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...

Recently, Showa Denko K.K. (SDK) has announced to set up a joint venture with Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd. (Toyoda Gosei), for GaN LED Business by the end of 2012. SDK is producing and selling a wide variety of LED chips, including aluminum-gallium-indium-phosphide (AlGaInP), gallium-arsenide (GaAs), gallium-phosphide (GaP), and GaN. It will split its business in gallium-nitride (GaN)-based blue LED chips, and transfer 70% of shares in the new company to Toyoda Gosei. The joint venture will be established in the area of GaN LED chips being pr...

Recently,Toshiba International Corporation has launched new PAR38 and MR16 lamps to its LED lighting line. The new PAR38 1100 Series is a direct replacement for 90 to 110W halogen lamps, offers outputs of up to 1170 lumens, and uses up to 75% less energy than halogens. It’s is available in 2700K, 3000K, 3500K, and 4000K. And the new MR16 450 Series is a direct replacement for 35W halogen lamps, offers lumen outputs of up to 475 lumens, and uses up to 80% less energy than halogens. It comes in 2700K, 3000K, and 4000K color temperatures. Both models...

The sales of LED celling lights have boomed from the aftermath of the Great East Japan earthquake, with energy efficient appliances performing particularly well. According to GfK, LED celling lights have seen a remarkable increase, with their unit sales share soaring from 2.9% in March 2011 to 50.1% in March 2012. In terms of value, there was a notable rise of 64.1% over the same period of analysis, marking the first time sales of LED celling lights have exceeded fluorescent celling lights in both units and value. In 2011, the overall celling light market experienced...

According to Nichia, the company has filed patent infringement lawsuits against Harvatek and the German distributors MSC Microcomputers Systems Components Vertriebs GmbH, "Gleichmann & Co." Electronics GmbH and Glyn Jones GmbH & Co. Vertrieb von elektronischen Bauelementen KG, at the District Court Düsseldorf in Germany on March 29, 2012. The court found with judgments of the same day that Harvatek and said distributors infringe Nichia's patent EP 936 682 (DE 697 02 929) (hereinafter called "YAG patent") concer...