Faced with issues such as energy shortage and global warming, governments across the globe have implemented various incentives and subsidies for energy-saving products. At the LEDforum 2009 Panel Discussion, LED industry heavyweights shared their points of view on the competition and development in the industry. The panel discussion “New energy policies world-wide promote the development of LED lighting industry”, was hosted Dr Yi-Jen Chan, Vice President & EOL General Director, ITRI. Panelists include (from left to right, in the photo below):

Cyberlux Corporation, a leading provider of LED lighting solutions, announced today that the company has formally entered into a supplier agreement with Spectrum Brands to deliver six products for its Rayovac trade name, two of which are for immediate delivery for orders that Spectrum Brands has procured. Cyberlux will supply Rayovac with existing Cyberlux LED lighting products, as well as LED products exclusively designed for the Rayovac brand itself.

Brand Neue Corp. ("Brand Neue" or the "Company") today announced the execution of an agreement (the "Agreement") to become the exclusive distributor of Luma Vue, Inc. ("Luma Vue") advanced LED lighting products and lighting systems in Canada.

Market researchers forecast a threefold increase up to almost 13 billion Euros by 2012 for light emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic LEDs (OLEDs). These technologies offer a particularly small size, a long lifetime and top levels of energy-efficiency, thus opening up new applications and new markets.

In order to help school’s reconstruction from the destruction of Typhoon Moraco and provide students a better environment for learning, Everlight Electronics Co., Ltd. donated more than 15,000, valued 60 million NTD, LED lighting fixtures including indoor and outdoor applications to public schools in Pintung, Chiayi, Kaohsiung, Nantou and Taitung County in Taiwan.In order to help school’s reconstruction from the destruction of Typhoon Moraco and provide students a better environment for learning, Everlight Electronics Co., Ltd.

Hi-Score Corporation announced the completion of the company's re-organization and acquisition of Green LED Solutions by its wholly owned subsidiary Green LED Technology. According to the acquisition agreement, Green LED Solutions is now merged with Green LED Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hi Score Corp. This re-organization and acquisition will have the result of combining all rights and ownership of the current and pending contracts to the company.

Shuen Der Industry Co., Ltd. (SDI ), a Taiwanese supplier of LED lead frames for automotives and consumer electronics, has invested NT$80 million (US$2.46 million at US$1: NT$32.5) to expand output of the products.

Recently, BenQ has announced a couple of 16:9 LCD monitors that feature LED backlighting, the 21.5-inch V2210 and the 24-inch V2410 in Japan. Both new displays have a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, a 5ms response time, a 1000:1 contrast ratio, 250 cd/m2 brightness, the Senseye image enhancement technology, plus DVI and HDMI outputs. BenQ has not yet reveal any prices but said that the V2210 will hit (Japanese) stores on December 25th, and the V2410 will follow on the 30th.

In the recently started ‘So-Light’ project eleven German companies and research institutes work closely together on Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs). The goal is to reach a leading position in the fast growing worldwide OLED market. The 14.7 Million Euro project is also financially supported by the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research).

In recent years, cross-strait development of various types of LED streetlights have been booming, particularly in 2008, when Taiwan and China both initiated several LED streetlight demonstration projects, spurring the growth momentum of LED industry.

A new report on the life-cycle energy usage of energy-efficient lighting by Cree, Inc. shows that LED lighting products are now more efficient than traditional lighting products when compared across the high-volume applications of recessed downlighting and display spotlighting. Evaluating light fixtures and applications, the white paper’s energy comparisons demonstrate that LEDs offer clear advantages in terms of energy costs and environmental impact over traditional lighting such as incandescent, halogen and compact fluorescent bulbs.

Linear Technology Corporation announces the LT3492, a 2.1MHz DC/DC converter designed to operate as a three-channel constant current LED driver. Each of the LT3492’s three channels can drive up to ten 300mA LEDs in series, enabling it to drive up to 30 x 300mA LEDs at efficiencies up to 96%. All three channels are operated by an independent True Color PWM™ signal, enabling each to be dimmed independently to ratios as high as 3,000:1.

LEDnovation, Inc. introduces the world’s highest brightness LED A19 lamps for 100W Incandescent and CFL replacements

China team develops the FSEZ1016A LED driver for lighting manufacturers Fairchild Semiconductor, a leading global supplier of high performance products that enable energy-efficiency, has been selected by one of the world’s largest lighting manufacturers, OSRAM®, to supply LED driver solutions. The FSEZ1016A was developed by Fairchild to meet and exceed the stringent performance benchmarks set by OSRAM.

Arrow Electronics, Inc. (NYSE:ARW) has teamed with Cree and National Semiconductor Corp. to deliver a reference design for a flicker-free, wide-dimming-range LED driver board.  The new reference design empowers engineers to rapidly develop an LED lighting solution, featuring white LEDs on a programmable board that meets the ENERGY STAR power requirements.

Linear Technology announces the LT3760, an 8-channel LED driver, utilizing a step-up DC/DC controller capable of driving up to a 45V string of 100mA LEDs per channel. Its internal 60V, 1MHz DC/DC boost mode controller is designed to operate as a constant current LED driver for up to 80 white LEDs. From a 12V input, the LT3760 can drive 8 channels, each with up to ten 100mA white LEDs in series while delivering efficiencies exceeding 92%. Its multichannel capability makes it ideal for medium and large-sized TFT-LCD backlighting applications.

Although the development of LED street lamps is not as fast as expected, it still embraces a bright future. Optimistic about the outlook that LED street lamps are to replace conventional ones, LED enterprises are rushing to invest in LED street lamp R&D. Currently, there are over a hundred companies that launched LED street lamps, but most of them have not realized mass production. In contrast to the enthusiasm of LED street lamp makers, China's LED street lamp market hasn't taken off yet in 2009.

In a continued effort to advance responsible driving and address wrong-way driver prevention, the North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) installed six LED-enhanced “Wrong Way” signs Friday and Monday as part of a pilot project initiated by the NTTA’s Wrong-way Driver Task Force.

Taking advantage of the countless benefits of the LED, including its lower power consumption, and longer lifetime, various cities in the Unites States have been replacing traditional filament-based traffic signal bulbs with LED bulbs for years. Unfortunately, the low-wattage LED units are not hot enough to melt the snow that sticks to the lenses of traffic signals, causing dozens of accidents.

The Cree Cup Launches in China with Nearly 1,000 Students Submitting More than 100 Designs The first Cree Cup - Creative LED Lighting Design Contest for China University Students jointly organized by the China Association of Lighting Industry (CALI) and Cree, Inc. has successfully completed its preliminary round. After evaluation by the Contest Review Committee, 50 design projects have been selected for the final round.

ON Semiconductor (Nasdaq: ONNN) and California Micro Devices (Nasdaq: CAMD) has announced the signing of a definitive merger agreement pursuant to which ON Semiconductor will acquire California Micro Devices (CMD) through a cash tender offer of US$4.70 per share.

Generally speaking, those who believe that there is no possibility of a large scale replacement with LED street lamps mainly take two factors into account: the quality and cost of LED street lamps. The quality problem exists in all aspects: luminous flux, luminous efficacy, luminous decay, thermal dissipation, color temperature, luminance distribution, stability, homogeneity, power supply and lifespan of other components. On the other hand, the cost of street lamps is several even dozens times higher than conventional street lamps.

The Shanghai RenMin Road Tunnel and Guangzhou Zhujiang New City, each uses around 30,000 Golden DRAGON Oval Plus LEDs from OSRAM Opto Semiconductors. These LEDs are chosen by Guangdong Zhonglong Communications Technology Ltd. due to their good optical performance and high reliability. In addition, their 50,000 hours lifetime extends service intervals, keeping maintenance costs down and reducing the total cost of ownership.

Cree, a leader in LED lighting, announces that LR24 recessed LED luminaires have been installed in the National Air and Space Museum. Designed for the new “Moving Beyond Earth” exhibit, the Cree LED lights replace high intensity discharge work lights, offering the high lumen output and efficacy required to work in the gallery.

Yesterday, Bivar announced the PM5-3 Series, a 3 lead common cathode, bi-color 5mm panel mount LED assembly. The first in a line of bi-color LED assemblies, the new PM5-3 series extends Bivar's existing panel mount assembly product line, and features input driven color adjustment capabilities to address the growing demand for enhanced LED indication in a wide variety of commercial and industrial machinery.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, has unveiled modular BCD (Bipolar, CMOS DMOS) process technologies targeting high voltage integrated LED driver devices. 

Seoul Semiconductor, a world leading LED manufacturer, has announced that its LED products were selected for the external balcony lights of 'Oasis of the Seas' , the world's largest and most innovative cruise liner, which made its inaugural voyage on 5 December 2009.

Philips LED floodlights already create extraordinary visual impact on some of the world's tallest buildings, including the CN Tower in Toronto, the Sky Tower in Auckland, and the EuroMast in Rotterdam. Today, Philips Electronics added Boston's Prudential Tower to the impressive list of landmark skyscrapers that use its LED lighting fixtures to dynamically transform their facades. Philips Invigorates Boston's Prudential Tower .

Based on statistics from LED industry research institute LEDinside, Taiwan’s listed LED manufacturers recorded total revenue of NT$6.852 billion in November 2009, down by 1.7% from NT$6.974 billion in October (+65% YoY). LED chipmakers’ total revenue amounted to NT$3.2 billion, up by 1.6% MoM, and LED packagers posted NT$3.652 billion in revenue, a 4.5% MoM decline.

Today, Grote Industries introduced the newest member of its LED WhiteLight Work Lamp Portfolio, the revolutionary Trilliant 36 LED WhiteLight Conversion Bulb. Trilliant 36 LED WhiteLight Conversion Bulb