Japan Semiconductor Innovation 50     (D-17 1990s)

Nichia succeeded in developing a high-brightness GaN/InGaN blue LED and released the world’s first bright blue LED in 1993. The LEDs have been used in displays, traffic signals, and illuminations in the world.
Nichia developed phosphor-based white LEDs that encapsulated InGaN blue LEDs inside yellow phosphor (YAG:Ce) coated epoxy in 1996. The white LEDs were applied to back light in liquid crystal displays (LCD), and are rapidly replacing light-bulbs and fluorescent lamps. The white LEDs are considered to be a dream light source in 21st century.
Nichia also succeeded in room temperature continuous oscillation of a GaN/AlGaN blue-violet multi-quantum-well (MQW) laser in 1999. Later, Sony, Toshiba, Sharp, and other Japanese manufacturers followed Nichia to release lasers which were able to emit blue-violet light with output power of more than 100-mW. The lasers were adopted in home-use blue ray (BD) disk recorders, released from Sony in 2003.
Nichia’s GaN blue LED initiated and drove an explosive development of new markets for illumination and optical disk industries in the world.

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Photo reference 1: Source of photo
“High brightness blue InGaN/GaN light emitting diode on nonpolar m-plane bulk GaN substrate” J. J. A. P., vol. 46, pp. L960-L962, (2007)