By MICHELLE HSU Everlight Electronics in August took a major stake in Tekcore Co., a leading maker in Taiwan of high-luminosity GaN LED epi wafers for LEDs. The significant move by Everlight chairman Robert Yeh, an LED professional with over 35 years of experience in LED packaging, cannot be overlooked as a mere expansion strategy but rather signals the urgency among upstream LED companies to ...

Chairman of Y.F. Yeh of the Everlight Electronics Co., the world’s No.1 LED packager by volume, takes a brisk look around at the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Autumn Edition of 2011). For Yeh, whose company wants to become one of the world’s top three brand name suppliers of LED lighting, the Hong Kong lighting fair (second largest in the world and largest in Asia) provides a valuable op...

China’s rapidly expanding LED (light-emitting diode) industry has been heartened by mainland China’s plan to replace incandescent lamps with power-saving lamps within five years. The National Development and Reform Committee has published a roadmap for the banning of sales of 100-watt and larger incandescent lamps from Oct. 1, 2012, followed by 60-watt and larger lamps from Oct. 1, 2014 and 1...

Since about mid-2011 the LED lighting industry has been suffering from tepid demand, which the authorities in Taiwan and China are trying to counter with subsidies and incentive projects. The LED, which used to be mainly used in computers, mobile phones and other electronic industries, has become a highly-touted source of illumination. Its widely publicized merit of being energy-efficient h...

The emerging field of LED lighting provides suppliers with infinite opportunities for creativity, and despite the industry’s uncertain short-term prospects, new products with innovative designs are hitting the market one after another. Following up on the success of his “Non-soldering Connection in LED Module,” which won the Gold Medal Award presented by the organizers of the Taipei Internati...

“Green building” is a new term that refers to environment-friendly architecture built with green materials and designs. One common feature shared by all green buildings is energy-saving illumination equipment. The new green-building trend was the theme of the Taiwan Smart Green City Expo 2011 (BuilG Taiwan 2011), held for the first time by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TA...

By SOPHIE ZHEN China’s 12th Five-Year Plan, which got under way this year, is expected to give a strong boost to the country’s LED industry. The plan includes a number of subprojects designed to bolster the development of local emerging industries, and the State Council recently held its 7th environmental protection conference and mapped out the 12th Five-Year Energy-Saving Plan to coordina...

By KEN LIU Perhaps revolutionizing costly LED lighting, the blue kind Nichia Corp. of Japan invented in 1993 by building GaN structure on sapphire wafer, an Al2O3 composite that has since been the mainstay of LED chip material, and adopting copper alloy wafer, a crucial technology of silicon chip manufacturing, Trung T. Doan, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of LED chipmaker SemiLEDs...

By MICHELLE HSU After three decades of development, Taiwan’s LED industry has secured a leading position in the international market in terms of both manufacturing technology and production value. It currently commands a global market share of around 20%, trailing only Japan and equal to South Korea. The growing application of LED lighting products is expected to bring infinite business op...

By MICHELLE HSU After several rounds of negotiation, Taiwan and China finally signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), agreeing to cooperate in the LED, solar energy, and flat panel industries. The two sides will work together in creating industrial standards for these three emerging industries, which will serve as the foundation for future industrial cooperation. “It’s a crucial st...