Falling prices to kill off half of Chinese LED chipmakers

In China, surplus capacity and sliding prices are sounding the death knell for half of the companies making light emitting diode (LED) chips used in Samsung television panels and Sharp computer monitors, with only the large, state-backed players likely to pull through.Sluggish global sales of TVs and computers may further cut LED chip prices by 20 percent this year, and consolidation or closure are the only options for China's smaller LED players, analysts say.By contrast, Sanan Optoelectronics Co Ltd, China's top LED chipmaker with a market value of $2.8 billion, and Elec-Tech International Co Ltd will be among a handful of large companies that will survive as they continue to receive subsidies and incentives from the government, according to analysts."That's China's strategy. They want their biggest companies to survive" in this restructuring, Nomura analyst Anne Lee said.
For the majority of LED firms, the government is slowly rolling back incentives, including tax breaks, free land and more than $1.6 billion in cash to buy LED chip-making equipment, that had helped sustain the industry for more than three years.Mighty Bright Showcases Brilliant Line of LED Book Lights and Task Lights at 2012.Proview International, whose Shenzhen-based unit is battling Apple Inc over the iPad trademark in China, is grappling with slumping LED prices and fierce competition that have dragged down earnings for other LED companies including Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics Co and Foshan Nationstar Optoelectronics.
Hangzhou Silan fell 2.9 percent to 10.10 yuan in Shanghai trading on Friday, while Foshan dropped 1 percent to 8.10 yuan on the Shenzhen exchange. The stocks were down more than 30 percent in the past year.Many LED companies are operating their factories at 50 percent capacity in China, with up to half of the 700 or so chip-making machines purchased with government money during the boom years in 2009 and 2010 left idle, industry watchers say.
In the past year, overcapacity has shut hundreds of small Chinese makers of LED lighting, according to analysts."China's financial policy is not giving enough support to mid-tier and smaller enterprises," said Bao En Zhong, executive vice chairman of the semiconductor lighting association in Shenzhen, one of China's largest production bases for LED lighting. "We may see more factory closures."

Noribachi's Brightest LED Lighting Yet Makes Subaru of Glendale Shine With Style

Noribachi announces the successful installation of high performance, ultra bright LED lighting at Subaru of Glendale's new outdoor show lots. Subaru of Glendale now boasts a formidable array of 20 pole-mounted floodlights that each consume only a little more power than three 100W household bulbs. These floodlights, however, are Noribachi's brightest installation yet, as powerful as traditional outdoor stadium lights, which are huge energy guzzlers at 1,300W.Noribachi announces the successful installation of high performance, ultra bright LED lighting at Subaru of Glendale's new outdoor show lots. Dealer Principal Sam Ershadi recently expanded into the property next door to the existing dealership in order to increase the dealership's exterior show lot space. The new property acquisition also facilitated the construction of a stylish new showroom dedicated to showcasing Subaru's performance vehicles.Prior to expanding into the new space, Subaru of Glendale had been largely eclipsed by the building that occupied the adjacent property. The show lot was small and poorly lit with only two lights.
Ershadi didn't need to be convinced of the importance of light. In fact, his only concern was whether or not he would be able to find lighting that met his exacting standards for brightness and color, yet also remained financially viable. Ershadi's appreciation of lighting was evident in his participation of the entire lighting design process, from insisting on the brightest bulbs to precisely positioning the lights at the dealership.
It was after viewing Noribachi's LA-headquartered manufacturing facilities (entirely illuminated by Noribachi LED solutions) that Ershadi was instantly sold on the quality and luminous output of Noribachi light. As a result, Subaru of Glendale now boasts a formidable array of 20 pole-mounted floodlights that each consume only a little more power than three 100W household bulbs. These floodlights, however, are Noribachi's brightest installation yet, as powerful as traditional outdoor stadium lights, which are huge energy guzzlers at 1,300W.Ershadi installed Noribachi's elegant and classically minimalist LED shoebox fixtures. The alternative, retrofitting an existing fixture, is also a solution Noribachi offers. In the case of Subaru of Glendale, new construction made retrofitting a moot point. Even during the waning hours, the sleek luminaires, tilted at precise angles to maximize light within the lot's boundaries, fill the twilight with a welcoming aura befitting a dealership that prides itself on standing out.

Mighty Bright Showcases Brilliant Line of LED Book Lights and Task Lights at 2012

Mighty Bright, designer and manufacturer of innovative LED book lights and task lights, will showcase new additions to their line of eco-friendly LED lights at the National Stationery Show, May 20-23, 2012. Mighty Bright will exhibit its newest products in booth #1105 at the Javits Center in New York City.Park visitation has increased from roughly 30,000 in 1999, Beckley's inaugural year, to 150,000 in 2011. This steady growth is at least partly attributable to new attractions, from the alpine coaster that speeds down the mountainside to the giant swing that launches visitors high over Glenwood Canyon.
Providing both portable and permanent energy-efficient lighting solutions, the new products solidify Mighty Bright's reputation as an innovative LED lighting company. Uniquely designed for a variety of low-light environments, LED lights exemplify Mighty Bright's commitment to provide personal lighting solutions that are modern, functional, and versatile.Streamlined and sophisticated, the LUX Dome Task Light is functional, eco-friendly, and embodies a simple aesthetic elegance, compromising neither form nor function. The LUX Dome provides accent and essential lighting in the home, office and at school, complementing all décor. The light's solid construction and metal components are durable and long lasting, as are the LEDs that cast brilliant white light.Acuity Brands, Inc : Triumphs at Major LED Lighting Awards Competitions.Its colorful dome head swivels 360-degrees — perfect for lighting all living spaces including studies, bedrooms, home offices, art studios, dorm rooms and living rooms.
The HammerHead is Mighty Bright's brightest LED book and personal light yet. The HammerHead LED Book Light packs a bright punch in its small, lightweight frame. Its six powerful LEDS last 100,000 hours, and its two brightness levels light your favorite book — and just about anything else. Point the light bar, press and illuminate!Mighty Bright's stylish compact eFlex eReader light is made for avid digital readers, and constructed to fit all eReaders. The interior of its clip curves to hug an eReader's edge, so it attaches securely without intruding on the screen. It only takes one earth-friendly LED to bathe a digital screen in the eFlex's crystal-clear light.Mighty Bright's new 2012 colors refresh their bestselling book lights. Plus, the original XtraFlex LED Book Light is now available in two vivid multicolored designs. Rebates are available to Garfield County residents and business owners who make energy-saving improvements to their properties — anything from changing the light bulbs to insulating the attic to buying a super-efficient washer or dryer.

Acuity Brands, Inc : Triumphs at Major LED Lighting Awards Competitions

Acuity Brands, Inc. received an unprecedented 11 prominent industry awards, including prestigious "Best in Class" designation, for its newest commercial and industrial indoor and outdoor LED lighting solutions during last week's LIGHTFAIRR International 2012 trade show.  Acuity Brands was the most honored LED lighting luminaire manufacturer.The Company led the Next Generation Luminaires(TM) (NGL) Solid State Lighting Design Competition, winning a total of six awards for its LED indoor ambient and industrial lighting products, including "Best in Class" honors for the Lithonia LightingR ST Series luminaire. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, and the International Association of Lighting Designers, the NGL contest was launched in 2008 to promote excellence in the design of energy-efficient LED luminaires for general illumination in commercial lighting applications.
In addition, Acuity Brands was honored with five awards for its indoor and outdoor LED lighting luminaires as part of the 2012 Solid-State Lighting Product Innovation Awards from Architectural SSL magazine, which were presented during Lightfair 2012. The awards identify and honor the market's most innovative LED and solid-state luminaires and fixtures as selected by a group of distinguished industry peers."We are honored to be recognized by our industry peers with 11 prestigious awards for our indoor and outdoor LED lighting solutions," said Rick Earlywine, Acuity Brands Lighting Senior Vice President, Innovation & Technology. "The significance and number of awards proves yet again why Acuity Brands is the leading lighting company in North America.  We are committed to providing smart and simple solutions that deliver the best quality of lighting for a better quality of life. These industry honors clearly recognize that our innovative high-performance luminaires with integrated digital controls solutions are effectively increasing the quality of light, reducing maintenance and energy requirements, improving sustainability and lowering the total cost of operation."Our ongoing goal is to envision and create lighting solutions that customers both need and want; solutions that are not only high quality, reliable and affordable, but are also innovative, integrated and aesthetically pleasing," said Earlywine.

Most popular assortment of LED lamp

LED lights have become popular throughout the world and continues to fill the market. LED lights are the most economical use of electricity, thus bulb life 25 times longer than incandescent bulbs. Lamps are safe because they do not exist vennogo-heating, no spurious, poisonous materials are not used-ly. Easily installed in an electrical circuit. The level of brightness of LED lamps is constantly growing, thanks to the development, thereby LED lamps can be used as the primary light source.LED flood light bulbs with E27 base are used as sources of light power LEDs from 3 to 17 Tues Are analogous to halogen lamps E27 directional lighting, but have a distinctive feature, such as long life (minimum of 20,000 hours), high luminous efficiency and a decrease Niemi pollution. LED lamps are used for this series aktsentratsii light and light-tion sites.
LED lamps with E14 socket creation-HN to replace conventional incandescent lamps with socket E14. The difference from conventional lamps, these lamps are not heated, have a longer lifetime (40,000 hours) and very low power consumption of 3 to 12 watts. At the same time in power, they are not inferior to 25-40 watt incandescent lamps, of.Lightning Could Shed Light on Solar System's Origins.Norton Lamps have a corps of three colors: black, metallic, gold, and the flask: transparent and opaque. That lets the lamps to choose virtually any existing chandelier.LED lamps with base GU5.3 use very efficient light-emitting diodes from 2 to 6 5 watts. Can replace traditional halogen lamps MR16, which are located in homes and offices today, as they have an exceptionally strong long-lasting (at least 20 000 hours), you sokoy-light output. These LED lamps have a very wide range of application, including for display lighting and decorative lighting.
LED lamps based on light-emitting diodes with base GU10, housing MR16, are cost-effective replacement of fluorescent lamps. Have low energy consumptiontion, a high resistance to mechanical impact anyone. The service life of 50,000 hours. GU10 LED lamps are widely used in illumination of the interior, they oc-broadcast: offices, windows, hallways, bathrooms, offices, as well as in furniture manufacture.Plants need a certain spectrum of light for photosynthesis, which depends on their rapid growth. But under natural illumination SRI is not every plant gets the necessary quality and quantity of my luminous flux, so a series of LED lamps for plants and functions as the sun provides plants with a luminous flux of a certain wavelength in the correct proportions. LED lamps for plants combine two wavelengths, consisting of 8 units of red light and one of the blue.

LED lights seek to uncrown 100-watt bulb

General Electric today introduced a 100-watt equivalent LED bulb which is the clearest example yet of how high-tech lighting has become.The company's Energy Smart LED bulb consumes 27 watts to give off the same amount of light as a 100-watt incandescent lamp. It will be released in the first half of next year. The price has not yet been set. GE's announcement, made at the Light Fair industry conference in Las Vegas, shows how lighting manufacturers have finally cracked one of the toughest challenges in LED lighting -- making lamps able to give off a lot of light in all directions. Philips today also introduced its 100-watt equivalent, as did Sylvania; both products are extensions of existing product lines and are due this summer.
One of the primary barriers to LED lamps breaking past 1,500-lumen brightness is heat. The waste heat produced by LED lamps can degrade the long life they promise, which is why most LED lamps rely on a heat sink for cooling.For GE's 100-watt equivalent, the company uses an active "synthetic jet" cooling technology from Nuventix that creates a steady air flow inside the lamp. Within the bulb is a small chamber where a diaphragm oscillates and stirs up air currents. As that turbulent air exits the chamber, it pulls hot air from the LED light sources and creates a cooling air current."We now have a clear path to attaining even higher light levels, which will give customers more energy-efficient lighting options in both commercial and residential settings," said Steve Briggs, general manager of LED Systems at GE Lighting.
Having bright, omnidirectional bulbs marks another achievement for LED technology which has progressed over the past two years to the point where LED bulbs now compete with other technologies, including halogens and compact florescent lights, for general lighting, rather than niche uses like spotlights or flashlights.Price, though, remains a challenge for broader consumer acceptance, even though LEDs pay for themselves in energy savings over their lifetime. Depending on the brightness, general-purpose LED lamps range from under $20 to $50 for Philip's high-end LPrize LED. GE's 9-watt LED bulb, designed to replace a 40-watt incandescent, is priced at about $50 but is available for $36 on Amazon.The push for more efficient bulbs in the U.S. stems from a 2007 law requiring higher efficiency starting in the 100-watt incandenscent bulb category.

Lightning Could Shed Light on Solar System's Origins

Every second, lightning flashes some 50 times on Earth. Together these discharges coalesce and get stronger, creating electromagnetic waves circling around Earth, to create a beating pulse between the ground and the lower ionosphere, about 60 miles up in the atmosphere. This electromagnetic signature, known as Schumann Resonance, had only been observed from Earth's surface until, in 2011, scientists discovered they could also detect it using NASA's Vector Electric Field Instrument (VEFI) aboard the U.S. Air Force's Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite.
In a paper published on May 1 in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers describe how this new technique could be used to study other planets in the Solar System as well, and even shed light on how the Solar System formed. Studying the origin and evolution of our solar system is important for astrobiologists who are trying to understand how the Earth developed into a habitable planet.LED Lighting Company Solid Apollo Introduces a Revolution of Solderless LED Strip.This information could shed light on the origin of life on Earth, and the potential for habitable, Earthlike worlds in the Universe.
"The frequency of Schumann Resonance depends not only on the size of the planet but on what kinds of atoms and molecules exist in the atmosphere because they change the electrical conductivity," says Fernando Simoes, the first author on this paper and a space scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. "So we could use this technique remotely, say from about 600 miles above a planet's surface, to look at how much water, methane and ammonia is there."
Water, methane and ammonia are collectively referred to as "volatiles" and the fact that there are different amounts on different planets is a tantalizing clue to the way the planets formed. Determining the composition of a planet's atmosphere can be done with a handful of other techniques -- techniques that are quite accurate, but can only measure specific regions. By looking at the Schumann Resonance, however, one can get information about the global density of, say, water around the entire planet. Simoes and his colleagues believe that combining this technique with other instruments on a spacecraft's visit to a planet could provide a more accurate inventory of the planet's atmosphere. "And if we can get a better sense of the abundance of these kinds of atoms in the outer planets," says Simoes, "We would know more about the abundance in the original nebula from which the Solar System evolved."

LED Lighting Company Solid Apollo Introduces a Revolution of Solderless LED Strip

North Seattle LED Lighting Company Solid Apollo introduces a simple and progressive way to connect LED strips by launching a product line of durable Snap and Lite Easy Connectors. These state-of-the-art adaptors, joiners and connectors fit every LED strip on the market. These new products will enable electrical contractors, architects, lighting designers, and interior designers to quickly and easily install LED lighting systems. Now you can achieve solderless electrical connections in just seconds.
Solid Apollo is committed to bringing customers new cutting edge products in an effort to make LED Strip installations easier to design and implement. With that in mind, it is no surprise that Solid Apollo has once again solved several difficult obstacles encountered when installing linear LED Lighting systems. In the past, installers had to solder connections in order to customize individual projects, this took a lot of time and specific skills to achieve.With the new Snap&Lite Easy Connector Accessories from Solid Apollo, it is finally easy to power up, splice and re-connect LED Strip Lights. These accessories make it easier to negotiate corners, re-power pre-cut strips, and configure an LED Strip installation in a variety of ways. These connectors are the first of their kind and offer a vast improvement over the old alternative that required cumbersome soldering skills.   
"Our aim is to constantly design new product solutions that solve every day issues for our clients. We are always creating new accessories that can save time and energy for anyone using LED Light Strips" states Solid Apollo's President, Manuel Barquin.The Snap&Lite LED Strip Lighting Accessories offer a wide range of solutions: LED Strip Joiners enable users to join two pieces of strip seamlessly, LED Strip Interconnectors are perfect to use when going around corners or to change the angle of installation and LED Strip Power Adaptors make it easy to re-power any cut strip. These accessories are available for 8mm, 10mm and RGB LED Strips.About Solid Website: Solid Apollo is a cutting edge LED Lighting Company which designs, produces and distributes a wide range of High Quality LED Lighting Products and lighting solutions to meet today's ongoing, new generation, lighting demands.New, innovative Cree MicroMixing Optics are formed from thousands of tiny impressions imprinted on the state-of-the-art highly reflective polymer material. Unlike direct-view LED solutions, this multi-faceted pattern blends and softens the intense light and redirects it with precise control and color mixing. The result is beautifully balanced white light with optimal distribution within the desired area.