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ARCHIVE OF SELECTED HEADLINE NEWS (These links are not maintained) |
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Group4 Labs announced the first 2-inch GaN-on-diamond semiconductor wafer, the second product in the company's Xero Wafer family. As with the first Xero product, the new wafer also features a single GaN atomically attached to a synthetic diamond substrate, permitting high-temperature resilience for electronic, solid-state lighting, and military applications. The new material offers a unique thermal management solution by extricating heat from the chip's core almost at the instant that it is generated. This is due to the nanometer proximity of the chip's active region to diamond, a nearly perfect thermal conductor. [ Press release ] |
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March 30, 2006 |
UK's Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) Technology Programme announced funding of £9 million (US$15.6 million) for collaborative R&D projects in the area of electronics and photonics, including high-efficacy solid-state lighting systems. The projects, which must include at least two partners and one end user, will be 50% funded by participants. Emphasis will be placed on projects that address identified needs with the potential for significant improvements and efficiencies. Identified needs include high-brightness, high-efficiency devices, particularly white-light sources for illumination, and improved-efficiency packaging techniques for next-generation lighting systems. [ News item in LEDs Magazine, DTI document ] |
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March 30, 2006 |
New applications for white LEDs will help push optoelectronics sales to $31.8 billion in 2010, according to a new report from IC Insights. The "2006 Optoelectronics, Sensor/Actuator, and Discrete" market study describes the optoelectronics market as surpassing the discrete semiconductor market for the first time in history in 2006, to become the second largest market segment in the semiconductor industry behind integrated circuits. High-brightness white LEDs promise to give the optoelectronics segment another boost at the end of this decade, when solid-state lighting systems begin to replace conventional fluorescent tubes and incandescent light bulbs in offices and homes. [ Press release ] |
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March 30, 2006 |
DOE has published its "Solid-State Lighting Research and Development Portfolio: Multi-Year Program Plan FY'07-FY'12." The 129-page report includes an overview of the status of SSL technology; the current DOE SSL portfolio; the technology R&D plan; the SSL portfolio management plan; and the SSL portfolio evaluation plan. DOE describes the plan as "a living document," to be updated periodically to incorporate new analyses, progress, and research priorities. [ News item at LEDs Magazine, document ] |
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March 29, 2006 |
West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund has invested $500,000 in Plextronics, a Carnegie Mellon University spinoff housed at the University of Pittsburgh Applied Research Center. The company is experimenting to adapt its Plexcore HIL material for solid-state white lighting usage. [ News item in Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ] |
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March 29, 2006 |
Veeco has been selected to join the Solid-State Lighting and Display Center (SSLDC) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. As a member company, Veeco will support research efforts in the development of new materials as well as new epitaxial growth methods for the advancement of solid-state lighting. Since 2001, 10 large solid-state lighting companies have joined SSLDC, including Veeco. [ Press release ] |
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March 28, 2006 |
Cyberlux has received a 5-year U.S. government contract for energy saving lighting products through the General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule. Under the terms of the Federal Supply Schedule contract, Cyberlux can now serve as a primary contractor to sell its LED-based Aeon task and accent lighting products to any U.S. government purchasing organization. The GSA estimates $1 million in purchasing activity for Cyberlux, based on prior contractor sales reporting. [ Press release ] |
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March 28, 2006 |
Permlight Products and Progress Lighting, the leading supplier of residential lighting in North America, will launch a complete line of LED residential lighting products under the name of HI-EFTM by summer 2006. The lighting fixtures will incorporate warm color, be dimmable, and appear and operate like incandescent sources, according to company officials. Nichia and Cree will be the primary suppliers of the greater than 40 lm/W warm white LED sources. The joint development focuses on creating high-efficacy interior products that exceed rigorous energy standards outlined in California Title 24 and comply with Title 22 California Household Hazardous Waste Disposal laws. [ Press release ] |
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March 23, 2006 |
The popularity of LEDs and other lighting alternatives will help to drive sales in both the commercial and residential lighting markets past the $5 billion mark by 2010, according to two new reports from Specialists in Business Information (SBI), a division of MarketResearch.com. The reports, "The U.S. Market for Commercial Lighting in the U.S." and "The U.S. Market for Residential Lighting in the U.S.," include information on U.S. shipments, imports and exports, end-use markets, purchaser demographics, and the competitive environment. The reports also identify key issues, regulations, trends affecting the marketplace, and more. [ Press release, commercial report, residential report ] |
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March 22, 2006 |
Light Waves Concept introduced the 22-W PAR 30 72 LED bulb, which screws in to all standard Edison bulb bases and emits 45 lm/W. The 990-lm bulb retails at just over $200 and is suitable for task lighting. [ Press release ] |
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March 22, 2006 |
Enfis has announced performance results for its next-generation Smart MW-LED (Multi-Watt LED) light engine technology. The company has demonstrated the capability for luminous power density of 500 lm/cm2 in a package emitting more than 8000 lm of white light from a 16 cm2 aperture. White light can also be produced using a combination of four individually addressable colors (red, green, blue, amber) to create up to 4.3 billion individual colors including a large range of white color temperatures. [ News item at LEDs Magazine ] |
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March 21, 2006 |
Color Kinetics has been awarded U.S. patent 7,014,336, "Systems and methods for generating and modulating illumination conditions." The patent relates to LED-based illumination systems and methods for generating and/or modulating illumination conditions to generate high-quality light of a desired and controllable color, for creating lighting fixtures for producing light in desirable and reproducible colors, and for modifying the color temperature or color shade of light within a prespecified range after a lighting fixture is constructed. [ News item in LEDs Magazine ] |
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March 21, 2006 |
Kyma Technologies has developed a new range of non-polar and semi-polar nitride substrates that should lead to higher-performance wide-bandgap devices. In devices grown on top of non-polar GaN, the usual electric fields that result from the intrinsic polarity of the substrate material are eliminated, while in semi-polar material they are reduced, meaning that GaN-based optoelectronic devices can operate at higher efficiencies. [ News item at CompoundSemiconductor.net] |
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March 20, 2006 |
DOE NETL has selected 16 projects to be funded under its SSL core technologies FOA and laboratory call. Those selected include: Agiltron; Eastman Kodak; Georgia Tech Research Corporation; Purdue University; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; RTI International; Technologies and Devices International; University of California , Santa Barbara; University of Florida; University of North Texas; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and National Renewable Energy Laboratory; and three projects at Sandia National Laboratories. The projects are expected to support multiple enabling or fundamental solid-state lighting technology areas for general illumination applications. [ List of projects ] |
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March 20, 2006 |
Permlight introduced its line of Enbryten InWall LED luminaires for lighting hallways, stairwells, and bathrooms in homes, theaters, and hospitality applications. The ENBM Series is a 15-W recessed indirect luminaire that mounts into a wall or ceiling for indirect lighting of a surface perpendicular to the installation plane. Using nine 1-W Warm White XLamp LEDs from Cree, the modular system can also be configured with any LED color and multiple intensities depending on the application. Each ENBM is available standard with line voltage dimming technology that requires no external or remotely mounted transformers or power supplies. [ Press release ] |
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March 2006 |
Toyota Central R&D Lab (Japan) researchers claim to have produced the lowest threading dislocation density GaN-on-silicon (111) films from an uninterrupted process. The dislocation density (substantially lower than that obtained with other uninterrupted processes involving inserting additional layers, doping with silicon, or using an in situ mask) should help to improve GaN-on-silicon optoelectronic and power electronic device performance and reliability. Research was published as "Growth and characteristics of low dislocation density GaN grown on Si(111) from a single process" (X. Chen and T. Uesugi) Applied Physics Letters, 88, 031916 (Jan. 16, 2006). [ Item in Compound Semiconductor Magazine, abstract ] |
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March 13, 2006 |
Nichia has developed a 100 lm/W white LED chip, with volume production expected this year. Nichia showed prototypes of a pendant light and a spotlight using the white LED, which the company says is the first to achieve triple-digit efficiency. The chip delivers 6 lumens with an input of 20 mA at 3 V. The prototype pendant light employed 756 units of the white LED chip to deliver 4,536 lm with a 45-W input. The spotlight consisted of 80 chips, delivering 480 lm with 4.8-W input. Nichia intends to start sampling the 100 lm/W chip in June and to start volume production by year's end. The first product will come in the form of a 5-mm-diameter lamp package. [ News item at EETimes ] |
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March 10, 2006 |
Suss MicroTec and Instrument Systems (Germany) have partnered to develop a high-throughput, integrated test system for LED devices at the wafer level. The system will enable manufacturers to test up to 70,000 LED dies per hour, according to the companies. [ News item at LEDs Magazine] |
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March 8, 2006 |
Cree released its new EZBright™ LED chip platform. EZBright LEDs feature Cree's highest brightness levels in a new, easy-to-die attach chip, so that they can be assembled into LED packages using industry-standard processes. The first product based on this new platform is the EZBright290™, which is now available in both green and blue colors in commercial quantities. EZBright290 is targeted for white backlighting and other applications. [ Press release ] |
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March 8, 2006 |
Nichia has waived its blue LED patent right, to save ¥5.2 million annually in patent maintenance costs, according to the company. Nichia says it has developed a better technology and had not used the "404" patent technology, developed by Shuji Nakamura, since 1997, and companies having cross-licensing agreements with Nichia have not used it since 2002, according to the company. [ News item at TMCnet, press release ] |
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March 8, 2006 |
Dominant Semiconductor clarified the International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling on eight patents Osram alleged that the company infringed, according to LIGHTimes. Dominant pointed out the commission found no infringement on the five patents related to white LEDs, meaning that only the company's standard Power DomiLED and White Power DomiLED can no longer be imported into the U.S. The ruling does leave the door open for sales of white LEDs in the United States, just not the White Power DomiLED. [ News item at LIGHTimes ] |
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March 7, 2006 |
Matsushita Electric (Japan) announced the development of an LED fixture designed to be as bright as a 60 W incandescent light bulb, according to Nikkei Net Online and LIGHTimes. The company reported that the device will last 40,000 hours, about 24 times as long as conventional 60 W light bulbs. According to the article, the company was able to achieve the improved longevity through redesigning the heat dissipation for the device. [ News item in LIGHTimes] |
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March 7, 2006 |
National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) has formed a Nanotechnology Advisory Council to provide guidance to the electrical manufacturing community. The council will include nanotechnology experts from academia and government, and will serve as a resource for manufacturers interested in the research and public policy implications of nanotechnology development as they seek to apply the technology to their products. Manufacturers are already working with DOE to evaluate the possible use of nanotechnology in solid-state lighting semiconductors, the association noted. [ News item at Control Engineering] |
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March 7, 2006 |
Lite-On Technology and Yulon Nissan Motor will partner to develop LED-based automobile headlights, according to Digitimes, the Apple Daily (China), and LIGHTimes. The companies expect development to be completed in two to three years. [ News item at LIGHTimes] |
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March 6, 2006 |
A UK research team has generated pairs of entangled photons from a quantum dot far more efficiently than previous efforts. The breakthrough was made by Andrew Shields at Toshiba and colleagues at the University of Cambridge, who produced entangled photons with an efficiency of 70%, compared to a previous best figure of 49%. The improved performance approaches that required for useful applications, which means that devices emitting entangled light could one day be as common as lasers and LEDs (New J. Physics 8 29). [ News item at PhysicsWeb] |
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March 3, 2006 |
Epistar has "peacefully" settled its patent lawsuit with Nichia, according to Digitimes, the Economic Daily News (China), and LIGHTimes. Nichia will drop patent infringement charges against Epistar, according to Digitimes. Epistar also announced that Cree has adopted its red HB-LEDs. [ News item at LIGHTimes ] |
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March 3, 2006 |
Mitsubishi Chemical has renewed its commitment to fund materials research at UCSB. The company will grant between $8.5 million and $10 million over the next four years. The Mitsubishi Chemical Center for Advanced Materials (MC-CAM) includes a significant effort to develop technologies for solid-state lighting and displays. [ News item at LEDs Magazine] |
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March 2, 2006 |
Epistar ordered five MOCVD reactors designed for GaN LED production, including a tool with a 42x2-inch capacity, from Aixtron. The sale comprises four AIX 2600G3 reactors, along with Aixtron's new AIX 2800G4 reactor that is claimed to have the largest capacity of any commercial reactor and can accommodate up to 42 two-inch wafers. [ News item at CompoundSemiconductor.net] |
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March 1, 2006 |
Frost & Sullivan published "Emerging Lighting Systems - A Technology Analysis," a report that addresses advances in LED and OLED technologies. The report provides manufacturers, end users, and other industry participants with an overview, summary, challenges, and recent news. [ Report information ] |
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March 2006 |
LightCongress 2006 included a panel on "LEDs: Past, Present & Future," with presentations by Nadarajah Narendran (RPI), Kevin Dowling (Color Kinetics), Clara Powel (Philips), Jim Sloan (SloanLED), Michael Hennes (Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design), and Makarand "Chips" Chipalkatti (Osram Sylvania). Other panels included "Energy & Sustainability for Today's Buildings," "Light for Health & Vision," and "Residential Energy Star® Lighting." Presentations from the event, held March 7 in New York, are available. |
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March 2006 |
Royal Philips Electronics recently opened a new facility at its Outdoor Lighting Application Center (OLAC), near Lyon, France, to showcase new technologies such as LEDs. A full-scale city environment, the facility is a test-bed for designers, architects and city officials to experience how light can improve the quality of urban life. By creating this life-size city environment at OLAC, Philips enables visitors to see directly how innovative LED lighting "can add extra dimensions to architecture and create varied, appealing ambiences." [ News item at lighting.com, press release ] |
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March, 2006 |
Young Electronics launched a line of white LEDs based on non-YAG phosphor technology, which the company says do not infringe on Nichia's patents. The line includes a 11 cd, 5 mm LED, and a 140 lm, 5W LED. The devices are suitable for indoor architectural lighting, decorative lighting, torch lighting, photoflash, traffic signaling and other general applications. [ News item from Components in Electronics ] |
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March 2006 |
LEDs Magazine published a feature article on recent developments in silicone materials for use as protective encapsulants and lenses for HB-LEDs. The article, "Silicone materials development for LED packaging," by Ann Norris, Maneesh Bahadur and Makoto Yoshitake of Dow Corning, notes that silicones are especially suitable for use with HB-LEDs because of their high transparency in the UV-visible region, controlled refractive index, and stable thermo-opto-mechanical properties. [ Feature article ] |
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The proposed budget for DOE's solid-state lighting program for FY 2007 is $19.3 million, significantly less than the $50 million requested in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, but an increase over previous years. The program's funding level has increased from $3 million in FY2003 to $12.7 million in FY 2005, and $13 million for the current fiscal year (FY2006). A Congressional Directive could add a further $5 million for solid-state lighting R&D, although it is not clear how or when this will be implemented. [ News item at LEDs Magazine ] |
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February 2006 |
DOE NETL published highlights of its solid-state lighting workshop held in February in Orlando, Fla. More than 180 participants attended the workshop, which included for the first time a Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Contractors' Meeting, to enable the exchange of research results, identification of needs, and fostering of new ideas and collaborations. [ Highlights, workshop materials ] |
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January 2006 |
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CREDITS AND DISCLAIMER |
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The information presented in this section has been developed by
Perspectives
, a firm that specializes in technical and market intelligence, with assistance from Sandia National Labs. |
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