Intense market competition from Chinese manufacturers and deluge of LED suppliers on the market has made cost reducing strategies crucial for LED chip manufacturers’ survival. To cope in an increasingly low profit industry, LED chip manufacturers are developing more advanced and efficient LED chip technologies, finding cheaper chip materials, or exploring untapped niche markets. Representatives from global top LED chip manufacturers Epistar, Osram, Philips Lumileds (Lumileds), and Cree addressed these pressing issues recently at 2015 LED Executive Summit hosted by SEMI at TILS 2015, TWTC Nangang Exhibition Hall.

Philips kicked off the smart bulb market nearly three years ago with its pricey Huebulb, but at this year's CES a horde of new entrants emerged.  The transition from incandescent to more energy efficient bulbs is an opening through which smart bulbs – LED bulbs with wireless radios built in, which can be controlled remotely – are gaining a foothold according to Strategy Analytics' Smart Home Strategies latest report. Belkin, GE and Philips are joined by Awox, Cree, LIFX, Sengled and a host of others are profiled in "Smart Light Bulbs: The Competitive Landscape".

When Galina Zbrizher of Total Lighting Solutions in Vancouver, Canada started working in the lighting industry about 30 years ago, lighting design and technologies were still in the early stages of development. She participated in shaping the industry by serving on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD), serving as President of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) – Toronto Section, a Chair of the IES Hospitality Facilities Committee and active contributor to the IES Design Guide for Hotel Lighting DG-25, by serving seven years on the LIGHTFAIR® International Conference Advisory Committee, and finally as a judge for several lighting design competitions and contributing author for lighting design publications.

As part of the Corporate Aviation Terminal at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA), the CIP lounge provides world-class facilities and personalized services for exclusive travelers.  

Hubbell Lighting, announced Precision-Paragon [P2] has released their new TKL conversion kit. The kit upgrades fluorescent lighting commonly found in offices and commercial, health care and educational facilities to energy-efficient LED lighting delivering up to 124 lumens per watt.

Ringdale, Texas-based manufacturer of USA-made ActiveLED® luminaries, announced its unprecedented Performance Warranty, also dubbed the No Light Loss Warranty. ActiveLED fixtures carry a 10-year guarantee that the lights will not only function, but will not lose light levels or change color for 10 years.

There are dozens of manufacturers in the global sapphire manufacturing market, but only tier one manufacturers are capable of supplying good quality sapphire ingots including Kyocera, Namiki, Monocrystal, DK AZTEC, USIO, Harbin Aurora Optoelectronics and Silan Opto. Leading sapphire manufacturers have launched production expansion plans to meet LED and non-LED market demands. LEDinside had an opportunity to interview Monocrystal Marketing Director Ludmila Zubova at TILS 2015 last week.

On March 31, a consortium of investors led by GO Scale Capital announced they have bought LED manufacturer Philips Lumileds from its parent company Royal Philips. Under this agreement, GO Scale Capital will pay Royal Philips US$3.3 billion for an 80.1% stake in its automotive lighting and LED components business, and the remaining 19.9% stays under Royal Philips. The transaction is scheduled to wrap up in the third quarter of 2015, pending regulatory approval and ratification of transaction terms. Following the deal, the LED and automotive business will operate under the name “Lumileds”. 

Rival Korean consumer electronics manufacturers LG and Samsung have finally agreed to bury the legal hatchet, reported BBC and PC Magazine.

LED grow light module markets at US $395 million in 2014 are forecast to reach $1.8 billion by 2021.  Rapid growth is anticipated as green house and plant factory growers find the LED grow lights improve agriculture, projected WinterGreen Research.

Until now, the wearables revolution in technology has centered mostly on health and fitness devices. Today it enters the realm of music with the Soundbrenner Pulse, the world’s first wearable device designed specifically for musicians. Engineered in Berlin by a team of entrepreneurial musicians and designed to help musicians keep the beat and become better performers, the Soundbrenner Pulse is available now to pre-order at //indiegogo.soundbrenner.com with special pricing of US $129. The retail price will be $149.

The promising new material molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) has an inherent issue that’s steeped in irony. The material’s greatest asset—its monolayer thickness—is also its biggest challenge.

Cree continues to relentlessly expand its leading LED bulb portfolio with the TW Series™ LED T8 Tube Replacement for consumers, making inferior linear fluorescent tubes a ‘thing of the past.’ Designed for simple, wire-free installation, the Cree® TW Series LED T8 Tube provides industry leading compatibility, beating the competition in light quality and performance, all at an affordable price. Available as 32-watt replacements, the TW Series LED T8 Tube Replacements are sold at The Home Depot®stores starting at just $21.97 and consuming up to 42 percent less energy than the 32W fluorescent tubes they replace.

Flexfire LEDs, a producer of linear LED lighting products and accessories, announces the opening of a new distribution center at 14761 Franklin Ave, Unit G, Tustin, CA, 92780. The U.S.-based company applauds the opening as an opportunity to expand its global operations, and further solidify its standing as a leading producer and supplier in the global marketplace for signature brand LED strip lighting products and accessories.

India’s LED industry is undergoing dramatic changes, and is entering an exponential growth phase as more manufacturers jump in, said Deepak Loomba, Managing Director and CEO of De Core Nanosemiconductors during a New Critical Territory in Global Lighting Marketing forum last Thursday at TILS 2015, Taipei, Taiwan.

Over the past year, the LED industry had pondered about the company that would eventually take over Philips lighting component (Philips Lumileds) and automotive business. Go Scale Capital's acquisiton of Lumileds just might be the solution to Chinese manufacturers lack of LED patents, said LEDinside analysts.

GO Scale Capital, an investment fund sponsored by GSR Ventures and Oak Investment Partners has announced today that it will acquire an 80.1% interest in Philips' combined LED components and Automotive lighting business, with Philips retaining the remaining 19.9%* interest. The transaction values the business at an enterprise value of approximately USD 3.3 billion. The transaction is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2015, subject to closing conditions, including customary regulatory approvals.

Leicester, a city in UK, will be spending almost GBP 1 million (US$1.48 million) in LED traffic lights, reported Leicester Mercury.

Veeco Instruments announced Susan Wang has been nominated for appointment to its Board of Directors. Her appointment is subject to shareholder approval, which is being sought at Veeco’s 2015 annual meeting of stockholders, scheduled to occur on May 13, 2015.

GE to manufacture TriGain™, GE’s family of enhanced potassium fluorosilicate (PFS) phosphors for use in LED-based display backlight applications. The TriGain family of phosphors offers improved narrow red band performance, resulting in reds that are sharper and cleaner, enabling richer picture quality and increasing the color gamut for backlit displays. Samples of TriGain may now be obtained from GE Lighting with production quantities available in mid-2015.

Cree introduces the LED Rural Utility Light (RUL) Series, designed to deliver an unprecedented combination of price, performance and quality to accelerate adoption of LED lighting across rural areas in North America. The first of Cree’s innovative outdoor LED luminaires to address the estimated 10 to 13 million rural street and area light fixtures installed, the new RUL Series delivers a better, more affordable lighting experience for residential roadways, security, storage and loading areas with game-changing efficacy, rapid payback of less than one year* and Cree’s industry-leading 10-year warranty. 

Innovative technology allows LED fixture manufacturers to create wireless-enabled LED lighting solutions for their commercial and industrial customers to seamlessly interact with wireless control solutions

Hubbell Lighting, a world leader in lighting innovation, announced today that Columbia Lighting has introduced the RLA—an LED recessed architectural luminaire. With a low initial and operating cost, the RLA is an excellent choice for savings without sacrificing function.

In early March, Philips announced the winners of the revamped international lighting design CLUE Competition. The theme this year was Interface. The participants were asked to explore transformative potentials and to define unique lighting innovations that celebrate the activities of both the built and unbuilt communities. Incorporating the concepts of contact, transparency, transition, threshold, limits, dark/light, natural/artificial, the interface focuses on the spatial interactions influenced by exchanges between one and the other, and thereby distinguishing the two adjacent spaces.

LeDiamond Opto, a double side emitting LED manufacturer from Taiwan, has announced its new revolution in Tesla 4003 2in1 module today.

Lincoln today introduces the Continental Concept, signaling an all-new full-size sedan coming next year and the future of quiet luxury.

Acuity Brands, one of the world’s leading providers of LED lighting solutions; Cisco, the worldwide leader in IT; and Sensity Systems, the pioneer of Light Sensory Networks (LSN), will present an educational webinar, “Meeting the Presidential Challenge for Advanced Outdoor Lighting.” The webinar is designed to help public sector organizations learn more about what it takes to get involved in the Presidential Challenge for Outdoor Lighting program, which was announced by the White House in January during the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Don't miss C3 Lighting Solutions at this year's LightFair International in Booth #3031 located in the Building Integration Pavilion.  C3 will be displaying fixtures from several of their new product lines, including Relucent Surgical Lighting, Aedis Patient Room Lighting, Clarus MRI/Radiology Lighting, NovaLux Neonatal Lighting, Luminis Classroom Lighting, Motif Architectural & Backlighting Systems and their Remote Power & Control systems. 

Switching on to the global market, the 7th edition of HKTDC Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Spring Edition) will be staged from 6 to 9 April 2015 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Around 1,100 exhibitors from 12 countries and regions are expected to join the fair. 

LED lighting developed rapidly in Southeast Asia thanks to its infrastructure construction, which was promoted by the development and impact from the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), according to LEDinside, a research subsidiary of global research institute TrendForce. ASEAN is an inter-governmental international organization gathering countries in Southeast Asia. Established in 1967, ASEAN covers a population of approximately 618 million people, covering a land area of 4.48 million km², with abundant natural resources, and it is one of the world's fastest growing economic regions.