The 20th annual LIGHTFAIR® International (LFI)Innovation Awards (LIA) ceremony took place before the opening of the 2009 LFI trade show on May 5. The industry’s most innovative products and designs introduced in the past 12 months were celebrated at the Awards. Each individual product among the 218 submissions LFI received this year was judged by an independent panel of renowned lighting professionals, and the winners are:

LEDinside has recently interviewed Tung Guoqing, Cree Inc.’s general manager of Business Development in China, also authorized representative of Shanghai photoelectricity industry association and director of Chinese semiconductor lighting committee. Either on behalf of the lighting committee, or as Cree’s representative in China, manager Tang has shared with us the most valuable insights in the illumination industry and LED market in China.  

Nexxus Lighting, Inc. (NASDAQ:NEXS) and QD Vision, Inc. today unveiled the world's first quantum dot lighting solution that combines the efficiency of LED lighting with the warm color of incandescent bulbs. The new lamp integrates a quantum dot optic with cool white LEDs to produce color-rich, true incandescent, warm white light which can provide over 80% energy savings and lasts up to 25 times longer than comparable halogen lighting alternatives.

National Semiconductor Corp. and Nuventix, Inc. today unveiled a new electronic drive and thermal management reference design that simplifies development of high-brightness light-emitting diode (LED) bulb fixtures that replace incandescent or compact fluorescent light bulbs in standard sockets. The new LED electronic drive and thermal management reference design will be demonstrated in Nuventix's booth #3260 at the Lightfair International conference in New York from May 5 to 7.

Epistar Corp, Taiwan’s largest LED provider, is now in talks with Chinese lighting manufacturers and local governments about some investment projects said the comany.

For those who are interested in creative ideas and innovative technology concepts, the “LED – Emotionalize your light” idea contest to be started online this May will offer an exciting opportunity. Via an easy submission procedure, the participants can put their own light design online, and all the participants will have the chance to win valuable prizes amounting to 7000€.

Cree announces a prototype version of the LR6 LED recessed downlight that consumes just 6.5 W of electricity, resulting in 665 lumens, an efficacy of 102 lumens per watt and a power factor greater than 0.9.

Shown at LIGHTFAIR International in New York, the high-efficiency LR6 prototype features TrueWhiteTM technology, resulting in a 92 color rendering index and a 3500 K color temperature.

Luminus Devices, Inc., today announced the introduction of the SST-50 White PhlatLight® LED, the first 5.5W monolithic large-chip LED in a surface-mount (SMT) package. The SST-50 is designed to integrate directly with existing LED lay-outs and enable the next level of performance required by fixture designers to deliver LED-based solutions for mainstream applications in the general, architectural and portable lighting markets.

Zumtobel of Austria and Royal Philips Electronics of The Netherlands have signed a comprehensive, worldwide, cross licensing agreement, under which TridonicAtco and Ledon, the Zumtobel Group’s OEM brands, will become qualified suppliers under the Philips LED-based luminaires licensing program, which is a part of the agreement.

OSRAM Opto has released the new ultra-white Oslon SSL LED in a package measuring just 3 x 3 mm. The Oslon LED has a typical luminous efficacy value of 100 lm/W, and features simplified thermal management, high reliability and a beam angle of 80°. The Oslon LED is an LED in the 1 W class and meets the requirements for use in general lighting, like in spotlights, desk lights and ceiling floodlights.

LED digital display is a semi-conductive lighting component, with light emitting diode (LED) as its elementary unit. By the number of segments the digital display is made of, there are 7-segment digital displays and 8-segment ones, with the latter with one more LED unit (also displays one more decimal point) than the former. By the number of the figure “8” displayed, there are 1-digit, 2-digit, 4-digit LED digital displays and so on. And by the way in which the LED units are connected, there are common anode digital displays and common cathode digital displays.  

LEDinside has recently visited Huang Kouhsin, former president of United Epitaxy Company and current president of Excellence Opto and High Power Opto, and Huang Fang-Yue, wife of president Huang and also the general manager of Excellence Opto, to get some knowledge about the current situation and future development of Excellence Opto group.

Endicott Research Group (ERG), known for its expertise in powering CCFL and LED backlights for LCDs, is developing new LED driver solutions for the solid state lighting market. Leveraging technology developed for its CCFL inverters and LED backlight drivers, ERG will be introducing a family of Smart Force(TM) LED drivers that combine full-function power supplies with energy-efficient controllers for commercial, industrial, architectural and other SSL applications.

Lumitex, Inc. announces the establishment of its West Coast R&D Center in Irvine, California, and Asian manufacturing center in Taipei, Taiwan to help develop, apply and produce illumination solutions using patented LED and fiber optic technologies for electronics applications on the West Coast and in Asia.

Bridgelux, Inc., a U.S. lighting company and supplier of energy-saving light-emitting diode (LED) based light sources, announced yesterday that the company has launched a Lighting Services Group offering its customers a wide range of design and support services. As an increasing number of lamp and luminaire manufacturers transition to solid-state lighting, new system-level design opportunities arise.

At Lightfair International 2009, PerkinElmer, Inc. yesterday announced the introduction of its new LED fiber optic illuminator that exceeds the brightness levels of 150-watt halogen technology while using fifty percent less power.

Nuventix, Inc., innovator of SynJet® active thermal management solutions, announces the general availability of the SynJet Universal DLM cooler for the Philips Fortimo/Lexel LED Downlight Module. This Nuventix active cooling product is the most compact and low profile luminaire available in the market today.

The campus of Bosque School in southern Albuquerque, U.S., is soon to get a new appearance with clean technology. The school will replace its nearly 100 outdoor light poles with solar-powered LEDs that are controlled by smart technology to shut on and off automatically.

Hong Kong International Lighting Fair 2009 (Autumn Edition) will be on 27-30 October 2009, in Hong Kong.  

Base on NeoPac Universal Platform for solid state lighting, NeoPac built high brightness (4,400 lumen) , high CRI (~90) LEDs light module for stage spotlight application.

6th LEDs in Business Event 09 (Dusseldorf Germany) will be on October 14 ~ 15,

CIL (Custom Interconnect Limited), a  UK supplier of electronics manufacturing services to the European electronics industry, will display an extensive range of LED based designs on Stand LED46 at the euroLED 2009 to be held at the Ricoh Arena on June 3rd and 4th.  The company will also demonstrate its ability to provide bespoke packaging of both bare-die LEDs and the assembly of pre-packaged parts from manufacturers such as Lumileds, Cree and Osram.

The Luxeed multicolor keyboard released last year has got its new 2009 update now. The incredibly colorful keyboard is powered by 430 colored LEDs, which can all be sequenced using the included Windows software.

Samsung launched the first LED technology-based TV in India last Wednesday.

Cyberlux Corporation, a U.S.-based provider of LED lighting solutions, announced last week that it has begun production of fluorescent fixture replacement products delivering 31% improvement in energy per visible lumen and a performance life-time rating of 75,000 hours, which is ten times of the typical fluorescent tube performance of 7,500 hours. The Cyberlux ArcLight LED Lighting System products will address the large opportunities for high-efficiency replacement lighting products in the commercial, Federal, state and local government markets.

Cree, Inc. announces it is demonstrating the newest addition to its lighting-class XLamp® LED family—the XLamp XP-G LED—at LIGHTFAIR International in New York, May 5-7, 2009. The cool white XLamp XP-G provides 139 lumens and 132 lumens per Watt at 350 mA. Driven at 1 A, the XP-G produces 345 lumens, which is 37 percent brighter and 53 percent more efficient than the brightest XR-E LED. The XP-G LED has the highest lumen density of any available lighting-class LED, and it is based on the XLamp XP family package.

Macroblock announced its newly-developed 8-channel and 4-channel constant current LED drivers –MBI1828 and MBI1824, for the application of LCD monitor and high brightness LEDs. Since LED contains no mercury and provides highly directional light source, it is suitable for backlighting applications to provide high brightness. By high voltage process technology, MBI1828 and MBI1824 are designed to light up cascaded LEDs in single channel with high luminance.

Macroblock, a leading manufacturer of LED driver, today released its annual results of fiscal year 2008 and the first quarter results of 2009. The gross profit margin in the first quarter of 2009 outperformed that of the same period of last year. In addition, Macroblock also assessed the business environment and outlined the business strategy at the investor conference held by Gre Tai Securities Market (the GTSM) at Grand Formosa Regent Taipei on April 29, 2009.