May 22, 2005...Our Sr. Technology Editor and longtime industry veteran, Dr. Alan Thompson, not only helped organize BLUE 2005, he was there in Taiwan all week gathering the news and filed the following report. I want to publicly thank Alan, Bob Walker and his staff at YEBY Associates, and my partner, Tom Griffiths, President and CEO of CompoundSemi Online. They all did a terrific job making this the best BLUE ever. The hard part will be topping themselves next year! We'll be reporting details of the meet over the next few weeks, but this overall report from Alan is a must read. ---Jo Ann McDonald

Just completed, BLUE 2005 was held in Hsinchu, Taiwan, May 16-18, 2005. This year’s theme, "LED Technologies Driving the Solid State Lighting Revolution" lived up to expectations by covering the world markets for HB-LEDs, reviewing various national solid state lighting programs and looking at emerging technologies and applications. Three of the talks addressed IP and financial market issues, a new and newsworthy topic this year.

The meeting was opened by co-chairs Dr Y.S.Liu of ITRI, Dr Robert Walker of YEBY Associates, and Dr Y.M Yu of KOPTI (standing in for Dr Tae-Il Kim who was unable to attend at the last minute). The lead speaker, one of four keynoters, was Dr Robert Steele of Strategies Unlimited, who gave his usual detailed and well documented account of the worldwide HB-LED marketplace. Key points were a slowing growth rate in revenues as the cell phone market matures, falling ASPs generally, and new markets opening but not quickly enough to keep CAGRs in the 30 to 40% range. The outlook remains upbeat however with solid state lighting promising some huge markets a few years out. Asif Anwar of Strategy Analytics focused his talk on short wavelength laser diodes. While the overall market is currently quite small and split among a variety of applications, he predicts rapid growth (CAGR of 97%) dominated by next generation DVD using violet (405 nm) GaN based devices.

The analyst talks were followed by detailed country reviews for Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China. Taiwan continues to grow its dominant market share, while Korea and China both show strong improvement. All have national programs with similar broad goals of enabling general solid state lighting over the next decade. Especially exciting was the appearance of China's Wu Ling, General Secretary of the China SSL Alliance, because it was her first trip to Taiwan from Beijing.

George Mueller, Founding Chairman and CEO of Color Kinetics, gave the second keynote with an inspiring look at both his company and his view of the future of lighting. They have concentrated on the upper part of the lighting pyramid (high value, niche volume), starting with color. He reported that LED based systems have now become accepted as the best performers in this segment, and gave numerous examples. They are now addressing the similar markets for white. The achievement of 100 lm/W efficiencies, already shown in R&D, will make white LED systems very attractive to designers and result in much broader adoption. He sees this happening in the 2007-9 time frame. He gave the audience his list of 7 "must have" properties if they are to successfully address this market.

Dr Volker Haerle (Osram Opto Semiconductors) addressed the newer markets opening up for HB-LEDs, most of which need high power, from a producer’s perspective. The largest are automobile exterior lighting, including headlamps, LCD backlighting and projection systems. Brent York (TIR Systems) concentrated on the architectural and lighting applications from a system manufacturer’s viewpoint, and also detailed the new Lexel technology, which was recently disclosed in these pages. The latter takes a big step toward a self contained "standard" subsystem that can be used by luminaire manufacturers who then don’t need detailed knowledge of LEDs but can still design and build products that will perform predictably and reliably. Dr H.S.Chung of Dongbu Anam Semiconductor gave a comprehensive survey of applications being addressed by Korean companies in particular, with LCD backlighting showing strong growth.

The audience was particularly excited to hear from another keynoter, Ms Patricia Martone, of the Fish and Neave IP group of the law firm Ropes and Gray. It is difficult to get a lawyer to discuss the topic of IP openly, so Patricia’s presentation was unusual and informative. She talked about litigation in the semiconductor industry in general and then zeroed in on the LED arena, talking about the pros and cons of patents, cross-licensing and litigation. Everyone in the room had an interest in these issues and we appreciated her openness. Talks by Hans Mosesmann of Moors and Cabot and Jed Dorsheimer of Adams Harkness and Hill, addressed industry and IP issues from the investment and financial analysts’ perspectives. They brought up many issues and enlightened the attendees, most of whom were from LED producing and consuming companies. Our news and editorial people will be reviewing these IP-related talks in more detail in the coming weeks in these pages.

The conference closed with several talks covering the technology and applications of high power and white LEDs, including epi materials, phosphors, and packaging. These reinforced earlier speakers’ predictions of a growing number of applications for higher power devices, particularly white, and the huge promise of solid state lighting coming closer each year, fueled by advances in performance and cost. Two companies, Intematix and Phosphor Tech, introduced new phosphors, offering a path for newer device manufacturers to avoid cross-licensing or litigation problems with more established players. Developments such as these can only help expand the field and help grow markets

For those who attended BLUE 2005, it was a wonderful opportunity to hear industry leaders talk about markets and technology and to network with the movers and shakers. All the speakers, sponsors and exhibitors deserve our thanks for helping make this year's event be even more successful than BLUE 2004. If you couldn’t make it this year, be sure to start making plans to be in Hsinchu next May for BLUE 2006!

Alan Thompson, Senior Technology Editor