Because Japanese government urges manufactures and retailers to promote the application of LED bulbs as well as the series of LED bulbs tends to complete, Panasonic has announced to stop production of incandescent bulbs used in household market before October 31th, 2012. Compared to the deadline that the company has planned to stop on 31th, March in 2013, it has aheaded of schedule by half year. According to Panasonic, the number of LED bulbs produced by the company has achieved to 48, however, the number of incandescent bulbs has greatly dropped from 207 in 2008 to 4. I...

It was just a few days ago when Japan-based LED maker, Toyota Gosei Co., Ltd., announced its plan to manufacture new LED products using gallium nitride substrates as base components. Measuring up to several hundred µms in thickness, these essential materials, once properly assembled with 1mmx1mm LED chips, provide potential brightness of up to 400 lumens, approximately three times the amount delivered by LEDs fabricated on sapphire substrates. As has been the case with the 8-inch, silicon-based wafer level packaging technology introduced a few years earlier, it is b...

Officials from Sharp have disclosed that the company plans to replace all 190,000 fluorescent lights in its offices and factories in Japan with LED lights to cut power consumption. The work will start later this month at Sharp's head office in Osaka and some other facilities. In addition, at offices and plants in the Kansai region, where the power supply is expected to be tight this summer, some 60,000 lights will be replaced with LEDs before the end of June. It will take several months for the electronics maker to complete the replacement work. And fully shifting ...

Sony and Panasonic have announced to partner for OLED TV push. The pair's work will come to fruition in the form of OLED TVs mass-produced in 2013. Neither has given any details about the TVs they will ship at that time. And Sony's Deputy President of home entertainment products, Noriaki Negishi, confirmed to Reg Hardware earlier this year will be aggressively promoting OLED technology within a year. “2013 will be the year when we will really fight back with new technologies," he said in March.  ...

Hitachi Appliances Inc has announced to develop world’s first E26-base wide-light-distribution-type LED light bulb, "LDA15D-G," which can emits the amount of light equivalent to that of a 100W incandescent light bulb (1,520lm). The new bulb is to be released on July 13, 2012, in Japan. According to the company, it realized the amount of light and a wide light distribution angle like the light of an incandescent light bulb by employing a high-efficiency LED module, the "Slit Structured Body," whose slit has an about 1.3 times wider radiation...

Nichia has developed a new surface mount LED device (SMD) for outdoor full color display applications. Under Nichia part number "NSSM032", this product is a surface mount device for all weather applications. Waterproof and silicone potted, NSSM032 is easily integrated by user due to the thicker package size and lower position of leads. Plus, the black external package color provides high contrast ratio for superior image definition. Nichia says that a higher level of outdoor screen image quality can be realized with NSSM032 even when viewed from wide a...

A Japanese group has scheduled to set up a $200-million LED light factory in the Philippines by the end of 2012, expecting to create one of the world’s largest LED light factories, according to Japan Environment Technology Development Co., Ltd. (Jented). Jented pointed out that the plant’s planned output is around one million units a year of LED lights. And according to Jented country representative Rod Cabrera, Jented will partner with Tagaytay Mountain Peak Corp. (TMPC), a local development company to complete the project. TMPC chairma...

Sharp has released a 90-inch new Aquos LED TV, which stands 4 feet tall and is 6 feet, 8 inches across, marking the biggest LED high-def television on the market. Sharp brags the set is less than 5 inches thick and weighs 114 pounds. The new TV could be sold at the price of $10,999.99. Consumer Reports didn't render a verdict after just a quick look, but noted that Sharp "has definitely taken the lead in larger TV screen sizes." It cited the 60-, 70- and 80-inch sets from the past, saying they had typically done well in TV ratings, although some of t...

Sony has showcased a resolution of 500ppi for OLED panels in a symposium at SID 2012, as high as those of the latest LCD panels. The company applied OLED materials with a pixel pitch of 51μm (dot pitch: 17μm), which is equivalent to 500ppi, by using an offset printing method (thesis number: 68.4L). Sony used the offset printing method to make a 270ppi (VGA) 3-inch OLED panel that it announced at SID 2011. It realizes full color display by applying red (R) and green (G) layers with the offset printing method and combining them with a blue (B) common...

According to The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japanese government has encouraged major electronics retailers and home appliance makers to voluntarily halt production and sales of incandescent bulbs to save power this summer. The government plans to submit a written request under the names of Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano and Environment Minister Goshi Hosono to an industry group, probably sometime this week. The industry side has indicated it will oblige. It is extremely rare for the government to ask retailers and manufacturers to refrain voluntarily from sell...

The world’s No.5 power supply vendor, FSP Group has supported a considerable percentage of LED lighting power supplies for leading hotels, department stores and hypermarkets across Japan. According to the company’s executives, due to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed a nuclear power plant, Japan is suffering 10-15% power shortage. Japanese consumers surge to use energy-saving products as LED lamps.   Thus Japanese LED power supply market has brought new opportunity to FSP. And LED lighting power supplies account for 6-8% of ...

Recently, Panasonic has set up a target to sell the total number of 12 million LED light bulbs in Japan market since from April 2012 to March 2013, which will equal to 1.5 times of it sales last year's (April 2011-March 2012). Additionally, the company is to release a new LED bulb equivalent to 40 W incandescent. The new bulb only consumes 6.4 W power, and has brightness of 85 lumens as well as lasts 40000 hours. According to Panasonic, in 2010, the total number of demand for LED light bulbs is 25.54 million. Panasonic estimated this year, the number will up ...

Toshiba has developed a new OLED lighting product with the luminous efficiency of 91 lm/w on June 6. And the company has scheduled to mass production in 2014, paving the way for OLED lighting market. According to Toshiba, the size of the new product is 7 x8cm. Compared with similar products sold on the market, Toshiba’s OLED only consumes less than half of the electric power.   And resources from market research in Japan have informed that Japan's domestic lighting market scale will surpass OLED 100 billion yen in 2020. However, high manufacturi...

A patent dispute between Nichia and Everlight never come to an end. On June 4, Nichia’s counsels held a press conference in Taiwan to announce that the company has lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court of Japan against a Japan Patent Office’s ruling in favor of Everlight.   According to Everlight, Japan Patent Office rendered a decision on May 8 this year, holding that the patent JP3503139 is invalid. Everlight said the ruling includes invalidation of Claim 1, which is the main claim of the patent at issue. Nichia’s counsels pointed out ...

Taiwan CHIMEI has announced to kick off LED lighting in Japan market with the partnership with Japan Waseda University Institute of Bussiness. According to CHIMEI, its LED desk lamps are sold in Japanese large stores such as Bic Camera Inc, Amazon.com.

Japanese Nara Institute of Science and Technology has made a breakthrough on integrated optical neural stimulation and observation device incorporating an LED and a CMOS image sensor, which will help researchers in the field of optogenetics, which involves the use of light to alter the behaviour of cells. Compared with a CMOS sensor, which is an approach that has been adopted by engineers at the University of Strathclyde, UK, it is possible to build a similar system with an avalanche photodiode array. According to lead-author Takashi Tokuda from Nara Institute...

According to Japan LED maker Nichia's website, Everlight Electronics Co., Ltd. ("Everlight") has filed patent nullity proceedings in Japan Patent Office against 19 patents held by Nichia Corporation ("Nichia"). Among such Nichia patents is the "YAG Patent", which is the Japanese Patent No. 2927279 ("279 Patent") and is directed to white LEDs by the combinations of blue LED and YAG phosphor. The JPO held on April 9, 2012, that the 279 Patent is valid over the Everlight's challenge. Nichia also sa...

Everlight has filed patent nullity proceedings in Japan Patent Office against 19 patents held by Nichia. Among such Nichia patents is the "YAG Patent", which is the Japanese Patent No. 2927279 ("279 Patent") and is directed to white LEDs by the combinations of blue LED and YAG phosphor. The JPO held on April 9, 2012, that the 279 Patent is valid over the Everlight's challenge. Two other patents, Japanese Patent Nos. 2778349 (electrode patent), and 2540791 (anneal patent), have been also found by the JPO as valid. As such, YAG ...

Toshiba has expanded its cooperation with the Louvre Museum to replace part of the interior lighting of the Louvre with its own LED lighting. It’s the Phase 2 of a renovation project that Toshiba and the Louvre Museum have cooperated since 2010. During the Phase 2, the Louvre Museum will see renovation of LED lighting in important interior spaces. It includes specific exhibit lighting for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa , and for the Red Rooms, which display famous masterpieces such as Jacques-Louis David's Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I...

Decision rendered by the Japan Patent Office Everlight Electronics Co. Ltd. filed an invalidation action with the Japan Patent Office against Nichia Corporation’s YAG white light LED patent (patent No. JP3503139). Everlight has received the decision from the Japan Patent Office recently. The Japan Patent Office rendered a decision on May 8th, 2012, holding that the patent JP3503139 is invalid. The ruling includes the invalidation of Claim 1, which is the main claim of the patent at issue. Everlight believes that this decision is entirely rea...

Hitachi Appliances is to release 80 W-equivalent LED Bulb on June 15th. The new bulb gives off almost 1160 lumens, and consumes 11.4 watts. It can be available in E26-base, and diffuses light like the incandescent light bulb. With the new bulb, it can not only improve the brightness, but also reduce power consumption. Nuclear power shortage has driven up demand for LED lamps after the March 11 earthquake. Hitachi Appliances will diversify LED bulbs on brightness and light distribution to cater different demands from customers....

Lately, Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd. (SMM) has teamed up with a research team from Tohoku University’s Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials (IMRAM) headed by Professor Masato Kakihana, to successfully develop a new silicon-containing oxide-based red phosphor for use in white LEDs. The new phosphor is less expensively than earlier red phosphors and is expected to contribute to higher performance in white LEDs as sources of illumination. The collaborative R&D program succeeded in developing the first oxide-based pho...

Japanese Nanoco Group has made great breakthrough on a 1kg batch of green cadmium-free quantum dots for a major Japanese corporation, triggering a US $2 million payment to Nanoco. The green quantum dots were produced at Nanoco's production facility in Runcorn, Cheshire. It marks major technical achievement by Nanoco because green dots are significantly more challenging than red ones due to their smaller size. The Japanese corporation plans to incorporate Nanoco's red and green quantum dots including the backlighting of LCD displays and LED-based general li...

Recently, a team of researchers from North Carolina and Japan have jointly made a breakthrough on UV disinfection using LED technology. As we know, aluminum nitride (AlN) is used in LEDs, based on its strengths which can handle a lot of power and create light in a wide spectrum of colors, particularly in the UV range. But AlN LEDs to create UV light have been severely limited because the substrates that served as the foundation for these semiconductors absorbed wavelengths of UV light that are crucial to applications in sterilization and water treatment technolo...

Recently, Panasonic has lit up around 100,000 ‘wishing star’ LED lights on Tokyo's Sumida River to embrace the ‘Symphony of Light’ event. The two-day event was held on the bank of the river, which runs through central Tokyo. The company, which announced record losses of £3.4bn, created the art installation alongside the lights of the Tokyo Sky Tree as part of the Tokyo Hotaru (Firefly) Festival. For the event, Panasonic created a special kind of orb called an "Inoriboshi" (prayer star) that incorporates one of the compa...

Nichia has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in Germany at the District Court Düsseldorf against Zenaro Lighting GmbH ("Zenaro"), which is a German LED lighting company mainly owned by Everlight, and the German distributor REGO-Lighting GmbH on April 27, 2012. In the lawsuit, Nichia is seeking permanent injunction, rendering account, damages, recall and destruction against an office light of Zenaro (product number: OL-Deluxe/QL2/P44/LF/D50/SR/M/CE/ZN) including white LED tubes (product number: SL-Cobra/T5 048DC/C/P10/L...

Bridgelux Inc. and Toshiba Corporation announced that Bridgelux and Toshiba have achieved the industry’s top class 8” GaN on Silicon LED chip emitting 614mW, <3.1V@350mA with 1.1mm square chip, just months after they have engaged in a joint collaborative agreement this year. Bridgelux and Toshiba will further accelerate their development efforts for LED chips, which have seen increasing demand for LCD panels and lightening systems world wide. Toshiba has also made an equity investment in Bridgelux with the intent to jointly pursue an innovative t...

As Japan closed its last nuclear reactor a few days ago, the country’s electricity shortage is estimated to surge to 13% this summer. And industry executives estimated the power shortage may run up to 20% if the summer heat rises higher than expected. But it brings new opportunities to Taiwan Delta Electronics Inc., Lextar Electronics Corp. Since the March 11 earthquakes of 2011, Japanese market for the energy-saving lamps has been thriving. LED lamps in Japan’s market is estimated to spike 69% to 373.8 billion yen (US$4.6 billion at US$1:80 yen) this yea...

Recently, researchers from Japan and California have jointly made a breakthrough on blue and green LEDs to reduce efficiency droop. According to the research team, they designed low droop and high efficacy LEDs by altering the direction of the crystal structure within semiconductor films. Droop refers to significant drop in efficiency at extreme currents. It is one of the major factors that retard the growth of the solid-state lighting market. Household bulbs generate white light due to the mix of wavelengths with the hue produced from blue and green LEDs. These valuab...

Recently, NGK Insulators Ltd has made a breakthrough on LED Luminous Efficiency with a gallium nitride (GaN) wafer. The company claims that the new GaN wafer can realize twice as high a luminous efficiency as existing LED light sources (200lm/W). According to the company, it realized a transparent and colorless wafer with a low defect density by using its own liquid phase growth method for a single-crystal growth process. Generally, existing LED devices have an internal quantum efficiency of 30-40% (with a current of 200mA). However, under the help of a resea...