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Nichia and Osram Opto enter licensing agreement

Nichia's tough stance on licensing has softened further with the announcement that it is entering into a cross-licensing agreement with Osram Opto that will also settle their dispute over patents for GaN-based LED technology.
Nichia and Osram Opto Semiconductors have announced that they are to enter into a patent cross-licensing agreement covering GaN/InGaN-based optoelectronic devices and related packaging technology. The agreement resolves all pending patent disputes between the two companies in Japan, Europe and the USA.

The legal dispute arose over the basic technology for the manufacture of LEDs and lasers and also the phosphor converters used to generate white light from LEDs. Both companies have considerable experience in white LED technology and hold a large amount of intellectual property in the area.

“We are sure that both partners will profit from this agreement as the patent dispute had brought an air of uncertainty to the market,” said Rudiger Muller, CEO of Osram Opto Semiconductors.

"Nichia and Osram Opto Semiconductors are both pioneers of the InGaN market, particularly for white LEDs," said Noboru Tazaki, senior managing director and general manager of Nichia s optoelectronics products division. "This cross license with Osram Opto Semiconductors complements Nichia s fundamental technology base, enabling us to make better products for our customers."

In the past, Nichia has taken a tough line on the licensing of its technology, preferring to keep the manufacture and packaging of its LED chips in-house. Earlier this year Nichia agreed to sell blue LED chips to Citizen Electronics in Japan and also licensed its packaging technology to Citizen to enable them to mass produce blue LEDs (see related story).

The high bandgap GaN/InGaN material system is the basis for blue, green, and white light LEDs, as well as blue and violet laser diodes. Typical applications for Gan/InGaN LEDs include full color outdoor video displays, LCD backlighting for cell phones, green traffic signal lamps, color image scanners, and automobile instrument panels. GaN/InGaN laser diodes are currently used in medical devices and will soon replace red laser diodes in the next generation of high data density DVDs.

White LEDs are created by converting blue emission from an LED using a thin coat of phosphor. As blue light produced by the die passes through the phosphor coating, a portion of the blue light is down-converted to yellow light. This yellow light mixes with the remaining blue light from the die to create bright white light.

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