Semiconductor History | Nichia Anan — The Blue LED’s Bright Success and Bitter Patent Fight
· 1993-11
Personal memoryBy kevin · · updated · Report an issue
.jpg?width=1600)
Find memories left by people near you.
Distribute Bounty
This will distribute the bounty equally among all qualifying memories. This action cannot be undone.
Cancel Bounty
Are you sure you want to cancel this bounty? The remaining amount will be refunded to your account.
Success!
Operation completed successfully.
Error
Something went wrong.
Semiconductor History | Nichia Anan — The Blue LED’s Bright Success and Bitter Patent Fight
kevin
On November 29, 1993, Nichia announced its high-brightness blue light-emitting diode at a Tokyo press conference. The device had emerged from the company’s gallium-nitride work in Anan, where Nichia had begun developing metal-organic chemical-vapor-deposition equipment for blue LEDs in 1989.
Blue was the missing practical color. Red and green LEDs already existed, but an efficient blue source made full-color displays possible and, when combined with a phosphor, enabled bright white light. Nichia’s own chronology records volume production and sales of its high-luminous blue LED in 1993 and development of a white LED in 1996.
The good story is one of patient, contrarian industrial research. Gallium nitride was difficult to grow with useful crystal quality, yet a relatively small chemical company funded equipment, epitaxy, and device work long enough for Shuji Nakamura and his colleagues to turn laboratory progress into a manufacturable product. The Nobel Prize in Physics later recognized Nakamura together with Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano for the blue-LED breakthrough.
The bad story is the dispute over how a corporation should reward an employee-inventor. Nakamura sued Nichia in 2001 over compensation. A Tokyo District Court judgment in 2004 produced an enormous valuation, but the parties settled on appeal in 2005 for about ¥840 million covering a much wider group of inventions. The result became a national test case for Japan’s employee-invention system.
Neither side of that conflict erases the other. Nichia supplied capital, manufacturing discipline, co-workers, and a route to market; Nakamura supplied exceptional technical judgment and persistence. The commercial triumph exposed how poorly ordinary salary and bonus systems can describe a contribution that changes an industry.
This photograph shows Nichia’s present Anan headquarters campus, not the room used for the 1993 announcement or a preserved blue-LED laboratory. The pin marks the corporate site where the development program was based; the press conference itself took place in Tokyo.
Sources: [Nichia corporate history](https://www.nichia.co.jp/en/about_nichia/history.html); [Nobel Prize 2014 press release](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2014/press-release/); [Shuji Nakamura’s Nobel biography](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2014/nakamura/biographical/); [WIPO Magazine on Japan’s IP strategy](https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_121_2007_03.pdf); [University of Tokyo study of the blue-LED lawsuit](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/abas/13/6/13_299/_pdf).
Photo: Mti, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
changes?
delete this memory?
We detected that you have a Blox in your crypto wallet! We will import the Blox into your account.
Click on done below to complete the import.
Welcome Back!
Sign in to preserve cherished moments
Don't have an account?
Welcome!!
Sign up and start preserving cherished moments
?
?
Choose your payment method
Buy with Metablox Credit
Do you want to mint Blox with Metablox Credit?
Which Crypto would you like to use?
Purchase Confirmed!
Your Blox is being minted on-chain and will appear in your profile shortly.
Log in or sign up to claim your Blox.
How many credits do you want to buy?
$100 USD = 1 Metablox Credit = 1 Blox.
Use Metablox Credit to mint any Blox you want on the map.
expand_more