The Nichia Corporation (日亜化学工業株式会社, Nichia Kagaku Kōgyō Kabushiki-gaisha?) is a Japanese chemical manufacturing company that is most widely known for producing phosphors, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
The founder was Nobuo Ogawa (小川 信雄,1912-2002). The family name of Nobuo Ogawa is "Ogawa", which literally means a small river. He founded the company Nichia in 1956. One of his famous decisions was to support Shuji Nakamura (1954- ) to do research on gallium nitride light-emitting diodes when it was generally considered a very risky business. It turned out to be a great success. However, the company achieved a certain amount of notoriety for a bonus of 20,000 Yen (-US$180) given to Shuji Nakamura for his invention of the first high brightness blue-light LED, which was based on gallium nitride. They later settled out of court with him for 840 million Yen (-US$7 million) in what was the highest bonus ever awarded by a Japanese company.
After Nobuo Ogawa, the company was headed by Eiji Ogawa (小川英治, son-in-law of Nobuo Ogawa). Nichia Corporation's competitors include Seoul Semiconductor, Cree Inc. and Philips Lumileds Lighting Company.
In January, 2006, Nichia launched a lawsuit against rival LED manufacturer Seoul Semiconductor, alleging design patent infringement.[1]
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