Benefiting from mainland China’s TV makers vigorously building up inventories for the upcoming high season, Taiwan’s LED makers Epistar, Unity Opto, Lextar, and I-Chiun Precision Industry Co., Ltd. have been inundated in contracts. The mainland’s top six color TV makers are energetically promoting LED-lit TVs in anticipation of lucrative demands from the mainland authorities’ subsidization programs, which are designed to further boost LED-lit TV penetration in the Chinese mainland to 80% from current 70%. Lextar increases product...

Taiwan Epistar’s board of directors has agreed with a proposal to acquire Huga Optotech Inc. as its wholly owned subsidiary by all-stock swap at ratio of one Epistar share for 4.85 Huga shares. Baseline date for the swap is tentatively set at Dec. 28 in 2012. Both companies will bring the deal to an irregular shareholders meeting on Sept. 28 for vote. Industry executives said the deal, estimated at NT$4 billion (US$133 million at US$1:NT$30), is conducive to minimizing the disorder of the upstream sector of Taiwan’s LED industry. Epistar executiv...

As the global economic outlook remains stagnant, LED industry’s peak season performance may fall short of expectations. Thus, Taiwanese LED firms such as Epistar, Unity Opto, Lextar, and Genesis Photonics underwent setbacks in the stock market on July 16. Since July, despite the orders keeping pouring in, there is still a considerable amount of unused capacity in the Chinese LED industry. Research institutes and foreign capitals become conservative about the LED market outlook, which kicks off the second half of 2012 with uncertainty. Most listed LED com...

According to LEDinside, the LED research division of TrendForce, the June revenues of Taiwanese listed LED manufacturers totaled NT$8.8 billion (MoM+1.12%, YoY-5.6%). Benefiting from the climbing demand for consumer electronic appliances and the traditional lighting peak season, the LED industry’s 2Q12 revenue reached NT$25.82 billion (QoQ+22.7%). Looking towards the second half of 2012, the LED industry will face a severe challenge – affected by the lukewarm economic outlook and the European debt crisis, the future for end market does not seem b...

As Guangdong government has come out the policy to make LED transition within three years in public place, Taiwan LED manufacturers including Epistar, Unity Opto Technology have received increasing LED lighting orders from mainland China. Meanwhile, Taiwan companies such as Everlight and AcBel Polytech Inc. are actively building marketing channel in Guangdong. According to the policy issued by Guangdong government in May, the city will forced to promote new LED lighting installation in public place within three years. It’s considered to be the stronge...

According to Epistar’s chairman B.J Lee, the company will invest NT$ 5 billion (US$ 166.7 Million) in expanding production, making it become one of the top two LED epitaxy manufacturers in the world, next only to Nichia. At the company’s recent shareholders meeting, Lee said although the company’s production lines are fully booked, 20~30% of orders have yet to be filled up. If the company fails to carry out the plant expansion project, other competitors in the market will have the opportunity to grow, and therefore it has decided to launch large expansio...

According to Epistar’s executive, the company expects a turnaround this quarter, thanks to strong demand for LED TVs and LED lighting would help boost factory utilization and lift gross margin significantly to more than 20 percent. That would end two straight quarterly losses for Epistar, after the company lost NT$515 million (US$17.19 million) in the first quarter and NT$620 million in the final quarter of 2012. Epistar said the prospects for next quarter have never looked better. The company’s chairman Lee Biing-jye told Unique Satellite TV af...

Sources from industry executives have released that Lite-On Group takes the place of Lextar as Philips contract supplier of LED lighting. It’s a huge order that Lite-On has won from international big name company since it entered into alliance with Epistar and mainland Chinese lighting fixture makers. Under Philips contract, Lite-On will supply LED packages and modules, Epistar will provide chips and some mainland Chinese manufacturers will supply light fittings. According to Lite-On executives, the company’s revenue for the second quarter would su...

LEDforum 2012 Guangzhou is to kick off with industry heavyweights at the Chinese Export Commodities Fair Pazhou Complex, Area B, Room # 8 on June 11th. Organizer :       Co-organizer： Date : June 11, 2012 Time : 9 am – 5 pm Venue : Import and Export Fair Pazhou Complex (Please enter directly from Area B) Overview This time, LEDforum 2012 will provide a perfect platform to interact with global LED market leaders from Osram, Philips Lumileds, Seoul Semiconductor, Henkel (China), Lextar, Aixtron, Veeco Instrume...

Taiwan major LED makers have reported to set up a new record in May revenues, resulting from mounting penetration of LCD TVs lit by LED backlights and demands for LED lighting fueled by Taiwan’s electricity rate hikes, which will take effect on June 10. Orders have inundated Epistar’s production lines, inspiring outlooks that the company’s sales will continue rising in June. The company has distributed excessive orders to affiliated Huga Optotech Inc. Epistar saw its May revenue hit one-year high of NT$1.65 billion (US$57 million at US$1:...

Epistar and Unity Opto Technology Co. , have enjoyed brisk operating performance in May, thank to strong market demand for display backlights and LED lightings. The two companies both confirmed the current booms, stressing that contract orders have increased even more significantly than expected. Epistar`s executives indicated that the company has received contract orders worth over NT$1.7 billion in May alone, more than it did in April, and has seen its production lines fully booked. With capacity lagging behind market demand, this maker will certainly keep running at ...

As June is coming near, LEDinside is ready to hold a grand and perfect LEDforum 2012 Guangzhou at the Chinese Export Commodities Fair Pazhou Complex, Area B, Room #8. Currently, global LED industry is in the process of changeful period. In Japan, nuclear power shortage has driven up demand for LED lamps after the March 11 earthquake. Also, benefiting from the ban imposed by certain countries against selling incandescent light bulb of high wattage in 2012, Europe has become one of the most fast-growing LED markets in the world besides Japan. Meanwhile, S...

Several Zhaga-standardized engines were released at the Light+Building 2012 fair held in early April in Frankfurt, Germany. As a member, Taiwan Epistar’s Chairman B.J. Lee thought that interface standards that Zhaga Consortium, which consists of over 195 individual LED companies around the world, is working on for LED light engines will make LED lamps prevalent in three years. In Lee’s opinion, architects have been loath to design LED lighting fixtures into their works all because of the inconsistent interface specifications among LED light eng...

Epistar has received AIXTRON’s first CRIUS II-XL system in a 19x4-inch wafer configuration for the mass production of ultra-high brightness (UHB) blue and white LEDs. The CRIUS II-XL system has successfully passed the process demonstration and acceptance test. Introduced in November 2011, the AIXTRON CRIUS II-XL configuration offers reactor capacity as high as 19x4 inch, which represents a capacity increase of 46% compared to the original CRIUS II, giving it the highest throughput and lowest cost of ownership in the whole LE...

As New Year brings new wishes, Taiwan’s major LED industry manufacturer Epistar shows optimistic attitudes on 2012 outlook for the LED market. According to Epistar ‘s Chairman B.J. Lee, global shipments of LED light bulbs to double from the 2011 level to 300 million units in 2012 and the LED TV penetration rate is expected to surge from 36% to 60%. Based on the brisk market forecasts, Lee forecast the company’s shipments of general-lighting chips to shoot up 300% year-on-year in 2012, translating into a 200% gain in revenue. In Lee’s...

As 2012 comes, Taiwan LED industry looks forward to a Healthy Year in 2012,and some manufactures have started to revive. Huga Optotech ended unpaid furlough practice when New Year comes, signaling that Taiwan’s LED industry is getting out of its worst days. Its Taiwan’s only publicly held LED maker to have its employees take unpaid leaves in October, 2011, to cope with slumping market for backlights. Huga Optotech’s president, C.N. Huang, pointed out that the firm decided to end the practice in late December in anticipation that market would pic...

Epistar has announced to gain a share buyback plan in a bid to support its share price. Epistar announced Wednesday it would buy back 10 million shares from the open market at a range of NT$51 to NT$76 between Dec. 29 and Feb. 28, 2012. The company said the repurchased shares will be transferred to its employees as an incentive to encourage them to work harder. As the company has received rush orders and hoped its bottom line would be boosted accordingly for the fourth quarter of this year, other LED makers also steamed ahead amid improved sentiment toward their earnings ...

Following EPISTAR LAB’s recent 216 lm/W record-breaking achievement, Epistar introduces three LED chipset products with 100, 120, and 150 lm/W package efficiency, respectively. The three chipsets are named Standard Set, Premium Set, and Deluxe Set; all feature with CRI >85 and 2700-3000K CCT: Aiming at the final system efficiency greater than 80 lm/W, the Premium Set emphasizes its  impressive package efficiency with affordable cost for 60W bulb and high performance T5 tube repleacement. Pointing towards the final system efficiency...

EPISTAR LAB announces its highest efficacy with warm white high voltage chipset. With its outstanding efficacy, higher CRI, and competitive lm/$, the solution of direct red platform is widely used in warm white application. Recently, EPISTAR LAB has successfully achieved the warm white efficacy     of 216 lm/W at an operating current of 5 mA and CRI of 87 Ra at CCT of 2700K. Under a typical driving current of 15mA (or about 1 W operation equivalent), the luminous efficacy of 197 lm/W was achieved. EPISTAR LAB’s ...

Panasonic is announced to make a restructuring plan aimed at quickly snatching up sizable share of mainland China market for LED lighting. And Taiwan’s LED Industry may benefit from the plan. In January 2012, the Japanese company is to combine the LED lighting operation with the independent Panasonic Lighting with the aim of bagging around 40% of the Chinese mainland’s market for LED lighting by the end of 2015 and boosting profit by 10% through halving costs. According to Panasonic, the consolidated entity’s sales to reach 200 billion yen (U...

Samsung and LG are announced to release own-brand 60W LED light bulbs at retail prices of US$10-12 sometime in the second half of 2012, which will threaten Taiwan leading position in global LED market. With strong support of South Korean government, Samsung and LG have shown aggressive attempt to become world leader in the LED lighting industry. Samsung has equipped itself with integrated LED manufacturing capability involving epi-wafer and package manufacturing. In particular, Samsung and LG’s plans are more aggressive than that of LSG of the Unite...

Recently, Formosa Epitaxy Inc. (FOREPI) is reported to regained Samsung’s contracts for LED chips used in TV backlights since October, and the South Korean company will gradually move the contracts originally placed with Epistar Inc. back to FOREPI over the next three years. Both Epistar and FOREPI have declined to comment. However, FOREPI executives said that the company has landed more contracts in November than October from South Korean buyers by an unexpectedly high margin. FOREPI used to be Samsung’s major supplier o...

Recently ,due to the slackened demand in LED industry, including Huga Optotech, Everlight have asked their staffs to carry out unpaid leave. According to Robert Yeh , chairman of Everlight, due to the high inventory level, the LED industry has entered an off season. Everlight staffers will take two to three days of unpaid leave in November and five days in December. The unpaid leave gives Everlight the flexibility to skip a layoff program. In the contrast, Epistar reported that it won’t follow the practice of Everlight. Neither did Chimei-Innolux have the...

KLA-Tencor has announced that Epistar, a leading Taiwanese manufacturer of LED chips, has adopted its Candela substrate and epwafer inspection system. KLA says this order marks the growing adoption by LED device manufacturers worldwide of this advanced inspection system for wafer defect detection and classification at production-grade throughputs. The introduction of the Candela tool to Epistar's manufacturing process provides automated inspection methods for sapphire substrates to ensure vendor quality, and provides greater visibility into the GaN epi process ...

LEDforum, an annual and the largest LED conference in Taiwan, will again bring together the leading manufacturers, materials and component suppliers, technology innovators, and the lighting community. Analysts from LEDinside will share the latest reports on global LED market: both industry trends and market intelligence.

Recently, a plant of Epicrystal, a subsidiary of Taiwanese LED maker Epistar, in Changzhou, Jiangsu was officially inaugurated, underlying Epistar’s endeavor of making inroads into the Chinese market. The inauguration ceremony of Epicrystal Mr. Biing-Jye Lee, the Chairman of Epistar, addressed the audience. Mr. Biing-jye Lee, the Chairman of Epistar, indicated that the successful inauguration of the new plant attributed to the support from shareholders and the government. He hoped that Epicrystal’s new products are able to meet the market&r...

LED venture of US$120 million which has been co-opened by Taiwanese LED makers Epistar, and Lite-On Technology as well as TV maker Konka Group comes on stream in Changzou ,China on Sept. 23, 2011  Epistar has in the dominating position of the venture with a 60% stake. The venture is its first overseas and the biggest in mainland China capable of making epitaxy wafers and chips.Plus, this venture is its first that involves LED packager (Lite-On) and end-product maker (Konka) as co investors. At the same time, Lite-On owns a 30% stake and Konka hold...

Accoding to Taiwan major LED manufacture Epistar and Everlight , LED Lighting is likely to play a key role over the next two years. Recently , J.Y. Fan, a vice president of Epistar, said at the SEMI Taiwan 2011, that the oversupply will compel LED makers to shift application emphasis to lighting, which is considered much more profitable as its market remains in the infant stage. Also, excessive supplies have driven down prices of LED devices, thereby reducing production costs of lighting products. Fan’s estimate revised previous thoughts that lighting...

Taiwan’s top two LED makers Everlight and Epistar are both concerned about the loss of Taiwan’s LED Industry No.2 rank. Both of the two makers,believe that Taiwan is likely to be unseated by South Korea this year based on the lack of government incentives to consumers of LED lamps. Y.F. Yeh, chairman of Everlight, pointed out that mainland China and South Korea are poised to surpass Taiwan in LED production as a result of government subsidy to LED-lighting consumers. He noted that Taiwan’s LED industry has developed for nearly ...

Recently, Taiwan`s major LED munafacturers including Chairman Y.F. Yeh of Everlight, Chairman B.J. Lee of Epistar and Delta Electronics executives have show their views for the LED lighting industry at the Photonics Festival Taiwan 2011. According to Epistar`s Lee , the efficiency of LED lamps previously forecast to be achieved in 2015 will be reached in 2012, based on buyers from the world come to mostly purchase LED lamps at this show . For Everlight`s Yeh, he believes that the March 11 catastrophe reminds people of the importance of nuclear power ...