05/22/2012 

M’s Optical Systems Division made its flexible, optically clear 3M FTB3-50 and FTB3-125 films available commercially, to protect sensitive electronics displays from water vapor and oxygen. The films previously were sold under limited R&D agreements.

05/21/2012 

DisplaySearch's Paul Gray advises that TV makers “think deeply about how consumers are watching long-form video at home” before leaping to conclusions about OLED’s impact. “The industry need not take billion dollar technology bets to provide better products.”

05/21/2012 

LED manufacturers must choose the appropriate materials and processes to fight low yields, writes Thomas Uhrmann of EV Group (EVG).

05/18/2012 

China has designated LEDs as one of the 7th emerging industries to be fostered in the Twelfth Five-year Plan. China is accelerating standardization plans, encouraging local production, and subsidizing purchases of LED lighting, Displaybank reports.

05/18/2012 

SEMICON West is less than 2 months away, July 10-12 in San Francisco, CA. Plan your attendee schedule now with highlights from the Extreme Electronics “show within a show;” 4 strong keynotes; sessions on device architecture and node shrink, lithography, 450mm wafers and more.

05/17/2012 

Barclays Capital’s Asia IT analyst Jones Ku shares details of China's State Council’s subsidy program for household electrical appliances. The program sets aside RMB2.2 billion to promote consumption of LEDs and “other energy-saving light bulbs.”

05/16/2012 

Lightscape Materials offers IP in specialty phosphor technology, which Dow will add to its LED technologies portfolio. Lightscape co-founders Gerard Frederickson and Yongchi Tian will join Dow’s LED Technologies team.

05/16/2012 

After a surge in 2010 and oversupply in 2011 that suppressed 2012 fab, LED makers will see a leveling out of supply and demand into better equilibrium, according to NPD DisplaySearch. Demand will shift from LCD-backlit LEDs to LEDs for lighting.

05/16/2012 

Kulicke & Soffa broke ground on its Singapore global headquarters expansion, near the current leased headquarters location. A state-of-the-art facility in Serangoon will bolster the company

05/14/2012 

LEDs are typically manufactured on sapphire substrates, about 90% of the blue LEDs currently in production. SiC substrates are used for virtually all the remaining 10% of blue LEDs. To improve efficiency and brightness, as well as cost, LED makers are looking to other substrates, such as Si and ZnO.

05/14/2012 

Barclays Capital analysts attended Lightfair International and gleaned several trends in LEDs and OLEDs for lighting, including an interesting phenomenon around MOCVD utilization rates and new orders.

05/11/2012 

Bridgelux and Toshiba reported a 1.1mm² LED chip fabricated on an 8" GaN-on-Si wafer, emitting 614mW, <3.1V @ 350mA. The companies will collaborate on commercializing GaN-on-Si LEDs, and Toshiba has invested in Bridgelux.

05/11/2012 

The Innovation Award Laser Technology 2012 recognized 3D metal micro-structuring laser technology from Schepers, excimer laser design for OLED and LCD display fab from Coherent, and a laser brazing head technology from Precitec Optronik.

05/11/2012 

In light of “challenging industry conditions” in the LED and PV manufacturing sectors, Applied Materials (AMAT) decided to restructure its Energy and Environmental Solutions (EES) segment.

05/10/2012 

OLEDs are gaining adopters in small screen sizes, and just moving into large-size displays. Mass production color-patterning technology for large-area OLED is increasingly an issue. Displaybank looks at new technologies under development at major display makers.

05/09/2012 

GE’s 27-watt Energy Smart LED bulb is in a standard “A-19” bulb shape, manufactured with a proprietary synthetic jet technology enabled by Nuventix’ collaboration.

05/09/2012 

SEMI presented US Congressman Dave Camp (R-MI) with its 2012 North American Government Leadership Award for his leadership and support of the US microelectronics and photovoltaic manufacturing value chain.

05/09/2012 

Vanderbilt University researchers have used formic acid to develop white-light quantum dots' fluorescent efficiency to 45%, enabling UV LED efficiency of 40 lumens/watt.

05/09/2012 

SunSun Lighting, a provider of high-performance, energy-efficient and low-cost LED lighting technologies, received $30 million in Series B financing from GSR Ventures and Oak Investment Partners and additional commitments from its original angel investors. Allan Kwan, a China-based advisor for Oak, is joining the board of SunSun.

05/08/2012 

SEMI’s Paula Doe covers the “commodity market” of LEDs, including capacity utilization at LED fabs, automation in manufacturing that could improve yields, LEDs fabbed on silicon and GaN instead of sapphire wafers, and more.