Mini LED backlight products are expect to bring a revolution to the display market with driving momentum from leading brands including Apple and Samsung. The two companies are reportedly launching Mini LED backlight tablets and TVs in the coming months or next year, which will bring up demands for Mini LED chips. LED chips suppliers from Taiwan and China are seeing a surging demands for Mini LED chips in the second half of 2020. Taiwan-based Epistar has been preparing its Mini LED capacity for Apple and will be ready to begin shipment in September. E...

The Franco-German satellite MERLIN is due to be launched into space in 2025 to measure the methane concentration in the Earth's atmosphere - a milestone in climate research. Important components of the LiDAR measurement system come from the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut in Berlin, which has now delivered the required laser diode benches to the project partner. The MERLIN mission aims to better understand the effect of the greenhouse gas methane on global warming. A radar-like laser system on the satellite measures natural and anthropogenic methane emissions: The...

In the first half of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has heavily impacted the world as well as the technology industry with various interruptions occurred in the supply chain. In April, LEDinside covered how Micro LED technology could still have a chance to grow despite the COVID-19 impacts on the industry. And now, we would like to share the breakthroughs of Micro LED unveiled during the first half of the year proving that developments of the technology have not stopped by the pandemic. Micro LED Wafer and Chip Improvements Researchers have been working on...

LG Electronics has added the category of Micro LED to its Business Solution website with its Micro LED display product available for inquiry. The Micro LED TV, named LSAB009 by the company, is a 163-inch 4K screen with a pixel pitch of 0.9mm based on COB technology. (Image: LG) The Micro LED TV of LG delivers a peak brightness of 1,200 nits and typical brightness of 600 nits. The peak contrast ratio achieves 100,000:1 and the max ratio 50,000:1. LG has yet announced the release date of the product but some source said it would start shipping i...

Velodyne Lidar announced a three year sales agreement with PARIFEX, a traffic management and speed measurement systems provider. Based on the agreement, PARIFEX will use Velodyne’s LiDAR sensors in its traffic monitoring solutions which can help reduce road accident rates and enhance roadway safety. (Image: Velodyne Lidar/PARIFEX) PARIFEX equips its NANO-CAM and NOMAD solutions with Velodyne Puck sensors for real-time tracking of static and moving objects including vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists, while preserving anonymit...

LiDAR sensor and technology builders Cepton and Luminar recently announced their expansion plans respectively, aiming to scale the market as well as to speed up technology development. Cepton Technologies, who began partnership with Japan-based Koito, appointed industry veteran Andrew Klaus as country manager for Japan, marking its continued expansion into the Japanese and Asian markets. Klaus’ role will initially focus on building Cepton’s market share in Japan, where the company has experienced growing demand for its high-performance LiDAR solution...

Signify announced the company’s 2020 second quarter results with sales of EUR 1.469 billion (US$ 1.7 billion). Comparable sales decreased by 22.5% due to the COVID-19 impact. However, the company still managed to maintain a profitable adjusted EBITA margin of 9%. (Image: Signify) The company also reported a net income of EUR 81 million (US$ 94.03 million) which increased by 61.5% YoY as a result of lower restructuring costs and one-time non-cash tax benefits from changes in the organizational structure. LED-based sales accounted for 80% of total ...

Semiconductor equipment provider AIXTRON published its financial results of the first half and the second quarter of 2020. The company said that it remains on track in the period despite the COVID-19 crisis. For 1H20, AIXTRON said it has received order volumes of EUR 138.4 million (US$ 160.6 million), which achieved an on-year growth of 41%. The order intake of 2Q20 came to EUR 69.6 million (US$ 80.76 million), up by 55% comparing to the same period in 2019. The main drivers of the growing customer demand for deposition equipment are the growing mar...

Samsung is reportedly preparing the launch of Mini LED backlit TVs in 2021 and the increasing demands of Mini LED chips will be supplied by Taiwan and China companies, reported TechNews, a Taiwan-based online media. (Image: Samsung) By quitting the production of LCD display, the Korean giant plans to boost its high end TV products shipment based on diverse display technologies, aiming to exit the low price competition. Apart from the scheduled “The Wall” TV launch in the market of North America and Europe, Samsung might also release new TV...

STMicroelectronics announced that its FlightSense Time-of-Flight (ToF) technology has been adopted by Aura Aware, a Dutch startup company to develop a social distance maintaining device for preventing disease transmission. Time-of-Flight sensors transmit photons and then calculate distance to the target based on the time it takes for the reflected photons to be received back by the sensor. Moreover, ranging accuracy is unaffected by surface characteristics of the target, such as clothing color or skin reflectivity, of the target, making FlightSense ideal for helping peopl...

Apart from helping to improve eyesight, LED light is now used to restore hearing, according to a new study conducted by University of Göttingen, Germany. The scientists created an optical cochlear implant based on LED lights that can safely and partially restore the sensation of hearing in deaf rats and gerbils. Their design's light-based approach allowed it to deliver more accurate and pinpointed signals to auditory nerves compared with current implants based on electricity, which often suffer from poor sound quality. The technology also offers some improvements ove...

Mini LED backlight display, featuring high brightness, contrast, reliability as well as longer lifetime, is regarded as a great competitor to OLED display, which is the current dominant display technology for high end consuming electronics. But higher production cost is still a pain point for Mini LED backlight display. From the viewpoint of the supply chain, driver ICs that control the local dimming zones of Mini LED backlight display could actually be a critical component to help reducing production cost. The increased production cost of Mini LED comes from the ...

Two recent researches of LiDAR introduced new solutions to improve the sensing technology. The study by University of Colorado Boulder described a new silicon ship without moving parts or electronics that enhances resolution and scanning speed for LiDAR sensor. In addition, researchers from Purdue University and École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) unveiled their development with FMCW LiDAR. For the research of Univerity of Colorado Boulder aims to develop small chip to replace existing big LiDAR system. The research t...

Ushio announced that it has commenced production of the latest high-powered short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) LEDs, which achieves the world’s highest output power and efficiency. Low-power chips are mounted in SMT packages and moulded type LEDs; while with 1 mm2 high-powered chips, the SWIR D-Series can be mounted in EDC, SMBB, and TO-66 packages. For the majority of wavelengths, a two-fold improvement of output and efficiency is attained; however, the high-power versions have ramped up their forward current to 1 A and gain a boost of up to four times...

ALLOS Semiconductors announced its collaboration with Prof. Ohkawa and his team at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) for realizing high efficiency nitride-based red LEDs on large diameter silicon substrates. The collaboration will focus on solving fundamental issues like the large lattice mismatch and the quantum-confined Stark effect (QCSE) which limit the adoption of red nitride-based LEDs for practical industry usage. In particular, for the emerging field of Micro LED displays there is a strong demand to enable red LEDs on ...

Many leading LED companies across the world including Cree, Nichia and Osram see horticulture LED lighting a growing market with expanding applications. Apart from the well-known application of vertical farming supplementary lighting for greenhouses is also a major growing segment for horticulture LED lighting. A recent study published agriculture journal Agronomy demonstrated that LED lighting can improve yield and precocity of greenhouse tomatoes in the Mediterranean, where sunlight is considered sufficient comparing to other region. Researchers of the University o...

One critical issue of Micro LEDs is that their luminous efficiency decrease as their dimension shrink, leading to increasing problems in inspection and repair. Technology developers thus try to improve Micro LED efficiency at the phase of epitaxy wafer production. A group of researchers from UCSB, including Nobel winner Shuji Nakamura, recently published a paper describing the method of fabricating high performance InGaN Micro LED with epitaxial tunnel junctions (TJs Micro LEDs). Published in Optics Express, the paper, titled “Size-independent Low...

Researchers of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have been working on improve efficiency of red Micro LEDs and they recently announced the achievement of manufacturing stable red Micro LED based on InGaN. (Image: KAUST) A major challenge facing the development of Micro LEDs is to integrate red, green and blue light into a single LED chip. Current RGB LEDs are made by combining two kinds of materials with InGaP red LEDs and InGaN blue and green LEDs. "Creating RGB displays requires the mass transfer...

LG Electronics released its preliminary earnings results for the second quarter of 2020. The Korean company posted tentative consolidated revenue of KRW 12.8 trillion (US$ 10.64 billion) in the second quarter of 2020 with an operating profit of KRW 493.1 billion (US$ 409.77 billion). (Image: LG) Comparing to the number last year, LG said the sales of 2Q20 is expected to drop by 17.9% and operating income also decreased by 24.4% YoY. Comparing to the previous quarter, 2Q20 revenue would decrease by 13% and operating profit down by 54.76%. In 1Q20, LG bro...

LED applications covering lighting and disinfection have become crucial technologies to support people’s safety when COVID-19 is still posing a threat globally. During the pandemic, technology builders continue to enhance applications and create new possibility to leverage the functions of LEDs aiming to provide safer environments for people. Enlighted, a IoT platform provider, added workplace digital contact tracing application to its IoT platform to help employees return safely to manufacturing facilities, pharmaceutical labs, offices and more. The application pr...

A research team led by Shin-Tson Wu, Professor from the College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, USA, conducted a comprehensive analysis on the current display technologies: LCD, OLED, Mini LED and Micro LED. The researchers analyze the performance of self-emitting Mini LED, Micro LED and OLED display, as well as Mini LED backlit LCD, evaluating the power consumption and ambient contrast ratio of each display in depth and systematically compared the dynamic range, motion picture response time, color gamut, and adaptabili...

MaxLite has filed petitions for inter partes review (IPR) aiming to invalidate the patents of Jiaxing Super Lighting to fight against the Chinese company’s accusing of patent infringement. MaxLite provided an update on the status of the pending lawsuit. (Image: MaxLite) In May 2019, Super Lighting filed a patent infringement lawsuit against MaxLite, accusing MaxLite of infringing several Super Lighting’s US patents. In response, MaxLite filed petitions for IPR before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Pat...

As COVID-19 sweeping across the world, most large scale activities have been cancelled, rescheduled or moved online. So are the fashion events. Milano Fashion Week is now hosted entirely online from July 14 to 17 and people in the city can see the shows on the large LED signage provided by Samsung hanging on Duomo Cathedral. (Image: Samsung) By moving the showcase online, the organizer of the event, the National Chamber of Italian Fashion and Urban Vision, streaming partner of the Milano Digital Fashion Week, hopes to offer fans of fashion and design a sen...

We have now learned that COVID-19 is transmitted through droplets or surfaces contact of the infected individuals. As a result, wearing mask and intensifying disinfection are considered effective ways to prevent infection. Combining above two solutions, a UVC LED embedded mask was developed and raised more than US$ 1 million on a crowdfunding platform. (Image: UM System) The product, named UVMask, was launched by UM System, a subsidiary of Measure Inc. focusing on optical and bio-technology, on June 25, 2020. According to UM System, UVMask is a reus...

Since many places have ended lockdowns and return to usual life but the threat of COVID-19 continues, it is important to maintain social distance and intensify disinfection in public areas. UV light disinfection, which has been a popular application ever since the beginning of COVID-19 outbreak, is now supported by scientists as an effective solution to prevent COVID-19 transmission for indoor environment. A study recently published in ACS Nano by experts in the fields of virology, immunology, aerosols, architecture, and physics, have surveyed the possible methods t...

LiDAR sensor developer Quanergy Systems shared that its new generation QORTEX People Counter solution can deliver over 98% accuracy from pitch dark or indoor to very bright lighting conditions in full sun light. By combining the system with Quanergy’s LiDAR product, a wide range of flow management can be deployed to enhance security and safety in public areas especially at the critical time of reopen. According Quanergy, QORTEX People Counter provides information about the flow and number of people in retail stores, public transportation centers, stadiu...

A new study reveals how outdoor artificial lighting at night links with sleep and mental disorder of adolescents. Researchers of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) found that teenagers who live in areas that have high levels of artificial light at night tend to get less sleep and are more likely to have a mood disorder comparing to teens who live in areas with low levels of night-time light. The research, titled “Association of Outdoor Artificial Light at Night with Mental Disorders and Sleep Patterns among US Adolescents,” was based on a cro...

GE Current and Pointr announced their partnership to leverage the edge of smart lighting based on IoT technology for safe reopens of large buildings. Especially at the time when COVID-19 still post threat to the communities. The smart lighting technology of GE Current combined with Pointr’s location-based services developed enhanced space management applications for retailers, warehouses and industrial premises. Through mobile devices, owners of buildings and public areas can understand the precise location of employees and visitors. (Image: GE Current) G...

The U.S.-based material supplier Coretec Group who focus on silicon-based materials utilizing Cyclohexasilane (CHS) development announced that it has filed a provisional patent with its CHS derived silicon. The provisional patent notes three LED applications that Coretec believes its CHS technology is suited for. The first application is the ability to create a cost-efficient, high intensity UV LED capable of killing COVID-19 and other microorganisms. As one of the existing challenges of UV LED is the limitation of reaching needed intensity light, C...

Self-driving technology startup Aurora announced its self-developed LiDAR sensor FirstLight LiDAR last week. The LiDAR sensor was tested on Aurora’s test vehicles to help the perception system to see and track objects farther, faster, and with greater precision. (Image: Aurora) Aurora acquired LiDAR company Blackmore last year eyeing the expertise of FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) technology. FMCW LiDAR delivers a constant stream of light and changes the frequency of that light at regular intervals. With the technology, Auro...