Taiwan-based LED chip giant Epistar’s revenue in August stood at NTD 2.332 billion (USD 77.59 million), with a rise of 3.7% MoM (5.3% YoY). It has hit a new high in the past 28 months. The company explained the fully-utilized capacity for blue LED manufacturing and the AlInGaP demand driver from the horticultural lighting market accounted for the growth, despite an overall slide of 0.3% YoY in the consolidated revenue of 2017 (accumulated until the end of August).

LeddarTech announced the completion of a combined investment of US$101 million (close to CA$130 million) led by Osram and including Delphi, Magneti Marelli and Integrated Device Technology, Inc. as strategic investors, as well as Fonds de solidarité FTQ. Representing the Company's largest capital raise to date, this round of funding will allow LeddarTech to enhance its ASIC development efforts, expand its R&D team, and accelerate ongoing LiDAR development programs with select Tier-1 automotive customers for rapid market deployment.

Offering the industry's broadest portfolio of consumer OLED TVs – 10 models in 55-, 65- and 77-inch class sizes – home entertainment innovator LG Electronics USA is bringing the award-winning 2017 LG OLED lineup to CEDIA 2017 in San Diego this week.

Philips Lighting today announced that it achieved the status of Industry leader in the Electrical Components and Equipment category of the 2017 Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI). The company’s overall score was 85 out of 100 points, demonstrating that sustainability is central to Philips Lighting’s company strategy and purpose. This is the first year that Philips Lighting has been included in the category as an independent company since its initial public offering in May 2016.

Future Lighting Solutions, a provider of solid-state lighting and supply chain solutions, and OSRAM Digital Systems, specializing in lighting technology solutions, have announced a new franchise partnership encompassing OSRAM’s comprehensive range of drivers, light engines and controls for lighting applications. The agreement covers Asia.

The BACnet community announced yesterday that Osram has lately become the newest company to join BACnet International as a Silver member. The involvement of the lighting manufacturer marks a tighter bond between advanced smart lighting and BACnet protocol. It is possible in the future to see Osram’s products being able to communicate with more building automation devices smarter through BACnet’s systems.

Japan-based Yano Research Institute issued on 4th September a research report projecting the market value of Micro LED in 2017 to be USD 7 million following Sony’s launch of CLEDIS display that features Micro LED technology. The market is slowly shaping up. 

LumiGrow Inc., a smart horticultural lighting company, announced in mid August their partnership with CF Industrial, a lighting and power solutions provider in Leamington, Ontario. The new partnership bolsters LumiGrow’s commitment to their Ontario greenhouse growers, further providing responsive local support for those implementing smart horticultural lighting for precision greenhouse management.  The CF Industrial team is yet another addition to LumiGrow’s Ontario-based services, as the company has already deployed plant science research support across the region.

Top Taiwanese LED manufacturer Epistar’s revenue made a turnaround in 2Q17. After the improvement of its product assortment, the capacity of EPISTAR’s blue light LED in Q3 is full. The utilization rate of four-element LED stays above 80%. With the support of AlInGaP LED’s demand in markets such as automotive lighting and security control, the capacity of Epistar will be almost fully-utilized until Q4. The price of its blue LED is likely to remain stable. Epistar doesn’t appear to be involved in the price war in China considering Chinese manufacturers tend to expand capacity to manufacture their own blue LEDs. 

As the nation prepares to celebrate Labor Day Weekend, a time for recognizing the hard work of American workers, the maker of SYLVANIA light bulbs in the United States is announcing it has invested millions of dollars to keep and add local manufacturing jobs and increase U.S. production of something we all depend on – the light bulb. This initiative transitions 200 jobs from making traditional lighting products, whose demand has been declining, to new LED technology and also adds 20 new jobs.

Taiwan-based LED lighting company Lite-On announced its participation in a digital cities program run by the Global Project Center of Stanford University. Through collaboration with experts in various fields including finance, city management, and infrastructure planning, it aims to tailor its solutions toward the concept of smart cities.

Google Inc has invested 15 million USD for a 13 percent stake in Glo, a university spin-out focused on creating nanowire-based LED-displays for mobile phones and smart watches as well as AR- and VR-applications.

China-based LED chip supplier SemiTek announced an agreement signed by its wholly-owned subsidiary Yunnan Lanjing Technology and the People’s Government of Hongta District, Yunnan to build a new LED substrate fab for capacity expansion.

EVERLIGHT launches the NIR-C19M series with a wavelength of 810nm which exert the clearest contrast effect to read the pattern of the iris. The recognition process is precise, quick and features excellent heat dissipation. This makes it perfectly suitable for iris recognition applications in security surveillance systems (access control) and portable handsets.

Philips Lighting announced it has been awarded a new project with longtime partner Wim Peters, a high wire tomato growers in The Netherlands. Philips Lighting will again provide Peters with LED lighting for two greenhouses that he’s rebuilding after they were destroyed during a hailstorm in June 2016. The company will also provide LEDs for one new greenhouse that Peters is building to expand his business and meet the growing demand for LED grown tomatoes by his customers. The LED lighting will have higher light levels than the twenty kilometers of LED grow lights that Philips Lighting installed in the two greenhouses in 2013.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday said consumer electronics giant Apple will be holding its product launch event on 12th of September, as the Wall Street Journal carried in its report. Products to be unveiled are said to be the iPhone 8, the 10th anniversary edition exciting the public for long, the iPhone 7s, the iPhone 7s Plus, a new Apple TV box supporting 4K super high definition visual content, and an updated Apple Watch. Along with those products, the supply chains and technologies behind them have also been gradually revealed by various sources, even though Apple itself is very tight-lipped about it. 

Osram has agreed to acquire Digital Lumens Inc., a U.S. company based in Boston, Massachusetts that specializes in industrial IoT solutions. Founded in 2008, Digital Lumens employs 65 people and in the last fiscal year generated sales in the mid-double-digit millions (USD). The Digital Lumens software platform can be used to run applications covering everything from intelligent lighting control, energy use, and security systems to the measurement of environmental parameters such as air quality. The cloud-based platform is compatible with components and hardware of other manufacturers. Digital Lumens has built a strong customer base for industrial IoT solutions, with more than 2,500 installations. 

Cree, Inc. yesterday announced revenue of $359 million for its fourth quarter of fiscal 2017, ended June 25, 2017. This represents an 8% decrease compared to revenue of $388 million reported for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016, and a 5% increase compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2017. GAAP net loss for the fourth quarter was $6 million, or $0.06 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net loss of $11 million, or $0.11 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016. On a non-GAAP basis, net income for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017 was $4 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, compared to non-GAAP net income for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 of $19 million, or $0.19 per diluted share.

Apple’s development of 3D sensing highly interests the market. A list of companies joining Apple’s 3D sensing supply chain has been revealed in a recent report, which includes quite a number of Taiwanese firms, including TSMC, Largan Precision, Foxconn, Tong Hsing Electronic Industries, GSEO, Xintec, and VisEra.  

Coretronic Corporation (Coretronic), Taiwan has completed the acquisition of Calibre, a privately held British image processing technology manufacturer based in Bradford, Yorkshire, UK.

Quantum Materials Corp announced that its cadmium-free quantum dots in a remote LED application successfully surpassed the 1000 hour continuous on-time durability test. The testing has been conducted with red and green quantum dots encapsulated in resin and mounted to blue emitting LED's (see diagram below), which are similar to the type of LED's used in standard LCD display back light units (BLU).

AIXTRON announced that OSRAM Opto Semiconductors has purchased the company’s AIX 2800G4-TM Planetary system for the manufacturing of mainly infrared-based high power lasers and LEDs based on gallium arsenide (GaAs).

A leading tomato producer in northern Italy invests in advanced LED technology to increase yield and improve plant quality. Heliospectra AB announces a new order from Heliospectra's Italian reseller Ageon S.r.l. The order goes to one of Italy's prominent commercial tomato producers Gandini Antonio S.S. located in northern Italy, with the goal to improve plant quality and increase yield. The order is valued at $99,000 (805,000 SEK).

Light Polymers recently announced a patent license-agreement with Cree, a leading innovator of lighting-class LEDs, LED Lighting and power semiconductor solutions. Cree has granted a royalty-bearing, non-exclusive patent license to certain Cree patents for certain LED luminaires. This agreement will allow Light Polymers to apply their proprietary nanochemistry to affordably manufacture luminaires with special photonic films that advance the development of the LED lighting market by enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of LED lighting products.

LED package giant EVERLIGHT reported a solid 2Q17 revenue and profit better than that in 1Q17, yet worse than that in the prior year period. The product mix adjustment and price wars are said to account for the annual decline in EVERLIGHT’s finance. Besides, its new capacity is yet to contribute.

Technology giants such as Apple and Sharp have been actively running a series of research and development on Micro LED technology. PCB manufacturers are also eager to seize the related business opportunities. Unimicron has invested in related advanced manufacturing processes. It will start a small batch production in 2018 at the earliest and plans to mass produce PCBs for Micro LED applications in 2019. The rest of PCB makers intend to follow suit, which is expected to drive the growth of the PCB market to a new high. 

WELLMAX, the LED Bulb Expert in China, has 30 years of global experiences in partnering with quality lighting brands. More than 800 million quality bulbs have been sold across the globe. More than 200 partners over 50 countries have built long-term relationship with them. WELLMAX has been the first strategic partner of Samsung Electronics extending collaborations in the SAMSUNG global ingredient brand program since 2016.

Sengled, manufacturing intelligent lighting products that integrate consumer electronics inside energy efficient LED lights, announced their acceptance into the LoRa Alliance, joining other technology innovators in efforts to evolve home automation to commercial scale.

The Japanese digital panel giant Japan Display Inc. (JDI) had a struggle revamping its liquid crystal display (LCD) panel business. To make the recovery happen, JDI planned to accept fundings from outside investors. Not only that, JDI will restructure LCD panel production sites, and lay off employees at a large scale, slashing about 4,000 jobs, according to Nikkei's report on August 8. 

Osram Opto Semiconductors successfully held a breaking ground ceremony for Wuxi factory's phase two expansion project in the Wuxi High-Tech Industrial Development Zone on August 8th.