Recently, several efforts have been made in a number of U.S. cities to reduce energy consumption by converting street light bulbs to light emitting diodes (LEDs). In San Francisco, utilities and companies have been working with city governments to implement smart controller technologies. In March, the first 50 LED street lights were installed in the city. Helping make the city smart lights a reality are the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), Pacific Gas and Electric, BetaLED and the Echelon Corporation.

Yasufumi Fujiwara, professor of Osaka University in Japan, has recently created a prototype red LED element by using gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor. Though blue and green LED elements using GaN semiconductor have already been commercialized, this is the first time that a red LED element has been prototyped by using GaN semiconductor, Fujiwara said.

Two new lamps from GE Consumer & Industrial—a 7-watt GE Energy Smart® LED PAR20 lamp and a 10-watt GE Energy Smart® LED PAR30 lamp—enable restaurants, retailers and other commercial customers to make significant strides toward general lighting with white light-emitting diodes (LEDs). These products of ecomaginationSM, available as spots or floods, feature advanced optical control to concentrate the white LED light on the targeted area and effectively diminish wasted extraneous light.

A massive Anolis architectural LED lighting installation has been completed by A.C. Special Projects Ltd. at London's iconic Somerset House venue. This was designed by Patrick Woodroffe, who was commissioned by Somerset House's director Gwyn Miles.

Sanyo is jumping on the bandwagon of LED lighting development. Its new Eneloop Lamp is incredibly versatile: in addition to serving as a desk lamp, it can double as an emergency lamp, and there also a “Healing Light” mode that emits a blue glow.  

Streetlamps are the focus of Palo Alto's latest bid to lighten its load on the environment. The city announced Wednesday it will replace some traditional lights with low-maintenance induction lamps and light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, as part of a pilot project expected to last at least one year. Nine LEDs and five induction lights will be installed near City Hall and on the residential Colorado and Amarillo avenues. Both are designed to last longer and use 40 percent less energy that traditional sodium vapor lamps, according to the city.

New developments in gallium nitride (GaN) LEDs could lead to a revolution in lighting for the home and office in five years, says a leading UK materials scientist, Professor Colin Humphreys of Cambridge University.

Japan’s OKI Electric Industry (TOKYO:6703) and OKI Data Corp., which markets under the OKI Printing Solutions brand recently announced that the OKI Group will increase its LED (light-emitting diode) production for print heads used in its non-impact printers, and enhance new LED-related businesses. This will be achieved by acquiring an LED production facility in Japan’s Takasaki City in Gunma Prefecture with a ‘clean room’ that is approximately twice the area of the room used currently.

Cree, Inc. announces that Illinois’ Joliet Junior College (JJC) is joining the LED University™ program. College officials recently renovated 12 restrooms on campus, replacing compact fluorescent and tube fluorescent fixtures with six-inch LED recessed lights, LR6s, from Cree. Energy consumption was reduced by 50 percent, from 3,384 watts to 1,692 watts. A total cost of ownership analysis, done by JJC, shows that the college expects to save more than $53,000 over the estimated 25-year life span of the LED fixtures.



Everlight Electronics Co., Ltd., currently Taiwan’s biggest LED packager, has recently bought 15.9% of Tecore’s shares to secure supply of LED chips as it expands output to meet rising demand, according to an article on Taiwan Economic News. Everlight acquired the Tecore shares through a private-equity placement, in which Tecore put up 25 million shares for sale to raise NT$350 million (US$10.6 million at US$1:NT$33).

Chuck Swoboda Participates in Presidential Roundtable On American Innovation and Clean Energy Technology Chuck Swoboda, chairman and chief executive officer of Cree (Nasdaq:CREE) joined President Obama at the White House today to discuss the latest developments in energy-efficient technologies. Cree, based in Durham, North Carolina, is a market-leading manufacturer of LED (light-emitting diode) products.

OSRAM Opto Semiconductors’ Golden DRAGON Plus LEDs are used by Guangzhou Zhonglong Communications Technology Co. Ltd. for the Yangzi River tunnel luminaire project in mainland China. With an internal diameter of 12.7m, the tunnel is 8.9km long in a twin-tunnel complex and each of the bores with 3-lane of traffic. 5,886 tunnel luminaries with over 410,000 pieces of OSRAM Golden DRAGON Plus LEDs will be installed in two bores. The Yangzi River tunnel will be the longest in the world to have brilliant LED light.

Recently, Solid State Lighting has been a crucial and celebrated element to becoming a partner of global environmental protection.  Using LEDs to replace traditional, high power-consumption lighting systems seems to be the likely trend and solution to reducing power consumption. For the past 26 years, Everlight Electronics, Co., LTD. has endeavored to improve LED technology to address the issue of energy saving and made significant progress in being a pioneer for Green energy.

Evident Technologies Inc. announced the commercial availability of its Evidot LED products based on semiconductor nanocrystal technology. Whereas traditional LEDs are available in a limited set of standard colors (blue, green, red, etc.), Evident’s new products enable LEDs to emit any color, including high-quality white light (see video).

Elation Professional has introduced a moving head that can move . . . anywhere. And a color-changing brick that doesn’t require a wall   to be plugged into. The company added two amazing new “wireless” fixtures to its Event Series of battery-powered DMX-compatible RGB LED portable lights: the Event MH W System and Event Brick System, a moving head and brick color wash, respectively.

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.

Barco, a global leader in creative LED technology, has recently announced the world's first transformable LED screen for U2's latest world tour. With its 360° shape, the LED screen surrounds the band while performing and can change shape in all directions during the concert. The screen has 500,000 pixels of video, making it the biggest LED screen ever used in concert touring.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has just released the second draft of ENERGY STAR performance criteria for three SSL luminaire categories: outdoor pole-mounted area and roadway luminaires, outdoor wall-mounted area luminaires, and parking garage/canopy luminaires. The Proposed Category “A” (near-term applications) additions to the Outdoor Area & Parking Garage area include the below: Minimum Light Output Luminaire shall deliver a minimum of 1,000 lumens (initial).

iLEDm is the only manufacturer that has introduced backlight technique into LED packaging. This technique is called LEM (LED Packaging Module).

Diodes Incorporated (Nasdaq: DIOD), a global manufacturer and supplier of high-quality application specific standard products within the broad discrete and analog semiconductor markets, has introduced a family of three new LED drivers that provide a cost-effective and small form factor solution for small LCD screens used across a wide range of portable consumer electronics, such as portable media players, personal navigation devices and digital photo frames.

A historic light-art concert in Jena, Germany, featured a color-changing performance by 170 LED-illuminated weather balloons in a custom installation engineered by a team assembled by Future Lighting Solutions. Super-sized balloons hung throughout the concert hall changed color on a pre-programmed schedule paralleling the mood and tempo of the music, utilizing RGB LED modules built with LUXEON® Rebel LEDs as well as a closed-loop color and brightness management system to achieve color consistency from balloon to balloon.

Philips Lumileds yesterday announced immediate availability of its breakthrough LUXEON Rebel phosphor converted amber (PC Amber) LED. The new LUXEON Rebel sets performance standards for color stability and light output performance. Users will see 2-5 times more light output and dramatically less color shift compared to typical amber LEDs. LUXEON Rebel PC Amber delivers typical flux of 70 lumens at 350mA.

Supertex (NASDAQ: SUPX), a provider of high voltage analog and mixed signal integrated circuits (ICs), has recently introduced the HV9985, a three channel LED driver IC designed to provide high LED current accuracy through closed loop control of the output current. The IC is ideal for driving multiple strings of backlight or edgelight LEDs in LCD televisions.

Taxpayers could save millions if governments replaced incandescent traffic signal bulbs with LEDs according to an audit released by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. The audit found that the City of Binghamton, which replaced all incandescent bulbs with LEDs in 2002, has produced average annual savings of $49,800 since 2002.  Binghamton is now paying 59 percent less for traffic signal operation than it did before 2002. The audit is part of DiNapoli's efforts to help identify ways that local governments can save energy and reduce costs.

austriamicrosystems has added the AS1115 to its LED driver portfolio, which combines display driving and key scanning functionality to provide a simple front panel solution. This eliminates the need for a separate microprocessor to provide the front panel display, making the AS1115 well-suited to seven-segment or dot matrix user interface displays for set-top boxes, VCRs, DVD players, washing machines, microwave ovens and other white good or personal electronic applications.

Edison Opto, a Taiwan based high power LED packaging manufacture, will debut the latest Federal module series.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has today begun marketing an LED-UV (ultraviolet ray) ink-drying system using light-emitting diodes (LED) which enables significant energy saving in printing. The system, which MHI has commercialized, leveraging its know-how as a leading printing machinery manufacturer, is suitable for installation on larger sized (DIAMOND V3000 Series) sheet-fed presses that can accommodate sheets up to 1,050mm (41-11/32 inches) wide.

Micrel Inc., (NASDAQ: MCRL), a provider of analog, high bandwidth communications and Ethernet IC solutions, has recently rolled out the MIC3230/31/32, a new family of dedicated high brightness LED drivers. These devices are the first in a new series of high brightness LED drivers targeting solid-state lighting and general illumination applications. This LED driver provides the flexibility of driving 1W, 3W and higher power LEDs that are available on the market today.

Avago Technologies, a supplier of analog interface components for communications, industrial and consumer applications, recently announced one of the industry’s smallest high-brightness 3-Watt LEDs for use in a wide range of solid-state lighting applications.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced on June 29 a $346 million investment from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to expand and accelerate the development, deployment and use of energy-efficient technologies in all major types of commercial buildings as well as new and existing homes in the U.S. See the press release "Obama Administration Launches New Energy Efficiency Efforts".