A research team at Nagoya University in Japan has revealed that narrow-range UV irradiation using LED safely increases serum vitamin D levels in aging mice and thereby prevents the loss of their bone and muscle mass. The findings were recently published in the journal Scientific Reports, titled "Low energy irradiation of narrow-range UV-LED prevents osteosarcopenia associated with vitamin D deficiency in senescence-accelerated mouse prone 6.” Decreased bone density (osteoporosis) and the loss of muscle mass and strength (sarcopenia) are age-related disorder...

Signify reported that its horticulture LED lighting product was selected by GoodLeaf Community Farms in Canada to enhance food production. GoodLeaf grows and packs fresh greens year-round, operating a 4,000-square-metre indoor vertical farm in Ontario, Canada, which is now fully operational to supply some of the largest Canadian retail chains. The vertical farm is fully automated and equipped with the latest LED lighting technology for growing indoors. By providing a controlled environment, Philips Greenpower LED production modules enable GoodLeaf to shorten prod...

Chinese TV brands have been proactively launching Mini LED backlit TVs. After TCL and Xiaomi releasing their new products, Konka also announced that it will debut a 75-inch 8K TV featuring Mini LED backlight technology. Konka said that this 75-inch 8K TV adopts Mini LED backlight technology with more than 20,000 units of Mini LED chips to realize 5184 local dimming zones. Implementing IPS RGB display, the TV achieves 8K resolution and support 120Hz and 60Hz refresh rate. (Image: Konka) Cost of Mini LED Backlit TVs Remain High...

LiDAR sensor manufacturers across the world including Innoviz Technologies, Hesai, Lumentum and Velodyne Lidar have announced their new achievements recently and are going to showcase novel technologies at upcoming events. Innoviz Technologies added a new sensor to its product line, the InnovizTwo. The new automotive-grade LiDAR sensor, with a major cost reduction design of over 70% compared to InnovizOne, offers a solution for all levels of autonomous driving. Samples of InnovizTwo will be available in Q3 2021. (Image: Innoviz) China-based Hesai also re...

LED companies including Nichia, Osram and Lumileds updated the results of their patent disputes against Lighting Science Group (LSG) yesterday on October 14. All the three companies prevailed over the LSG’s asserted LED patents. (Image: Pixabay) LSG has initiated patent infringement lawsuit against Nichia, Osram and Lumileds claiming that the three LED manufacturers violet its patents covering LSG’s United States Patent Nos. 7,528,421; 7,095,053; and 7,098,483, in 2019. On April 7, 2020, and October 1, 2020, the United States I...

A study led by researchers at the Brown University School of Public Health found that using tuned LED lighting cut in half the number of sleep disturbances among older residents in long-term care. By installing interior lighting fixtures that change color and intensity over the course of the day and night, sleep disturbances experienced by residents in one California nursing home were improved without involving prescribing sleeping pills. (Image: Brown University) Rosa Baier, an associate professor at the Brown University, led a team of seven researchers who studie...

Velodyne Lidar recently reported new collaboration with its partners in China. The recently listed LiDAR maker said that it has entered a long‑term global cross-licensing relationship with RoboSense (Suteng Innovation Technology) and signed a three-year sales agreement with Baidu. (Image: Velodyne Lidar) The cross-licensing relationship with RoboSense encompasses a broad range of 360° surround-view LiDAR sensors, by which Velodyne said will be mutually beneficial for the existing and future patents of both companies. Velodyne and RoboSense have also agr...

Acuity Brands reported that it has entered into strategic agreements with Violet Defense and Puro Lighting. These strategic agreements will give Acuity Brands access to Violet Defense’s patented UV technology to expand its portfolio of UV disinfection products. PURO and Acuity Brands will also work together on the development of a next generation of UV lighting products. (Image: Pixabay) The products from Violet Defense and PURO employ a method pioneered by Violet Defense to deliver high intensity full spectrum ultraviolet light, using a pulsed x...

Axus Technology, a provider of CMP, wafer thinning and wafer polishing surface-processing solutions for semiconductor applications, announced the collaboration with Compound Photonics (CP, also known as CP Display), a microdisplay solutions developer for AR/MR. The two parties will work to accelerate sub 5 µm pixel Micro LED development to the mass market. (Image: Compound Photonics) Axus and CP are partnering to integrate critical wafer-scale processes needed for mass-production scale up of CP’s 2 µm pixel, 1080p Micro LED displays fo...

JBD reported that it will release its JBD4UM480P Micro LED display series extending the AmµLED™ family in November this year. This series has a display area of 0.13-inch (3.3 mm) in diagonal and a resolution of 640X480. Approaching the size of a grain of rice (Figure 1), the display panel can be easily designed into a smart glass due to its ultra-compact footprint. The panels deliver luminance of 0.2 million nits, 2 million nits, and 0.15 million nits for red, green, and blue, respectively for a power consumption of only a few hundred mW under average oper...

Company closes first of 3 tranches in Series D round. Backing will be used to complete product development near Grenoble and create a new display manufacturing facility based on Aledia’s proprietary technology of 3D microLEDs. Aledia, a French startup that is pioneering a disruptive technology for microLED displays, has closed an €80M first tranche of its €120M D-round financing. The company will use the proceeds to complete its product development and create the first-of-its-kind, high-volume 3D microLED manufacturing facility in the Grenoble are...

Velodyne Lidar announced on September 29 that it has completed the business combination with Graf Industrial. The LiDAR producer reported in July this year that it will go public through the combination. The two companies have closed the combination and Velodyne has became a wholly owned subsidiary of Graf which changed its name to Velodyne Lidar. Beginning on Wednesday, September 30, 2020, the common stock and warrants of Velodyne Lidar, Inc., the post-combination company, is being listed and to begin trading on The Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticke...

New research published in EPJ B reveals that the higher-than-expected efficiency of PLEDs can be reached through interactions between triplet excitons, and impurities embedded in their polymer layers. (Image: EPJ B) Polymer LEDs (PLEDs) are devices containing single layers of luminescent polymers, sandwiched between two metal electrodes. They produce light as the metal layers inject electrons and holes into the polymer, creating distortions which can combine to form two different types of electron-hole pair: either light-emitting ‘singlets,’ or a non-...

Following its announcement last week, Xiaomi launched two 82-inch TVs with Mini LED backlight technology featuring 8K and 4K resolution. The 8K one priced RMB 49999 and the 4K is RMB 9999. Both product will be released on October 21, 2020. (Image: Xiaomi) LEDinside learned that Xiaomi’s Mini LED TVs adopt the backlight solution based on a sprinkle of Mini LED components sized 1616. The 8K TV used 15,360 units of Mini LEDs to achieve 960 local dimming zones. Each of the dimming zone can deliver 4096 grayscales to realize a high contrac...

Sharp is going to spin off its display business, setting up a new subsidiary named “Sharp Display Technology” (SDTC) on October 1, 2020, reported The Sankei News. The new spinoff will focus on novel display technology particularly Micro LED. (Image: LEDinside) By establishing SDTC, Sharp plan to collect more external funds for Micro LED development, which will support the company to join the competition of next-gen display technology that currently ruled by Sony, Samsung and other competitors. It was revealed in August that Sharp has buil...

Airplane manufacturer Boeing announced that it has entered into a patent and technology license with Healthe. Based on the collaboration, Healthe will produce an UV wand designed by Boeing to sanitize airplane interiors. "The UV wand is designed to be more effective than similar devices. It quickly disinfects surfaces on an airplane and further strengthens other layers of protection for passengers and crew," said Mike Delaney, who leads Boeing's CTI efforts. "Boeing spent six months transforming an idea for the wand into a working model, and Healthe ...

Toyoda Gosei, who announced the development of deep UV LED disinfecting module, recently confirmed the effectiveness of its product in SARS-CoV-2 inactivation. The company also reported that the UV LED module will adopted in water purification unit launching in November 2020. Toyoda Gosei has conducted a viral inactivation experiment in which the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was irradiated using its deep UV LED technology. The experiment was conducted jointly with the Biomedical Science Association, a certified NPO, and showed these deep UV LE...

Samsung announced that it will stick to its play to produce QD display panel next year as the Korean giant has quit LCD business. Meanwhile, BOE, the Chinese panel maker, announced its plan to take over shares of CEC Panda’s facilities to expand its capacity of large size display. (Image: Samsung) As the capacity of Chinese display manufacturers continues to expand, competitors from other countries have been searching for new approaches to drive their own business. Samsung, who once took a lead in the industry, decided to cut its LCD production and has sol...

A new research conducted by the University of Arizona Health Sciences found that people who suffer from migraine may benefit from green light therapy, which was shown to reduce the frequency and intensity of headaches and improve patient quality of life. "This is the first clinical study to evaluate green light exposure as a potential preventive therapy for patients with migraine," said Mohab Ibrahim, an associate professor in the UArizona College of Medicine and lead of the study. (Image: The University of Arizona) During the study, patients were exposed ...

Analog Devices announced a strategic collaboration with Microsoft to leverage Microsoft’s 3D time-of-flight (ToF) sensor technology, allowing customers to easily create 3D applications that bring higher degrees of depth accuracy and work regardless of the environmental conditions in the scene. ADI’s technical expertise will build upon Microsoft Azure Kinect technology to deliver leading ToF solutions to a much broader audience in areas such as Industry 4.0, automotive, gaming, augmented reality, computational photography and videography. Currently, the indu...

Hydromea, a spinoff of École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), has developed a miniature optical modem that can operate down to 6,000 meters below the ocean’s surface. It is sensitive enough to collect data at very high speeds from sources more than 50 meters away. Radio wave can hardly work underwater as they are easily absorbed by water. So wireless internet connection underwater is nearly impossible. But it would be another story if the connection is based on light. Hydromea is using light to transmit data below the ocean or lake surfac...

Xiaomi announced that it is going to officially launch its Xiaomi TVs in China on September 28. The new TV products under the Mi TV Master series will feature 8K resolution and 5G connection based on panel using Mini LED backlight display technology. (Image: Xiaomi) Xiaomi has been expanding its high-end TV portfolio with the launch of its transparent TV series based on OLED technology announced in August and the latest update of Mini LED backlit TVs. Other than 8K, 5G and Mini LED technology, the Chinese company has yet revealed details ...

ON Semiconductor announced that SUBARU has selected its image sensing technology to enable camera-based ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) in the car manufacturer's new-generation EyeSight Driver Assist platform. The Levorg, a 2020 All-Wheel Drive Sports Tourer, is the first model to offer the new system. As with previous versions of EyeSight, ON Semiconductor's image sensing technology acts as the ‘eyes’ to enable this important safety functionality. The new-generation Eyesight, recently announced in the Japan market, provid...

Osram announced the plan to realign its partnership with Continental and return their joint venture business to the parent company. The information was released soon after Osram reported its transfer progress with ams, indicating that the company is speeding up transformation within the organization. Osram and Continental will negotiate on separating of the business in smart automotive lighting systems and returning it to the respective companies. The German companies noted that the decision was made in response to the gloomy market environment, which is being further impacted b...

The deal of Austria sensor company buying Osram is moving one more step forward as Osram announced that it has agreed with ams on the conclusion of a domination and profit and loss transfer agreement. In this regard, the Managing Board and the Supervisory Board of Osram adopted resolutions to sign the agreement with ams Offer GmbH and to convene an Extraordinary General Meeting for November 3, 2020 in which, inter alia, a resolution is to be tabled to approve Osram’s entry into the agreement. Base on the agreement, minority shareholders of Osram will receive an...

GE Current announced its disinfecting lighting product based on the latest patent pending technology. These solutions represent a first line of defense that fights a broad spectrum of germs including the SARS-CoV-2 virus around the clock. GE Current’s 365DisInFx™ technology leverages a business’ existing lighting infrastructure to deliver germicidal UV light in places where people gather. The technology implement UVA LED and demonstrated a 99.7% disinfecting rate of common pathogens on surfaces over an eight-hour period at 3 W/m2 with in-vitro t...

As LG officially released its Micro LED display, Samsung’s The Wall is also moving a step forward by breaking into the commercial display market in Japan. BusinessKorea reported that Japan’s largest display solution company NGC is offering Samsung’s The Wall series to its customers such as NHK and TV Asahi. (Image: Samsung) For the Korean company, it is a great achievement to penetrate the Japanese market as it had been a rather close environment favoring domestic suppliers. However, since other Japanese competitors like NEC and Sh...

Vertical farming startup InFarm announced that it has raised US$170 million in the first close of a Series C funding round expected to reach $200 million. Led by LGT Lightstone, the first round included participation by investors Hanaco, Bonnier, Haniel, and Latitude, and was supported by existing Infarm investors Atomico, TriplePoint Capital, Mons Capital and Astanor Ventures. With a mix of equity and debt financing, the fresh capital infusion brings Infarm's total funding to date to more than $300 million, underscoring consumer and retailer appetite for I...

It was reported today on September 21 that Chinese LED chip manufacturer Sanan Optoelectronics has progressed faster than expected with its Mini LED chip development and might begin to supply its product to Apple’s iPad Pro and MacBook in 2021. If Sanan joins the supply chain with lower price, the business of Epistar, the Taiwan-based LED supplier who is reportedly the major Mini LED chip supplier of Apple, may be impacted. However, TrendForce said that Sanan has yet made its way into the Apple supply chain and the low price may not be the first priori...

Researchers at Hiroshima University offered first proof that UVC light with a 222 nm wavelength, which many claim to be safer for human and animals, can effectively kills the SARS-CoV-2 virus, pathogen of COVID-19. The study was published in the American Journal of Infection Control on September 4, 2020, titled “Effectiveness of 222-nm ultraviolet light on disinfecting SARS-CoV-2 surface contamination.” The article demonstrated the results of an in vitro experiment of the research team which showed that 99.7% of the SARS-CoV-2 viral culture...