According to institutional investors, Taiwan-based Epistar Corp. and Unity Opto Technology Co. are both expected to post increased sales for July from June, the Taiwan Economic News reports.

Under strong demand for light emitting diodes (LED), Epistar Corp., the largest supplier of epitaxial wafers in Taiwan, scored a single-month high of NT$1.147 billion (US$34.98 million at US$1: NT$32.79) in sales for June, growing by 17.16% from May and 35.7% from last June, according to the firm.

AIXTRON AG yesterday announced that it has recently received a further multiple system order from Epistar located at the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park, Taiwan. The order, to be delivered during 2009, was received in Q2 and will commence delivery in Q3 of 2009. This recent order comprises of CRIUS® Close Coupled Showerhead® (CCS) reactors and AIX 2800G4 HT Planetary Reactor® systems for volume production of GaN-based LEDs.

Epistar Corp, Taiwan’s biggest LED chipmaker, Tuesday said that it is optimistic over the next quarter’s prospects, as demand for LED chips used in new applications such as LED TVs keeps growing, reports the Taipei Times. The company plans to expand capacity by 5 to 10 percent this year, with production ramping up by the end of the year, Epistar’s chairman Lee Biing-jye said in an interview during a cross-strait cooperation seminar of the light-emitting diode (LED) industry.

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).

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.

With LED backlights more and more used in LCD TVs, Taiwanese LED makers, including Epistar Corp., Formosa Epitaxy Inc. and Tekcore Co., Ltd., have seen a flood of orders in recent months, according to Taiwan Economic News.

Epistar Inc., the No.1 LED chipmaker in Taiwan, is reportedly to be acquiring Huga Optech Inc., the island`s second biggest LED provider, to ease its straining capacity, and is near the end of the acquisition.

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.

Taiwan government is planning to invest NT$50 billion (US$1.48 billion) to the adoption of devices powered by renewable energy and green industries, including LED, as part of its NT$500 billion public construction program, reported the Chinese-language Economic Daily News yesterday, citing Minister of the Public Construction Commission Fan Liang-shiow.

Taiwan’s major LED markers have all seen their March revenue surging beyond expectation, with Formosa Epitaxy Inc. taking the lead with a 68.5% rise from February. Epistar Corp. and Unity Opto Technology Co., Ltd also post robust revenue records.

According to survey by LEDinside, the total Feb 2009 revenue of listed Taiwan LED suppliers reached NTD 3.74billion, up 33% than Jan 2009 (YoY-25%), with the revenue of LED chip manufacturers at NTD 1.496 billion, up 46% and that of LED packaging manufacturers improved by 25% at NTD 2.243 billion comparing to January.

According to industry research institute LEDinside, the January 2009 total revenue of Taiwan upstream LED manufacturers is 2.743 billion NTD. With the lunar New Year influencing the total working days of the month, the revenue of January went on its dropping comparing with December, 2008 (MoM -15.9%，YoY -52.6%).

Taiwan LED chip maker Epistar is reportedly to launch AC-LED products in Q209, the company says it expects to be “the first company in the world to ship AC-LED chips.

ENERTRAIL has introduced 335-A2 LED Street Light with advanced multi-chips on board LED packaging technology for good heat dissipation solution.

Taiwan LED maker Epistar Corp. announced that it has won contract orders from Korea’s Samsung for LEDs used in LED-backlit LCD TVs.

Recently, Taiwan’s No.1 LED chipmaker Epistar Corp. entered into alliance to tap LED lighting market with Delta Electronics Inc. Both companies’ executives have confirmed reports related to their cooperation on the lighting business. Delta has pledged to buy its partner’s chips.

Recently, Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) introduced two patented LED innovative technologies-AC LED and LED healthcare lighting, which will help Taiwan hone the competitive edge of its LED industry via generating royalty income. Semiconductor devices, as computer chips and LEDs have been designed to work at low current ever since day one due to inherent characteristics, but call for direct-current (DC) transformers to be powered by household AC (alternating current).

Epistar Corp., a leading LED chipmaker in Taiwan, estimates a 38% drop in December 2008 revenues to about NT$400 million, according to a recent report. Epistar had revenues of NT$647.9 million in November 2008, down 28.3% from NT$903.7 million in October, and down 36.43% compared with last year. The company's accumulated revenues from January to November were NT$9.86 billion, up 5% compared with last year, according to data from the Taiwan Stock Exchange.  

Taiwan LED makers, including Epistar Corp., Everlight Electronics Co. and Opto Tech Corp., are hopefully to benefit from LED backlight notebook PCs sales boom with increasing popularity of LED backlight notebook PCs to generate demand for 1.5-2 billion LED chips in 2009.

Taiwan LED lighting makers estimate LED market to take off in 2009 in spite of the ongoing financial crisis. In Taiwan, several significant LED lighting projects have launched by governments. The Taichung City government installed 5,000 streetlights by the end of October, the largest number of all. The Bureau of Energy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs has announced it will budget NT$150 million (US$4.5 million at US$1:NT$33) in 2009 to finance local governments on the island to erect a total number of 12,500 LED streetlights islandwide.

It’s reported that Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), with its One-Chip AC LED technology, has been selected a winner of the 2008 R&D 100 Awards competition sponsored by the U.S.-based R&D Magazine.  

It’s reported that Taiwan’s government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has teamed up with scores of LED makers to form an R&D alliance, in a bid to integrate industry resources to develop applications for AC LED technology.

Recently, MicroSolar Corp. announced to target mass production of super-bright LED lamps in the initial stage and would step into the concentrator photovoltaic solar-cell business in the second phase.