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Special Supplement: LED maker, Samsung cooperation

By Te Kan (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-05 07:58

Freescale Semiconductor and Samsung Electronics, a world leader in display technology, have announced collaborative efforts to advance the burgeoning market for energy-saving and environmentally friendly light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

"Freescale's LED backlight driver technology is the industry's most compact and integrated solution," said Arman Naghavi, vice-president and general manager of Freescale's Analog, Mixed-Signal and Power Division. "Our collaboration with Samsung on LED backlighting - clearly a disruptive technology - will help spur further innovation and growth in the liquid crystal display (LCD) market."

Freescale began sampling its LED display technology to Samsung last December and introduced the first LED backlight products in its portfolio of standard power management intergrated circuits (ICs) in September.

Since 2007, Samsung has successfully launched award-winning products featuring its ultra high-contrast active control LED backlight technology.

According to IMS Research, the market for semiconductors used in backlighting applications, including LED driver ICs, is expected to grow from $1.1 billion in 2008 to $2 billion in 2012.

"In notebooks in particular, rapid growth is widely expected from 2008 to 2010," said Jamie Fox, a market research analyst for IMS Research.

Freescale plans to announce LED backlighting solutions for LCD TVs in the first half of next year. Also in 2009, the company intends to pursue the automotive, commercial and residential LED lighting markets, which are expected to eventually dwarf the LCD TV market.

(China Daily 11/05/2008 page12)