A. Developer News

·   Alfalight has developed a high-power pump laser diode with 65% efficiency and an output of 3 Watts.

·   Aixtron and Genus, Inc., a supplier of atomic layer deposition technology, are planning to merge.

·   Aixtron and Lumileds sign a purchase order for Aixtron Planetary Reactors.

·   Amtech Lighting will replace some 34,000 incandescent traffic lamps with LED units in the Cities of Dallas and Arlington, Texas.

·   Arima Optoelectronics planned to start volume production of high-luminance blue LEDs in mid-June.

·   AXT cut 45 jobs at its California headquarters as part of $1.3 million restructuring plan aimed at increasing focus on its China operation.

·   Color Kinetics offers 4,000,000 shares of common stock at $10 per share, down from its initial estimated $11-$13 per share price.

·   Color Kinetics signed an OEM agreement with Main Light, permitting Main Light to use Color Kinetics technology in its SoftLED LED-based drapery product.

·   Cree's Chuck Swoboda delivered the keynote address at Blue 2004, focusing on markets, consolidation, and defense of patent rights in the nitride LED industry.

·   Epistar will invest $212 million to expand production of four-element LEDs and nitride-based LEDs.

·   Recent GELcore activities related to Europe are profiled; company plans to introduce its GE LED Illuminated Street Sign System to Europe later this year.

·   A Japanese consortium announced it would create general-use white LED lights in three years.

·   LED lightbulb designer Lighting Science was acquired by the Phoenix Group.

·   Lighting Science selected Fulham to market its LED floodlights and spotlights.

·   Ligitek plans to increase SMD LED production 10-fold to 30 million units per month by year's end.

·   Lumileds has received an R&D contract from the U.S. Display Consortium to develop LED-based illuminators for projection displays

·   Lumileds will open a new plant in Malaysia to produce Luxeon LEDs.

·   Lumileds selected Marubeni Corporation to market its LED chip products in Japan.

·   Mitsubishi Chemical will head a consortium to develop equipment for fabricating large single crystals of GAN and ZnO for blue lasers and illumination sources.

·   In FY 2003, Nichia enjoyed a 56% increase in sales and pretax profits of 94.8 billion yen, according to a CompoundSemi News McDonald Report entitled "Catching up with Nichia."

·   Nichia plans to increase its LED production capacity at its Tatsumi fab.

·   Nichia is exploring licensing its technology to "certain Taiwanese LED manufacturers".

·   Nichia introduced labeling to mark products containing its white LED chips.

·   Nichia announced a Taiwanese company acknowledged patent infringement and halted sales of LED-application products.

·   Nichia America has sued Sharper Image to prevent it from selling products with white LEDs that infringe on Nichia's US patents.

·   Nichia sued an unnamed Taiwanese company and its South Korean customer for patent infringement.

·   Nichia requested a preliminary injunction against E&E Japan Co. in Tokyo District Court over infringement of one of Nichia's white LED patents, JP No. 2927279.

·   Opto Tech plans to expand LED production and samples "advanced" flip-chip LED.

·   Osram OS has received the Bavarian Energy Award 2004 for its sustainable energy concept for the infrastructure for manufacturing LEDs.

·   Osram OS sued Dominant Semi for infringement of patents covering white LEDs and LED electrical connection structures.

·   Procomp Informatics has filed for "restructuring" in the Taipei district court seeking relief of "cash bind."

·   Quintessence Photonics claims to have developed 2D surface-emitting diode arrays made from a single piece of semiconductor.

·   Rohm turned a profit of ¥63.72 billion (up 20.2% over the previous year) in March 2004.

·   Sandia National Lab filed international patent application WO 2004/049764, "Photonic crystal light source."

·   Sandia National Lab receives a "R&D 100" award for cantilever epitaxy process.

·   Sanken has filed a WIPO application (WO 2004/042832), "Semiconductor light-emitting substrate."

·   Compound Semiconductor reviewed recent progress in HB-LED manufacturing in South Korea.

·   StockerYale's COBRA™ 500 LED Line Illuminator has been named product of the month by Photonic Tech Briefs.

·   Sumitomo has agreed to purchase $160 million of LED chips from Cree in the fiscal year ending June 2005.

·   Tekcore has completed its Fab 2 Facility and is ramping up production of high brightness blue, green and UV LED chips.

·   TIR Systems received the Emerging Company of the Year award from BCTIA.

·   Toyoda Gosei has rebranded itself "Toyoda Gosei", dropping the TG moniker used in its regional headquarters in the USA and Europe.

·   Toyoda Gosei plans to invest $140M in the construction of a second factory for GaN-based LEDs.

·   Tyntek is ramping up its AlGaInP LED manufacturing capacity in an effort to compete with its Taiwanese rivals.

·   University of Illinois professor Nick Holonyak was profiled in Investor Business Daily

   B.  New Products:

·   AnalogicTech announced two new high efficiency charge pumps for white LEDs.

·   Agilent debuted a series of extra-bright InGaN LEDs targeted for the outdoor electronic sign and signals market.

·   BivarOpto debuted the SMTP RGB Series LEDs for use with BivarOpto's Flexible Light Pipes.

·   China Fangda has developed high-power GaN-based LEDs with 1.5cd brightness and lifetimes over 80,000 hours.

·   Cree introduced two new green LEDS, the XT-290™ LED and XB-900™ LED.

·   Cree announced the XT-21™ their newest addition to the Xthin™ product line.

·   Cree announced it had recently demonstrated a 57 lm/W white LED.

·   Cree announced three new blue spectrum LED products for the mobile appliance market.

·   Dialight offered its 586 series of wedge-based LEDs for use in illuminating switches, panel indicators and reels in gaming equipment.

·   Dionics debuted the "Silicon Light Chip", a tri-color white LED device targeted at the architectural and other lighting markets.

·   The Fox Group began production of mid-brightness GaN-based blue LEDs using HVPE growth techniques.

·   Hui Yuan Electronic Factory is offering super-flux LEDs with luminous intensities of 3cd to 10cd.

·   Microsemi showed off its new LED drivers at SID 2004.

·   Nichia announces prototypes of two new white LEDs 1.7 times brighter than conventional products.

·   Osram OS debuted its long life White Power TOPLED at SID 2004.

·   Permlight introduced the Enbryten Portrait series of LED luminaires for general illumination applications.

·   Seiwa Electric announced a "natural-looking" white LED.

·   SiCrystal AG announced the availability of its high-quality 2" 6H-substrates. 

·   Sipex announced the SP6683 charge pump for driving up to 8 white LEDs in parallel.

·   Stanley Electric announced the UVGB1306L surface mount tri-color LED.

·   Stanley debuted the XW1147B surface-mount white LED with a luminous intensity of 0.4 cd to 0.5 cd at 20 mA.

·   Supertex introduced a universal HB-LED driver integrated circuitry with >93% efficiency.

·   UEC announced a high-brightness glue-bonding AlGaInP LED processing chip.

·   Vishay launched the TLMx320x series of SMD LEDs in a PLCC-3 package for backlighting, traffic signal, and signage applications.

  C.  Novel or Interesting LED Applications/Uses:

·   Arlington High School (Mass.) students invented an illuminated crosswalk system utilizing weight-activated solid-state lighting.

·   Carmanah's solar powered LED lights illuminate buildings in downtown Baghdad.

·   Coca Cola unveiled a 2.6 million LED display in New York City's Times Square.

·   Flambeau will market LED-lighted fishing-tackle boxes developed by Brooks and Baker LLC.

·   The International Contemporary Furniture Fair featured LED-based wall hangings by Divvali and Element Labs.

·   K-Tronik introduced the E-Plug Residential Emergency Lighting Module, which uses LED lighting technology.

·   Researchers at MIT, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Brigham and Women's Hospital, tested quantum-dot-based medical imaging of lymph nodes.

·   NEC-Mitsubishi Electronics Display has debuted prototype LCD displays using Lumileds Luxeon LEDs.

·   Osram OS red and white LEDs are used in a timeline spanning the River Danube, running along the Stone Bridge in Regensburg, Germany.

·   Osram OS has provided 8500 LED lights for "UFO" displays at the Dubai International Airport.

·   Osram Opto Semiconductors announced its TOPLED LED will be used in the tail lamp of the 2004 Aston Martin DB9.

·   Osram OS's White Golden Dragon LEDs will be used in headlights in Ford Australia's "Focus Concept" car.

·   OSRAM SYLVANIA donated LED technology for a doorway lighting project along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, NY.

·   The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership has lit Strawberry Way with artistic lighting displays and illuminated signage, in part powered by red LED lighting.

·   The US Army NAC lists fuel cells, LED spotlights and advanced communication technologies as part of future homeland security CRADA projects.

·   University of Maine researchers used GaN-based UV LEDs to sterilize water spiked with bacteria.

  D.  Market Information:

·   ATIP published "Chinese LED R&D and Industry," a report summarizing current trends and players in China's solid-state lighting R&D community.

·   The growth of MOCVD manufacturing capacity of Taiwanese LED manufacturers was reviewed in Compound Semiconductor.

  E.  Overview Articles:

·   Automotive applications for compound semiconductor devices, including LED lighting, were reviewed in Compound Semiconductor in the article"Compound semiconductor devices offer new driving experiences".

·   A brief history of the founding of AXT and its commercialization of VGF technology developed at Bell Labs appeared in CompoundSemi News "The McDonald Report."

·   Compound Semiconductor magazine covers GaN substrate manufacturing in the July issue in the article "GaN substrates offer high performance at a price."

·   Compound Semiconductor published an article titled, "Samsung and Toyoda Gosei unveil progress in violet lasers," reviewing progress in violet lasers, and UV, blue and white LEDs.

·   Opto & Laser Europe featured Taiwan and photonics, in several articles in their July/August issue.

·   The article, "Lighting: the progress and promise of LEDs," summarizing progress in LEDs was published in the May 2004 issue of III-Vs Review.

·   Salon.com published an article titled "Saving the world by building a better light bulb," on energy efficient lighting technology, including solid-state lighting.

  F.  Research Results

·   Research advances in UV LED R&D by participants in DARPA's SUVOS Program were reviewed in the May issue of Compound Semiconductor.

·   LANL and Sandia researchers announced indirect-injection quantum well light-emitting nanocrystal quantum dots.

·   Researchers at Tsinghua University and LSU have developed a carbon nanotube filament replacement for tungsten filaments in incandescent bulbs.

·   Universidad Autónoma de Madrid researcher Francisco Garcia-Vidal has authored a review of research into the transmission of light through sub-wavelength apertures in metallic films.

·   University of Florida researchers show thin sheets of carbon nanotubes are effective transmitters of light into LEDs.

·   University of Toronto researchers have created the world's first tungsten inverse opal capable of excluding almost all light at certain wavelengths.

  G.  Selected Events of Interest:

·   Compound Semiconductor Week, a new conference combining the CS-MAX and CSICS conferences, will be held October 24-28, 2004 in Monterey, Calif.

·   The Materials Research Society has announced its program for its Fall 2004 meeting to be held November 29-December 3, 2004 in Boston, Mass.

·   The Materials Research Society will hold its 2004 International Workshop on Nitride Semiconductors on July 19 - 23, 2004 in Pittsburgh.

·   SPIE’s European Workshop on Photonics in the Automobile, held November 29 – December 1 in Geneva Switzerland, will include lighting and display considerations.

·   SPIE’s Photonics Asia will be held November 8 – 12, 2004, in Beijing, China. 

·   SPIE’s Photonics West 2005 will be held January 22 – 27, 2005 in San Jose, California.

·   The 31^st International Symposium on Compound Semiconductors (ISCS-2004) will be held in Seoul, Korea, September 12 – 16, 2004.

  H.  Government Funding News and Opportunities:

·   Aixtron is part of a joint project, funded by the German government, to establish a semiconductor optoelectronics R&D training center in China.

·   Crystal IS received over $750k in follow-on support for AlN substrate development from the DARPA SUVOS and RF/Microwave/Millimeter-wave Technology programs.

·   DOE formally announced the SSL product development funding opportunity in May; the competition closed on July 8, 2004.

·   DOE has selected a proposal from the Next Generation Lighting Industry Alliance in response to their solicitation for a "Solid State Lighting Partnership." 

·   Fiberstars received a $1 million DARPA grant to develop LED-based high efficiency distributed lighting (HEDlight) systems by December 2005.

·   LRC and Evident Technologies have received NYSERDA funding to jointly develop and demonstrate efficient quantum-dot nanomaterial white LEDs.

·   The US Army issued the solicitation SBIR 2004.3-Topic A04-068, entitled "ZnO Based Light Emitters for UV/Blue Applications."  Proposals are due August 12, 2004.