UVC LED product developer Acuva Technologies announced the opening of its first office outside of Canada. The company plans to expand its disinfection products to the European market with the opening of the office in Dusseldorf, Germany. Acuva also announced a strategic partnership with Italian UV germicidal technology company LightProgress. The two parties will leverage their expertise to promote disinfecting applications for the fast-growing markets in Europe. Acuva is known for its UV LED disinfection technology called IntenseBeam, which is found in al...

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published a new article in Science Advances demonstrating a new design for LED that may overcome a long-standing limitation in the light sources' efficiency. The research team developed microscopic LEDs which achieve a dramatic increase in brightness as well as the ability to create laser light. Consisting of scientists from the University of Maryland, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, the team achieved 100 to 1,000 times higher brightness with LEDs...

Last September, Volkspark stadium in Humburg, Germany, installed Signify’s LiFi system Trulifi. The system has provided fast and reliable internet connectivity for the journalists and photographers reporting the 2019-2020 season. Stadiums usually have difficulties offering stable and reliable connections for the press center during large sport games as wireless signal in these bustling locations was prone to overload. To tackle the issue, the Volksparkstadion in Hamburg installed LiFi system which uses light to transmit data and allows up to a blistering 250Mbps for...

Ushio and a research group from Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine have completed a study proven that irradiation of filtered 222 nm UV-C light on human skin reduces bacterial counts while causing no injury to the skin. This is the first study on the safety of 222 nm far UVC light conducted on humans. The research paper regarding this study is published on PLOS ONE, titled “Exploratory clinical trial on the safety and bactericidal effect of 222-nm ultraviolet C irradiation in healthy humans.” (Image: Ushio) In this study, Ushio’s C...

Energy Focus announced financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2020. The company reported net sales of US$3.3 million, up by 8.2% compared to 2Q19 and down by 11.8% sequentially from the first quarter of 2020 reflecting the shift in the timing of the shipment of a portion of a certain military contract order from the second quarter to the third quarter of 2020. Loss from operations improved by $1.2 million year-over-year, and by $0.3 million compared sequentially to the first quarter of 2020. Net loss of $4.3 million, or $(1.36) per share, inclusive of a $3.3 mi...

In the second half of 2020, increasing applications based on novel display technologies are emerging in the market. Mini LED backlight technology has reached the stage of commercialization with several notebook and monitor products launched. Chinese TV brands TCL have released its Mini LED TV series and Korean giants Samsung and LG are likely to roll out Mini LED backlight TVs in the near future as well. And of course, the most expected Mini LED product would be the 12.9 iPad Pro of Apple. Meanwhile, Micro LED technology is still developing and a few...

Despite the interruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, the development of novel display technologies have to go on. At the virtual Display Week held last week, there were still several new Micro LED display exhibits showcased by worldwide experts. LEDinside selects a few innovations that cannot be missed. AUO AUO exhibited an integrated full color TFT driven Micro LED automotive displays with two 9.4-inch flexible Micro LED panels. Its S-curve shape enables the display to be mounted into automotive interior design. It also demonstrated a 12.1-inch Micro...

Dutch lighting company Signify is planning to close its production facility in Salina, a city in Kansas, U.S., reported local news “Salina Post.” (Image: Signify) The production facility in Kansas manufactures conventional lighting products. As the demands continues to decline, Signify said it will leverage economies of scale and improve efficiencies by relocating the production of conventional lighting products to its facilities in Poland and India. The company will gradually start the transition and plans to close the facility in Kansas in the second ...

Recently United Airlines and Heathrow airport unveiled their disinfecting measures with UVC light respectively. United Airlines is using UVC light to clean pilot flight decks while Heathrow deploys UV cleaning robots and UV handrail for disinfection within the airport. (Image: United Airlines) United Airlines uses handheld, AUVCo blades from the American Ultraviolet company to kill any viruses that may reside on sensitive switches and touch screen displays within the flight deck. The company also applies electrostatic spraying to disinfect its aircraft cabi...

Large size LED video display supplier Daktronics announced its partnership with Austin FC for manufacturing and installing an LED display system with all displays featuring pixel pitch of 10 mm. The installation includes a new main video display, two ribbon displays, a pitch perimeter display and a double-sided marquee and are currently being set up with the stadium’s construction. The project is expected to complete for the 2021 season. (Image: Daktronics) The centerpiece of the installation will be the main video display at the north end of the stadium. It w...

Leading electronics brands are releasing their new consumer products as the peak third season arrived. Novel smartphones, tablets and wearables adopting innovative technologies continue to draw attention from the market. However, the ongoing pandemic has led to global economy decline so that the most eye-catching flagship smartphones lose their edges as they are usually more expensive. People who used to go for the high-end products may now turn to mid-range or budget smartphone under such circumstance. As a result, iPhone SE, the mid-range product of Apple, led to an unexpected s...

Chinese brands TCL and Xioami introduced their new TV products featuring advanced display technologies. TCL launched its new Mini LED backlight TV, 6-series and Xiaomi presented a transparent OLED TV. TCL released 5- and 6-Series Roku TV lines. The 6-series products are based on Mini LED backlight technology with 240 dimming zones that enables brilliantly bright and deeply dark areas to achieve ultra-high contract ratio. According to TCL, the series will be the first TV with THX® Certified Game Mode, supporting a refresh rate of 120Hz. A...

Kyocera and Osram reported worked on a new Micro LED display driving technology. According to a report of MicroLED-info, the two companies have designed a hybrid current and PWM driving technology for Micro LED displays. The new driving scheme can be used to avoid using lower pixel currents through Micro LED chips, as described by Kyocera and Osram. As a result, the approach reduces luminance deviation and color shift even at lower grayscale levels. The new driving technology was demonstrated with Kyocera’s 3.9-inch full color Micro LED display bas...

Energy Harness, a Purdue University affiliated LED lighting manufacturer develop an air disinfection system which can be attached to ceiling to clean the air from upper part of the room with UVC light delivered by embedded LEDs. (Image: Energy Harness/Purdue University) According to Purdue University, the device is designed to utilize the effectiveness of UVC light in killing the SARS-COV-2 family of pathogens. Patricio M. Daneri, managing director of Energy’s Midwest division, said, “Our Active Airflow unit provides the added advantag...

Smart city system expert CIMCON introduced new technology partners to its NearSky™ Connect Partner Program. The program brings together sensor/device manufacturers and application developers to make it easier for cities to specify, procure, and deploy smart city solutions in their efforts to improve public health and safety outcomes. Collectively, this group of partners will provide cities with actionable data on parking, sound, carbon dioxide and flood levels to optimize operations, maintenance and safety through one easy-to-use platform. (Image: CIMCON) ...

Global warming, climate changes and increasing world population are posing threats to the planet we are living on and putting pressure on food security. Leading lighting supplier Signify recently shares its viewpoint of how horticulture lighting based on LED technology can be an enabler for sustainable alternative food production. Signify suggests that using artificial lights in horticulture is one way to increase demand without driving up the resource usage. Grow lights can either supplement natural daylight or replace it entirely. Using them creates a controlled farming envi...

Among the next-gen display technologies based on miniaturized LEDs, while Micro LED is still confronting issues of low yield and high cost, Mini LED backlight display technology has been commercialized and is seeing a thriving future starting next year. Currently at the market, we can see Mini LED backlit gaming notebooks and monitors launched by Acer, Asus, MSI, Lenovo and other notebook brands. The long rumored Mini LED iPad Pro from Apple is another highlight expected by the market and the industry. In addition, Samsung is reportedly debuting a series o...

PMOLED panel maker RiTdisplay presented a Micro LED thin film display at virtual Display Week that took place last week from August 3 to 8. The company also indicated in its investor conference last week that it has begun sending sample of Mini LED products this year and the shipment is scheduled in 2021. (Image: screenshot from RiTdisplay's video) RiTdisplay has been collaborating with Micro LED company PlayNitride since 2019 to develop Micro LED displays. The two parties exhibited a few small size Micro LED display modules for wearable appl...

On August 7, LED companies Epistar and Lextar held an extraordinary shareholders meeting to pass the share conversion of both companies to the new holding company, ENNOSTAR. The members of the board of directors, supervisors and chairman of ENNOSTAR were also elected. As expected, Epistar holds three seats in the board of directors, Lextar takes one seat and its parent company AUO gets one seat as well. The members of the board of director include Biing-Jye Lee, Chairman of Epistar; Chin-Yung Fan, President of Epistar; Shih-Shien Chang, Vice P...

NS Nanotech, a LED materials company startup announced its first technical milestone with the demonstration of a nano-LED that promises to close the “green gap” in LEDs. The new LED technology is based on patented technology enabling fabrication of components that will be smaller and draw far less power than current LED solutions, while emitting brighter, more saturated, more stable, and more directional green light. The demonstration unit is now showing at the virtual Display Week until today. (Image: screenshot from NS Nanotech video) Seth C...

AMS and Ibeo Automotive Systems confirm that ams VCSEL technology is a core component of Ibeo’s new solid-state LiDAR solution, ibeoNEXT. Ibeo’s LiDAR system will be used in Level-3 automated driving on production vehicles at Great Wall Motor Company starting in 2022. The VCSEL manufacturing technology of ams allows for flexibility in layout design regarding number of pixels, their size and pitch, and specific addressability patterns. The VCSELs can differentiate in scan and flash applications as they are less sensitive to individual e...

Mini LED backlight display applications are spreading with increasing products entering the market including notebooks, monitors and TVs. Leading brands like Apple and Samsung are going to launch products based on the technology in 2021 as well. Meanwhile, TCL, the Chinese TV brands who released Mini LED backlit TVs last year, is reportedly increasing the product shipment. In 2019, TCL launched 65- and 75-inch Mini LED backlit TVs. The company changed its pricing strategy this year by cutting the 65-inch TV from $1,999 to US$999 and the 75-inch from ...

Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) from Taiwan continues to strengthen its Micro LED technology development. The organization joined virtual Display Week 2020 as well and presented its latest Micro LED breakthrough. (Image: screenshot from ITRI video ) ITRI showcased a flexible full color Micro LED display module at its online booth. The flexible Micro LED display sizes 60mm*30mm with a pixel pitch of 250 µm and a resolution of 240*120 (100 PPI). The display module is demonstrated as a wearable devices combining the Micro L...

Radiant Vision Systems, a subsidiary of the Konica Minolta group who experts in photometric imaging solutions for light and display measurement, announces that it will present a technical paper during the 2020 Display Week Symposium taking place online from August 3-7. Doug Kreysar, CEO of Radiant Vision Systems, will present the company’s paper titled “Fractional Pixel Method for Improved Pixel-Level Measurement and Correction (Demura) of High-Resolution Displays.” (Image: Radiant Vision Systems) The presentation will highlight the c...

As virtual Display Week goes on, Taiwan-based panel maker AUO announced its demonstration of advanced display technologies covering Micro LED automotive displays, Mini LED medical displays, a full range of gaming displays as well as display applications in smart retail and transportation. Pioneering the next generation display technology, AUO is showcasing a complete series of full color TFT driven Micro LED automotive displays. The 9.4-inch flexible Micro LED display developed jointly by AUO and PlayNitride is now integrated into a automotive display t...

The development of Micro LEDs, quantum dot (QD) displays as a next generation displays following LCDs and OLEDs are becoming popular. By reducing the chip size to less than 100 µm and 10 nm levels compared to existing LEDs, with high-definition, high color saturation, fast response and high reliability, it‘s performance surpasses conventional LCDs and OLED displays. These devices are also ideal for new applications such as AR/VR/MR/SR, automotive head-up displays (HUDs), micro projectors, and smartwatches, which are expected to expand the mark...

As the market is expecting Apple and Samsung to release products adopting Mini LED backlight display technology, companies of the supply chain are gearing up with increase production to meet the hiking demands. These big names are reportedly securing their LED chip supply from manufacturers in Taiwan, Korea and China. (Image: Pixabay) Samsung, who is likely to release Mini LED backlit TVs series in 2021, has been in talk with Episar, Lextar, Sanan and HC Semitek to make sure that its demands of 30 billion Mini LED chips for over 3 million TV units wou...

Sensing technologies have been wide adopted for applications that aim to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Several solutions used LiDAR sensors to keep social distance between people or to control people flow based on object detecting. Spectral sensing, on the other hand, can be applied for medical testing for COVID-19 virus. Austrian sensor expert AMS recently announced its collaboration with two German medical companies for such applications. AMS said that it is providing its AS7341L spectral sensor to midge medical, a German medical technology startup from B...

LG Display (LGD) announced that it is showcasing next-generation OLED technologies at Display Week 2020, which is holding online this week from August 3 to 7. LGD presented foldable and transparent OLED products including a 65-inch and a 12.8-inch rollable OLED, a 13.3-inch foldable OLED, 65-inch bendable OLED, and 55-inch transparent OLED with 40% transparency. These foldable, bendable and transparent OLED products are featured in the “Unlimited Design Freedom Zone” at LGD’s virtual showroom. (Image: LGD) LGD ...

SmartKem is a UK-based organic semiconductor materials producer and it has announced its development of Mini LED backlight prototypes for full array local dimming aimed at TV, monitors and signage applications. The company is showcasing its development at Display Week 2020, which is virtually taking place this week. Organic materials for organic thin-film transistors using SmartKem materials can be used to manufacture active matrix backplanes, driving arrays of thousands of individual Mini LEDs on a substrate, thereby delivering impressive high resolution images with...