The developments and progresses of Micro LED have been under spotlight for years with researchers in the industry and the academic field working in related technologies. Worldwide researchers have also applied patents for their technology achievements and breakthroughs to protect their intellectual properties as well as to secure leading positions in the field. (Image: Samsung) The Korean Intellectual Property Office analyzed the patent applications related to Micro LED technology filed from 2000 to April 2018 across the world and revealed that more than 60 percent of...

LED chip maker Epistar announced the expansion of its investment in ProLight Opto, a Taiwan-based high power LED manufacturer, to intensify the cooperation between the two companies in Mini LED production and development. Facing the challenge of blue LED price drop due to global economy uncertainties, Epistar has continued its development in VCSEL and Mini LED. The company began Mini LED products shipment since last year. With increased investment in ProLight, Epistar aims to secure its Mini LED supply with ProLight’s capacity expansion....

The 2019 Digital Signage Expo (DSE), held in March 26 to 29 in Las Vegas, gathered more than 250 exhibitors across the world to showcase their innovative display technologies. IoT applications, interactive display solutions on fine pitch LED displays with high resolution are trends at the event. Leading panel brands including Samsung, NEC, , Sony and others introduced signage solutions incorporating sensors, cameras, data analytics, cloud computing and more to provide cutting-edge products for commercial and professional applications. (Image: DSE) Samsung p...

For keeping the quality and effect of tunable LED lighting used in human centric lighting applications, a new research proposed novel methods to overcome the challenges of temperature change and lumen decay of LEDs. The research team demonstrated a system to maintain consistency and stability of LED light source over an extended period of time. Featured with tunable color temperature and spectrum, LED has been increasingly adopted in the developing human centric lighting applications in medical, educational and working environment for improving human well-being. Some of th...

UK optoelectronic technology solutions provider Plessey announced its achievement of developing a novel manufacturing method of green LED which does not require color conversion. Plessey has been working on developing Micro LED technology for AR and display applications. The new green LEDs manufactured without color conversion techniques deliver higher luminance that can be used in Micro LED displays. Conventional green LED production usually applies phosphors or quantum dot conversion materials to native Blue LEDs. These materials then convert short wavelengt...

On its way of transforming to a high-tech photonic company, Osram has been challenged by the weakening global market. The German company adjusted its annual forecast for fiscal year 2019 which ends by September 30, 2019. Osram said the revenue of fiscal 2019 is expected to decline between 11 and 14 percent while the previous forecast was a revenue growth between 0 and 3 percent. The company also lowered is the range of its adjusted EBITDA margin to eight and ten percent from 12 to 14 percent. In addition, Osram expects a negative free cash flow between EUR 50 million t...

Horticulture LED applications have become more and more popular as LED lighting uses less energy and delivers more efficient light source for cultivation with its feature of adjustable intensity and wavelength. To prove the advantages of LED lighting in horticultural applications, researchers at the University of Guelph, Canada, tried to find out to what degree LED advancements could benefit greenhouses. Dave Llewellyn, Katherine Schiestel, and Youbin Zheng from the University of Guelph investigate the potential for LED lighting technologies to replace conventi...

LED driver IC manufacturer Macroblock has targeted the market of Mini LED and Micro LED. It has begun to ship Mini LED backlight module driver IC for gaming displays following the company’s schedule announced by the end of 2018 and expects to enter the supply chain of high-end TV panels by the second half of 2019. Furthermore, it plans release products for wearable Micro LED applications such as AR/VR smart glasses. The consolidate revenue of Macroblock in 2018 hit the record high at NT$ 2.985 billion (US$ 96.69 million), with an on-year incre...

Australia and New Zealand are increasing their investment in smart city applications with more LED streetlights conversion projects going on in different cities. (Image: Pixabay) Telensa, the UK-based smart city and street lighting specialist, announced the partnership with City of Darwin in Australia. The company will provide its PLANet intelligent street lighting system and replace about 10,000 street and public lights with wirelessly connected LEDs. These streetlights will then be controlled by the Telensa Central Management System (CMS) and hos...

Wearable devices have become common electronics in the modern society and they have been integrated with various smart applications to enhance life convenience. Apart from wearable accessories like glasses and watches, scientists are working on developing smart clothing to create even more diverse applications. The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced its new achievement in developing a textile-based display module that is washable, wearable and self-powered. (Image: KAIST) Professor Kyung Cheol Choi from the School of Electri...

Taiwan-based LED company Everlight announced the participation of “SMART CITY SUMMIT & EXPO” in Taipei for the first time with the aim to promote smart street light and smart city. Everlight will work together with AAEON, ASKEY Computer, EverFocus Electronics and IBASE Technology to build up smart traffic, security and energy scenarios, integrating the related applications to present convenient and systematic smart city on the booth at the event (Booth No.: K824). (Smart street light of Everlight) Everlight demonstr...

In November 2018, Nikkei Asian Review has covered that Japan’s largest convenience store operator 7-eleven would set up a plant factory in Tokyo to produce vegetable for its own salads products in January 2019. The project operator and a longtime premium delicatessen supplier to 7-Eleven Prime Delica has adopted Signify’s growing light for its vertical farm facility located in the city of Sagamihara in the Kanagawa prefecture, Japan. Signify provided the Philips GreenPower LEDs to help Prime Delica to grow crops with vitamin levels and nutritional v...

Lumotive, a LiDAR startup funded by Bill Gates, announced its development of a disruptive beam-steering technology which will significantly improve the performance, reliability and cost of LiDAR systems for the emerging self-driving car industry. With its patented system using Liquid Crystal Metasurfaces (LCM) and silicon fabrication, Lumotive introduced its beam steering LiDAR that is able to simultaneously offer large optical aperture, wide field-of-view and fast scanning. LCMs, semiconductor chips that steer laser pulses based on the light-bending principle...

Before the end of 1Q19, we learned that two more LED lighting operators are cutting off their LED lighting business. The US LED giant Cree announced the selling of its lighting business to Ideal Industries on March 15 and power company Eaton posted its plan to spin off the lighting business. Restructuring business focus to concentrate on higher margin operation has been a trend the LED industry. LEDinside pointed out that the price and profit of LED lighting products have dropped in the past years with increasing competitors joining the industry to share the...

Mini LED products have entered the market since the second half of 2018 with expected acceleration in 2019 and 2020, according to LEDinside’s forecast. Meanwhile, industry players are also speeding up their progress in Micro LED development. Worldwide equipment producers have been intensifying their technologies to meet the demands of the raising market. (Image: Samsung) Semiconductor package equipment producer Kulicke & Soffa (K&S) expects that Mini LED will start to boom by the end of 2019 with drives from Taiwanese and Chinese panel makers. T...

Apart from human centric lighting, IoT smart lighting system and “space-as-a-service,” what are other trends of commercial lighting in 2019? Let’s move on to see what Osram suggested. Optimum Space Utilization Enabled by Lighting System Data How to efficiently manage the space usage is critical to companies. In the past, place planning has been based on calculations using industry-standard formulas, software that addressed some of an organization’s requirements, or even a manual process. This process could take a while and is less flexible. Neve...

A research team at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed nanowire UV LEDs that are able to produce five times higher light intensity based on a simpler shell design. UV LEDs are used in a growing number of applications such as polymer curing, water purification and medical disinfection. Researchers at NIST have been trying to make nanowire-based LEDs for scanning-probe tips intended for electronics and biology applications. Lately, researchers have been experimenting with nanowire cores made of silicon-doped GaN, which has extra ...

Veeco Instruments announced today that Aledia, a developer and manufacturer of next-generation 3D LEDs for display applications, has expanded its portfolio of Veeco thin film process equipment to support the development and production of advanced 3D Micro LEDs. Aledia cited Veeco’s proven leadership in compound semiconductor applications, GaN-on-silicon growth performance, and capability to grow a full range of high-quality epitaxial films as key factors influencing its decision. “We have been impressed with the performance of Veeco’s Propel™ ...

Chinese LiDAR company RoboSense announced that it has provided a cold-resistant LiDAR for GACHA, the world's first autonomous driving shuttle bus for all weather conditions which was reported by LEDinside last year. GACHA is equipped with RoboSense's advanced cold-resistant 16-beam mechanical LiDAR environment perception system to operate vehicles in harsh winter and other severe weather conditions. The autonomous shuttle bus was co-designed by Sensible 4, a Finnish autonomous driving company, and MUJI, the Japanese retail brand. Sensible 4 p...

Researchers from Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung University, China’s Xiamen University and SIJ Technology have developed a monolithic Micro LED which achieves full-color display. The study demonstrates that Micro LED full-color display can be realized without mass transferring and the result was published on Scientific Reports and Photonics Research. The team fabricated the Micro LED full-color display on monolithic epitaxial wafer by combining nanoring (NR) structure and atomic layer deposition. From previous study, the researchers have demonstr...

With advanced LED development and improved data transmitting technologies, commercial lighting is going beyond illumination. Osram proposed some commercial lighting trends addressing the well-being of users and optimized space utilization for efficient energy usage. Occupant Health and Wellbeing Takes Center Stage The first thing Osram mentioned is human centric lighting. Building owners and facility managers are incorporating Tunable White technology as part of their lighting strategy. Tunable White technology is designed for Human Centric Lighting (HCL) applicat...

The DesignLights Consortium (DLC) has published an updated version of the Testing and Reporting Requirements for Horticulture Lighting in the beginning of March and announced the first horticultural lighting products that meet the new performance standard. With rapid increasing indoor farming facilities and legalized cannabis cultivation in several US states and Canada, demands for efficient and effective horticultural lighting are booming. In response to the boosting market, DLC DLC released an industry benchmark designed to improve efficiency and reduce electrici...

ams, the sensing component supplier of Apple, announced that it will establish a joint venture with Wise Road Capital, a global Private Equity firm focusing on the semiconductor industry and other emerging high-tech industries. The two companies have signed an agreement to create a joint venture to advance the development and sales of environmental, flow and pressure sensor solutions for the global market. Under the agreement, employees, IP, sensor products and solutions and related customers will transfer from ams to the joint venture, while Wise Road Capital will provide it...

Freight Farms, a U.S. startup providing shipping container for vegetables cultivation, announced the debut Greenery, the new growing container which combines dynamic aisles with new plant panels and LED technology. (Image: Freight Farms) The new product, Greenery, will become a successor to Leafy Green Machine (LGM) with even more growing space in the same standard container. Featured with the mobile rack system, its main growing area is consisted of 88 plant panels and 112 LED panels that farmers can shift them to create custom layouts. The LED panel arrays ...

Vertically integrated LED manufacturer Lextar will exhibit its latest automotive LED developments including applications of Mini LED RGB module and VCSEL, as well as its cutting-edge automotive LED lighting matrix module at Shanghai International Auto Lamp Exhibition (ALE) from March 21 and 22, 2019. Lextar is showcasing its automotive LED lighting matrix module for the first time. The lighting module consisting 240 LED chips with an average luminance intensity of 15,000cd. With its high brightness, the product can project dynamic graphics and info...

Apart from the development in OLED technology, Samsung and LG, the two Korean electronics giants, have continued their progress in LED display as well. LG Electronics USA announced the launch of its premium 2019 LG NanoCell LED 4K Ultra HD TVs with AI ThinQ® beginning with the April debut of the 55-inch and 65-inch class LG Nano 9 series, and the 49-inch, 55-inch, 65-inch and 75-inch LG Nano 8 series at LG-authorized dealers nationwide. Additional models and screen sizes will follow in May and June with other LG OLED models announce...

Do you have difficulty falling asleep when traveling away from home? Circadian lighting solution might help to tackle the problem. InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has conducted a global survey and revealed that about 80 percent of travelers saying they have trouble sleeping during their trip. To help travelers combat a restless night away from home, IHG has partnered with Healthe by Lighting Science to pilot the use of circadian lighting. Crowne Plaza Atlanta Airport will be the first IHG property to install the JOURNI ™ Mobile Task Light in ...

With the featured of compact size and low energy consumption, the development of LED technology has led to several advanced applications including the enhanced implement of ultraviolet (UV) radiation. UV light is wide used in water purification, air disinfection and plastic curing. However, conventional UV light sources contain mercury and have a limited lifespan. UV LED is therefore a new solution. Through modern LED technology, UV LED will not only replace existing UV light source, it also opens up a wider range of applications as it can be tailored to meet va...

We have all heard rumors about Apple’s augmented reality (AR) glasses and they might be materialized soon as suggested by recent reports and Apple’s newly granted patent. It is said that Apple will begin manufacturing its AR device the soonest in 4Q19 and release the product by 2Q20. According to a report covered by 9To5Mac, the device will be heavily dependent on the iPhone, using its computational power for image rendering, internet connection and location service. The pairing between the AR glasses and the mobile phone might be wireless connection that sim...

Cree is selling its lighting business to Ideal Industries, an Illinois-based electric power control and management company, to continue its strategy of becoming a more focused, powerhouse semiconductor company. Cree announced the execution of a definitive agreement to sell Cree Lighting, the lighting products business unit, which includes the LED lighting fixtures, lamps and corporate lighting solutions business for commercial, industrial and consumer applications. According to Cree, the deal is about US$310 million before tax. The company expects to receive an initial cash...