US Santa Barbara announced that the Regents of the University of California filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission and lawsuits against five major retailers, Walmart, Target, Ikea, Amazon.com and Bed Bath & Beyond, for the unauthorized distribution of UC Santa Barbara’s patented filament LED lighting technology. UC Santa Barbara and its legal counsel, Nixon Peabody, have identified that Walmart, Target, Ikea, Amazon.com and Bed Bath & Beyond as the five major retailers who represent a large cross-section of the...

LiDAR developer LeddarTech announces that its patent infringement case against Phantom Intelligence was settled favorably in the Federal Court of Canada. In December 2015 LeddarTech challenged Phantom Intelligence for the illegal use of its patented LiDAR sensing technology protected by Canadian Patent No. 2,710,212, entitled “Detection and Ranging Methods and Systems” and relating to systems and methods for acquiring an optical signal and converting it into a digital trace. The patent is a core driver of LeddarTech’s long-established intel...

Osram announced the financial results of fiscal 3Q19 which marked “no signs of business revival” for the company. The quarterly revenue dropped by 14.9% YoY to EUR 850 million (US$ 948.28 million). Its EBITA fell by 66.2% YoY with EUR 42 million (US$ 46.86 million). EBITDA adjusted for special items was EUR 58 million (US$ 64.72 million), which was down by 58% compared to previous year’s figure; net income amounted to minus EUR 35 million (US$ 39 million). All three business segment of Osram, Opto Semiconductors, Automotive a...

Pharmagreen Biotech, a Canadian biotech science company specialized in cannabis, announced that it will use Signify's Philips GreenPower LED Lighting for cannabis cultivation in its Cannabis Biotech Complex. The complex is a large-scale tissue culture production, research and storage facility of plantlets witch ensures the quality of Cannabis as medicine. The strategic supply partnership with Signify's Philips LED lighting technology adds the high-tech value and opens the door for future cooperation in advancing solutions for the tissue culture industry. ...

In April, China’s Sanan Optoelectronics announced its plan to increase investment in Micro LED and Mini LED wafer production in Hubei, China. The company kicked off the project construction on July 29th. Sanan plans to invest CNY 12 billion (US$ 1.74 billion) in the Micro/Mini LED project which the production and R&D area will take about 478 thousand square meters. The company said that the new center will focus on GaN wafer and GaAs wafer of Micro/Mini LED and package products for 4K display. The location of the constructing site i...

Nichia announced that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware against Global Value Lighting (GVL) a US-based manufacturer of LED lighting products. Meanwhile, the Japan-based LED maker also confirms its patent in China. In the lawsuit against Global Value Lighting (GVL), Nichia has asserted a filament LED patent, U.S. Patent No. 9,752,734, as well as 5 patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 6,337,493, 6,870,191, 7,345,297, 7,804,101 and 9,324,791) that cover the design of LED chips. N...

With the feature of local dimming, display adopting Mini LED backlights give a contrast effect similar to that of OLED displays. Many panel manufacturers see Mini LED backlight a strong competitor to OLED technology. Taiwan-based panel maker AUO has begun mass production of a 32-inch professional panel in 4Q18 and is currently working with its clients on 4K Mini LED notebook panels. The company plans to ship the new products by the end of 2019. AUO noted that Mini LED technology has been a core development of the company. Starting with niche applica...

Cyprus, the island country on the Mediterranean Sea, is on its way to improve energy efficiency by switching all conventional streetlights into LED. According to the report of CyprusMail, the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) has signed a contract to replace all existing lights in Larnaca. The contract will be executed by the end of August in 2019 with 1,500 streetlights switched to LED. The replacement is expected to save up to 67.56 percent of energy cost compared to current consumption. (image: Pixabay) Moreover, Yiangos Frangoulides, senior manager ...

Signify reported the financial results of the second quarter of 2019 and announced that it has agreed to buy a 51% share of Klite Lighting, a China-based LED luminaires manufacturer. Signify registered sales of EUR 1.477 billion (US$ 1.65 billion) with an on-year decrease of 6.1%. LED-based sales increased by 0.2%, accounting for 77% of total revenue. The adjusted gross margin declined by 20 bps to 37.7% due to lower sales volumes and price erosion, largely offset by ongoing procurement savings. Adjusted EBITA amounted to EUR 133 million (US$ 148.22 million) co...

Semiconductor equipment provider AIXTRON revealed its financial results for the first half and the second quarter of 2019. The 1H19 revenue of AIXTRON increased by 12% YoY to EUR 132 million (US$147.11 million), gross profit also grew by 4% YoY to EUR 52.4 million (US$ 58.4 million) despite that its order intake dropped by 36% YoY to EUR 98.3 million (US$109.22 million). AIXTRON noted that customer’s reluctance to invest in production expansion due to the ongoing US-China trade dispute has led to order intake decrease for the first ...

LiDAR sensor provider Ouster announced its partnership with food delivery firm Postmates. The LiDAR company will provider its Ouster OS1 LiDAR sensor for use in Postmates’ latest autonomous delivery rover, Serve. The Ouster OS1 LiDAR is a 64-channel sensor based on complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology, enabling Serve to seamlessly and safely navigate sidewalks, detect pedestrians, and interact with the community. Combining Postmates’ patented Socially-Aware-Navigation system with Ouster’s multi-beam flash lidar ...

Heliospectra, the Sweden-based intelligent horticulture lighting technology provider, announces the formation of Heliospectra Japan and the opening of a new Tokyo, Japan office in July 2019. The Japan Office will be operated under the leadership of General Manager Yasuhiro Suzuki, providing Heliospectra’s integrated LED and lighting control solution to Japan’s plant factories and vertical farms. As Japan’s plant factories and controlled environment farms create new demand for light control and horticultural LED lighting integrations as well a...

UK-based wafer supplier IQE announced that it has started initial VCSEL production for a second major customer at its Newport Mega Foundry. The products will serve the Android supply chains and several more in advanced stages of qualification. The company noted that performance data from the Newport Foundry has exceeded previously attained performance levels, and several new qualifications are now in long term reliability testing. As a result, IQE has signed a contract extension with one of its largest VCSEL customers, extending the current contract until the...

Nanotechnology development company UbiQD announced an optical fiber-coupled luminescent concentrator technology as a new tool for optimizing light in controlled environments, enabling light-guiding to future UbiGro™ spectrum-control greenhouse products. "We continue to push the envelope with light optimization in greenhouses," said Dr. Hunter McDaniel, CEO of UbiQD. "One exciting potential use case is in vertical farming, where you could use our quantum dot-based luminescent fibers to harvest sunlight and optimally transmit that energy to multiple la...

Sensor maker ams once again changed its mind for the Osram takeover plan. The company said on July 23rd that decided to re-evaluate a potential transaction with Osram after ams talked with its potential financial partners. ams reported last week that it did not see “sufficient basis” for continuous talking with Osram one day after the German company announced in public ams’ takeover approach. ams has proposed an offer of EUR 38.5 (US$42.9) per share for acquiring Osram. However, the Austrian company now said that after discussion with potential financial p...

Lumileds announced on July 23rd that the Superior Court of California has issued permanent Injunction against Elec-Tech International (ETI) for misappropriation of trade secrets, prohibiting ETI and its affiliates from using, disclosing, licensing, or selling Lumileds’ epitaxy technology trade secrets. The injunction also prohibits ETI from manufacturing, distributing, importing, exporting, or selling any products that use certain of ETI’s own epitaxy growth recipes that the jury concluded were produced using Lumileds’ trade secrets. In August...

Celebrating Macroblock’s20th anniversary and facing the rise of 5G era, Macroblock this year helds a whole day symposium with interesting topics regarding 5G era LED displays and HDR challenges and solutions. Furthermore, the demonstration zones also roll out advanced LED display technologies for the 2nd half of 2019. Fig.1 Comprehensive LED display solution demos at Macroblock’s Symposium Macroblock spreads outthe demo zones into 4 zones: 1. 5G Future-High Frame Rate Demo 2.Highly-integrated LED Display Driver IC Demo 3. 16-Channel L...

LEDs can be lit on by urine without electricity! A Japanese professor developed a fuel cell which can be powered by urea, a component of urine, to light up LEDs. The approach would offer light source when being in places without electricity such as in the mountains or in times of disaster. The Japan News reported that Keiichi Kaneto, a visiting professor at the Osaka Institute of Technology, created an electricity generable sheet which contains an alloy of copper and nickel and was coated by resin. The sheep reacted to urine drops and could then illuminate a small blue L...

Velodyne Lidar announced the acquisition of Mapper.ai, a mapping and localization software developer. Velodyne Lidar aims to leverage Mapper technology to accelerate development of Vella™, the software that establishes its directional view Velarray™ lidar sensor. The Velarray is the first solid-state LiDAR sensor that is embeddable and fits behind a windshield, as an integral component for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Mapper’s entire leadership and engineering teams will join Velodyne, bolstering the company’s growing software deve...

Seoul Semiconductor announced the results of a series of experiments that demonstrated a higher growth rate and higher flavonol (a type of antioxidant) content in crops grown under SunLike Series natural spectrum LEDs than those grown under standard white LEDs. The experiments were conducted on lettuce using SunLike Series LED lighting and standard white LED lighting of the same color temperature and light intensity. After two weeks of crop growth, the fresh weight and flavonol content of the lettuce were measured and compared. The fresh weight of lettuce grown unde...

Nichia announced that it has filed patent infringement lawsuits in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on July 19, 2019 against Lighting Science Group (LSG), a US-based manufacturer of LED lighting products, as well as its affiliates, Health and VividGro. In its lawsuits, Nichia has asserted 13 patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 6,838,693, 7,348,602, 7,750,337, 8,120,057, 8,309,375, 8,309,948, 8,344,402, 8,530,250, 8,728,916, 8,796,721, 9,444,011, 9,865,773 and 10,276,751) against the three entities. The patents cover various manufactur...

LED technology enables a wider range of lighting applications, including various types of luminaires. A German company, LUCEM, created a material of light-emitting concrete which is made of layers of transmitting optical fibers. The material allows designers to break the limitation of luminaires for more flexible and creative architecture and interior design. (Image: LUCEM) The products are mixture of fine concrete and optical fibers. The company used thousands of fine optical fibers that are only 0.5 mm diameter, put them layers by layers with the specially designed...

The rumors of Apple using Micro LED in its Apple Watch continue. This time, it was said that the strategic appliance of Taiwan’s PlayNitride and RiTdisplay will provide their Micro LED technologies including chips and display modules for the Apple Watch, according to the report of Taiwan’s Economy Daily News. PlayNitride’s expertise is Micro LED technology has been recognized by worldwide partners. At SID 2019, PlayNitride showcased a 7.65-inch full color transparent Micro LED display, a flexible Micro LED display and a wearabl...

UV LEDs cover a wide range of applications including light curing, medical treatment and disinfection. And now, UV LEDs are put on drones to spew UV light in subway stations and trains for sanitization. An online magazine, Yanko Design, reported that Korean designers at Off Garage Studio created a UV LED integrated drone as a “space care system,” providing autonomous sterilization service. Equipped with sensors and UVC LEDs, the drone is designed to flies smoothly around the station and emits UV LED light in the subways to efficiently and e...

Unity Semiconductor (UnitySC), the France-based semiconductor inspection solution provider, announced that it has demonstrate the capability of detecting topographic defects on GaAs wafers for VCSEL in LiDAR and 3D recognition applications. On top of common Surface Scanning Inspection Systems (SSIS) and Automatic Optical Inspection (AOI) systems, UnitySC noted that it is able to find out defects that are not visible on standard optical inspection systems. These defects do not scatter or absorb light, and can only be revealed by their topography but the...

Casambi, the expert in wireless lighting controls based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), has teamed up with Seoul Semiconductor to provide lighting designers with precision control of LED lights that match the spectrum of sunlight. The development puts true human centric lighting in the hands of designers for the first time. Casambi’s wireless control technology can now be used with Seoul Semiconductor’s innovative SunLike Series LEDs, whose spectra match to real sunlight, to realize human centric lighting. “Human-centric lighting” describes...

Scientists at Linkoping University working with colleagues from China have shown how to achieve efficient perovskite LEDs. In an article published in Nature Communications, they provide guidelines on fabricating high-quality perovskite light emitters for high-efficiency perovskite LEDs. Since solution-processed perovskites contain large amounts of defects, which are mostly halide vacancies, efficient control of the perovskite crystallinity is required for high-performance optoelectronic devices. The research group at LiU, under the leadership of Senior Lecturer Feng G...

Automotive applications including exterior/interior lighting and displays are the targeted area of several LED companies. Rising development of alternative fuel vehicles and self-driving technology push the deployment of LEDs in automobile as the features of higher lifetime and lower energy consumption have become even more critical. As results, several Taiwan-based LED companies have deepened their engagement in automotive LED applications, focusing lighting, sensing technology and display. Tesla supplier EOI continues to expand its automotive product portfolio and...

Smart glasses and AR devices have been targeted by Micro LED display technology and were considered to be the first applications entering the market. Previously LEDinside has collected news about Apple’s patent applications related to Micro LED and AR smart glasses. However, rumors said that Apple might have dropped its AR glasses project. Apple’s project of AR/VR headset development might have been suspended due to immature capability of building 5G connectivity and data, according to the report of Digitimes. The report said that the team was dis...

Osram announced that it Austrian company ams has approached with the interest of a public takeover of Osram with a value of EUR 38.50 (US$ 43.36) per share. However, right after Osram’s announcement, ams decided to withdraw the offer as the company did not see “sufficient basis” for continually talking with Osram. According to Osram, ams showed the interest of acquiring Osram by EUR 38.5 per share. The announcement noticed that to support the offer, ams will need a temporary bridge-loan facility of EUR 4.2 billion (US$ 4.73 billion) and a capital i...