Taiwan-based LED chipmaker Epistar plans to raise the efficiency of its DC LED to 150lm/W and AC LED to 130lm/W before 2012, according to the company.

The current luminous efficiency of Epistar's AC LED and DC LED is 70lm/W and 100lm/W respectively, market sources noted.

Epistar expects to start shipping AC LED chips later in the second quarter, and light bulbs using its AC LED chips will be introduced in the third quarter, the sources added.

For high-power blue LEDs, the company has successfully increased the light efficiency to 100lm/W and expects to start mass production later in the first half of 2009, the sources noted.