launch its 9.9mm-thin Bravia ZX1-series in Singapore in June. The super-slim KLV-40ZX1 is Sony’s answer to the latest LED TVs from Samsung. Unlike the Korean comany's 29.9mm-thin offerings, this Japanese concoction uses an A/V media box that communicates wirelessly with its full-HD LCD panel. In addition, the screen has a 10-bit color reproduction to render a billion discreet hues, plus Motionflow 100Hz and image blur reduction technology for smoother and sharper motion.

The Lindenplatz in Hamburg's St. Georg district, a city landmark and also the place the German company Siemens is based, has recently been redesigned with LED solutions by the company in collaboration with the city of Hamburg as well as some local businesses. The lighting manufacturer OSRAM, part of Siemens' industry business unit, has provided the LED lighting modules used in the project.

Eastman Kodak Company has been named by Frost & Sullivan as the recipient of the 2009 OLED Lighting Enabling Technology of the Year Award in the field of Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) Solid State Lighting (SSL) Technology. According to Frost & Sullivan, the Enabling Technology of the Year Award is presented to a company that has developed a technology that can benefit or revolutionize the industry.

In Fargo, North Dakota, U.S., the city commission voted 5-0 last week to put an immediate moratorium on LED signs on the premises of business properties. The sign moratorium was sought by the Hawthorne Neighborhood Association. The neighborhood group has been against plans by Steven Stremick of Select Financial to put a cube-shaped light-emitting-diode sign at the corner of 13th Avenue South and University Drive.

Norburn Lighting and Bath, Canada’s destination source for LED lighting, introduces to the Canadian market Design Pro LED Under Cabinet lighting from Kichler.

After introducing aluminum casing (CLG family) and fully enclosed plastic casing (PLN, ELN, LP family) LED power supplies, MEAN WELL launched another new product category, open frame type – PLP family, for the “low cost” and “built-in” installation of LED lighting related applications. PLP-30/60 series are 30W/60W switching power supplies with 90~264VAC universal input range.

Epistar Corp, Taiwan‘s largest LED (light-emitting diodes) manufacturer, won its appeal of a patent-infringement case in which Lumileds, the LED unit of Royal Philips Electronics, was trying to block its chips from the US market. The Appeals court lifted an import ban that had been imposed on LED chips made by Epistar.

The Taiwan-based LED chipmakers, Epistar Corp. and Formosa Epitaxy Inc., have both decided to expand their LED chip outputs to ease the supply deficiency caused by strong need for LEDs from major LCD TV manufacturers, according to Taiwan Economic News.