Citizen Plans to Bolster LED Research, Targets Lighting Market

Citizen Holdings Co., a Japanese maker of watches and industrial machinery, plans to increase the number of research workers dedicated to light-emitting diodes as the devices replace incandescent bulbs in homes and offices.

The company will allocate almost half its research employees of about 200 to LED development as soon as possible, rising from 10 percent now, Mitsuyuki Kanamori, who was appointed president of Tokyo-based Citizen on April 1, said in a Bloomberg Television interview broadcast today.

Citizen, whose diodes are mostly used for mobile-phone backlights at present, plans to refocus its LED operations on lighting fixtures. LEDs, which are brighter and more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs, will replace standard lamps from 2010, according to industry researcher iSuppli Corp.

The company plans to combine with Citizen Technology Center Co., its research division, from July 1 and is reconsidering its development priorities, Kanamori said, without specifying details.

Citizen entered into a cross-shareholding agreement with Tokushima, Japan-based Nichia Corp. in October to secure supply of LED components and access to the company's patents in anticipation of rising demand.

Sales at Citizen's electronics devices business, comprising LEDs, backlight modules and quartz crystals used in watches, totaled 99.2 billion yen ($974 million) in the year ended March 2007, or 29 percent of the company's total.

Revenue in the global LED market will almost double to $12.3 billion in 2012, from $6.17 billion last year, on demand for the diodes used in liquid-crystal display backlights and as illumination in cars, homes and businesses, iSuppli said.

Disclaimers of Warranties
1. The website does not warrant the following:
1.1 The services from the website meets your requirement;
1.2 The accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the service;
1.3 The accuracy, reliability of conclusions drawn from using the service;
1.4 The accuracy, completeness, or timeliness, or security of any information that you download from the website
2. The services provided by the website is intended for your reference only. The website shall be not be responsible for investment decisions, damages, or other losses resulting from use of the website or the information contained therein<
Proprietary Rights
You may not reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, display, perform, publish, distribute, disseminate, broadcast or circulate to any third party, any materials contained on the services without the express prior written consent of the website or its legal owner.

For most of history, humans used flames to generate light. Eventually, they discovered that a super-heated metal element in a light bulb could produce useful illumination, only for this technology to be superseded by the LED. One common featur... READ MORE

Violumas, provider of high-power UV LED solutions and inventor of 3-PAD LED technology, is proud to launch the release of new 275nm and 265nm LEDs in mid-power, high-power, and high-density packages. The radiant flux of the new 275nm and 265nm... READ MORE