As Apple’s upcoming release of products featuring Mini LED backlight generates a growth in Mini LED demand, the company has also stimulated actors in the Mini LED supply chain to increase their production capacities. According to the latest investigations by the LEDinside research division of TrendForce, in 1Q21 Apple is expected to not only release its 12.9-inch, Mini LED backlight-equipped iPad Pro, but also open contract bids for its 14-inch and 16-inch MacBooks. Apple has currently chosen Taiwanese manufacturers of display-related components to suppl...

According to the latest report by LEDinside, the research division of TrendForce, “2020 Global Automotive LED Product Trend and Regional Market Analysis,” automotive LED market demand steadily increase by advanced technologies, such as intelligent headlamp, central tunnel taillights, HDR automotive display, ambient light, etc. TrendForce analyze automotive LED market development by five directions, including automotive lighting and display product trend, automotive lamp player revenue and development strategies, LED player revenue performance and pro...

Velodyne Lidar announced two new business partners and is going to leverage its LiDAR sensing technologies for people flow monitoring and automation at one of the busiest seaport. Velodyne signed a multi-year partnership agreement with Outsight, who offers solutions of Smart Cities monitoring. Outsight uses Velodyne Lidar sensing technology in its 3D Semantic Camera system that helps businesses and governments improve the analysis and management of people flow and assets in large crowded environments. LiDAR sensors enable 3D capture and tracking of people and object...

The Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) and the International Ultraviolet Association (IUVA) have partnered to develop American National Standards for the measurement and characterization of UV-C device performance in disinfection. Through this partnership IES and IUVA aim to cooperatively promote awareness of and improve the application of UV disinfection technology in the healthcare system by establish measuring standard for UV disinfecting products including light sources of UV lamps and UV LEDs. (Image: Pixabay) Since UVC radiation...

Korea researchers announced that they have developed a GaN Micro LED that can be folded and cut by scissors. The team demonstrate a method of creating a deformable LED based on remote heteroepitaxy of GaN. The research, titled “Remote heteroepitaxy of GaN microrod heterostructures for deformable light-emitting diodes and wafer recycle,” was published in Science Advances on June 3, 2020. The research was jointly conducted by professor from Sejong University and the University of Texas. The team manufactured Micro LEDs on a graphene-coated wafer ...

Via photoplethysmography (PPG), red light and infrared LEDs can receive date from the environment and measure biometric data including heart rate, blood oxygen, blood pressure and blood sugar level. Adopting the sensing components to wearable devices enables a wider range of applications with many leading brands working on launching related products. (Image: Pixabay) A patent Apple received earlier this year describes how Apple Watch could analyze composition of water and determine the pH level of user’s sweat through the sensing components like short-wave infrared...

Apple’s rumored Mini LED backlight based iPad Pro is said to use display supplied by LG display and chips from Epistar. The LCD module will be assembled by Taiwan’s TSMT and the whole iPad Pro will be completed by Foxconn, reported TheElec, a Korean media. The report also noted that the 12.9-inch Mini LED iPad Pro is in trial production and is scheduled to launch the earliest in 4Q20. (Image: Pixabay) Since Micro LED technology still encounters manufacture difficulties and can hardly commercialize, the progress of Mini LED beco...

Study Shows the Impacts of Lighting in Our Daily Life Many researches have indicated that lighting plays a critical role for human wellbeing and can significantly affect our productivity. The Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute published a study in 2018*, demonstrating that circadian-effective lighting installed in office buildings can help workers to reduce sleepiness and increase alertness and energy. “Circadian-effective” lighting describes light source delivering effective photic stimulus that suppress melatonin, which often re...

The City of Jersey City in the U.S. is launching the municipal vertical farming program together with vertical farm technology supplier AeroFarms and World Economic Forum. The program is aim to support healthy diet for people living in area and spark awareness. The initiative will establish 10 vertical farms throughout Jersey City located in senior centers, schools, public housing complexes, and municipal buildings. The 10 sites will grow 19,000 pounds of vegetables annually using water mist and minimal electricity. The food will be free to the public. (Image: AeroF...

New display technologies Mini LED and Micro LED are bringing new opportunities to the industry. Many companies are thus trying to develop new strategies and form alliances with the aim to occupy a leading position in the market. Recently, Taiwan-based LED companies Epistar and Lextar announced their integration for leveraging their expertise to accelerate technology development in Mini LED and Micro LED technologies, hoping to win more business opportunities. Apart from LED manufacturers, panel makers have also geared up to push commercialization of the new di...

Signify announced its partnership with the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to support the Smart Street Lighting NY project of the state. The Smart Street Lighting NY program was launched in 2018 with the aim to replace streetlights in New York State. Signify is going to provide its Interact City IoT lighting system to connect LED luminaires and further help cities of the state to reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint. To date, more than 50,000 LED streetlights have been installed or are currently being installed under the program. (Im...

Several researchers have proved the effectiveness of UVC radiation from both LEDs and lamps on deactivating coronavirus for preventing the spread of COVID-19. Seoul Viosys, who experts in UV LED technology, announced a new application of installing UV LEDs in air conditioners. Seoul Viosys partnered with Gree Electric Appliances, a Chinese air conditioner maker, to launch a new series of air conditioner products adopting Violeds UV LED technology. (Image: Seoul Viosys) The UV LED embedded air conditioners will provide disinfection on the ...

Taiwanese LED chip maker Epistar and Lextar are going to form a new holding company, aiming to intensify its growing momentum in next-gen display technologies Mini LED and Micro LED. LEDinside noticed that Apple, who is reportedly launching Mini LED-based products, could be a nudge that lead to the alliance of Epistar and Lextar. Rumors of Apple to release several Mini LED backlight technology adopted products including a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, a 14.1-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro in 2020 and 2021 have been going on since last year. Epistar, the Taiwan com...

Two Taiwan-based LED companies, Epistar and Lextar, announced yesterday (June 18) that they will jointly set up a new holding company via share conversion. Through the collaboration, the two companies aim to integrate their resource and focus on their expertise to speed Mini LED and Micro LED technology development. For the new holding company, Epistar and Lextar will swap one share for 0.5 and 0.275 shares respectively. The share swap is scheduled to be completed on October 20, 2020. Once the new holding company is listed upon the share swap date, both Epistar a...

Micro LED technology supplier PlayNitride said that it aims to reduce production cost of Micro LED chip by 95% in five years to meet the requirement of mass production and is continue to raise funding. Charles Li, CEO of PlayNitride, noted that the two major keys of Micro LEDs are to make them small and cheap, which is the current challenge for commercialization. In order to achieve the goal, it is critical to connect the supply chain from wafer manufacture, chip process, transfer technology, display module, backplane driver and system tuning. Most of the processes ...

With the impacts of COVID-19 outbreak, several companies across the world including Osram had withdrawn their business outlook or guidance earlier this year. As for new, following reopens in many countries, Osram provided an updated business guidance for its fiscal year 2020, starting October 2019 and ending September 2020. Osram reported on June 17, 2020, that it is expecting an on-year revenue decline of -15 to -19%, comparing to its previous guidance of comparable revenue growth between -3% and +3%. The projected adjusted EBITDA margin went down from 9% to 11% to ...

As an important part that influences the reliability of LED lighting fixtures, LED driver’s quality and stability are pivotal to the lifespan of the whole lamp. In recent years, as the LED lighting industry entered a mature period of stability, LED driver manufacturers started to seek breakthroughs and innovation. Rising of niche markets has brought new business opportunities to the LED driver industry, leading to another round of competition. Meanwhile, ever-changing market environment has presented new difficulties and challenges to the industry, making manufacture...

Scientists at the Circadian Light Research Center published their new finding in the Journal of Biological Rhythms pointing out the narrow band of blue light that synchronizes our circadian rhythms during the day and disrupts them at night. The study could help lighting fixtures and LEDs to be further engineered and designed to optimize human health. Blue light exposure at night is a well-established public health hazard. It suppresses melatonin, causes circadian disruption, and is linked to an increased risk of sleep disorders, obesity, diabetes, and breast and prostate can...

Signify collaborated with the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) at Boston University in the US on a research that validates the effectiveness of Signify’s UVC light sources on the inactivation of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Since the start of the SARS CoV-2 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Griffiths, Associate Professor of Microbiology at Boston University School of Medicine and his team have been working on developing tools to support scientific advancement in this field. During their research they have t...

Otsaw, the robot manufacturer from Singapore announced that it has launched the world first UVC LED based autonomous robot for disinfection. The robot, named “O-RX,” is created in only eight weeks from conceptualization, design, materials procurement, prototype testing to certification. The UVC LED embedded disinfecting robot also passed safety testing and has been certified by TUV SUD. (Image: Otsaw) Unlike other current UV disinfecting robot using mercury UV lamps, the O-RX utilizes the UVC LED technology that emits only UVC ...

A team of researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has succeeded for the first time in producing LEDs from a hybrid perovskite semiconductor material using inkjet printing. This opens the door to broad application of these materials in manufacturing many different kinds of electronic components. The scientists achieved the breakthrough with the help of a trick, which was called "inoculating" (or seeding) the surface with specific crystals. (Image: Claudia Rothkirch/HU Berlin) Scientists at HZB have al...

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is investigating the impacts of working from home or quarantining indoors due to the COVID-19 pandemic on individual daily light exposures. The results showed that indoor and outdoor light exposure significantly impacted people’s sleep quality and psychological health. LRC conducted a survey on people who had been staying home due to the pandemic in May 2020. The survey collected 600 effective data and found that daily indoor light exposure and time spent outside had a major impact on all sur...

Panasonic Lighting Americas announced a strategic solution partnership with Pointr, a UK-based startup experts in deep location platforms. The new partnership enables an offering of end-to-end connected lighting solutions, paired with real-time location-based services, to address the convergence of physical spaces with the virtual world. The two parties will integrated their expertise in location based services and lighting solutions to provide innovative offering for customers such as digital ceiling embedded with location-based services. The solution aims to improve efficiency,...

Huawei’s subsidiary Hubble recently invested in Vertilite, a semiconductor startup focusing on VCSEL development. The amount of the investment was not revealed. Vertilite has become the VCSEL supply of Huawei after the U.S. banned Lumentum shipment to the China tech giant in May, 2019. Huawei thus turned to Vertilite for the 3D sensing component and further pushed the de-Americanization plan. Hubble is an investment company of Huawei and has invested different China-based semiconductor companies to help strengthening their technology and fortifying i...

A new LED manufacture method which does not require phosphor to make white semipolar LED was published by a research team of UCSB with Shuji Nakamura, Nobel winner and LED pioneer, as a co-author. The result was published in Optics Express. White light emitting LEDs are usually made from blue LEDs combining yellow phosphor. But phosphor converted white LEDs usually suffer energy loss and reduced thermal stability. Phosphor-free LEDs, however, are rather difficult to fabricate but the UCSB team proposed an easier method to achieve efficient and polari...

Daktronics and Beijing Indigo have partnered for a new freeform LED video display in the location's winter garden atrium. The display forms a curtain across six arc-arranged steel columns to form the largest display in the Beijing region. The display is comprised of freeform stick LED elements featuring 25-mm line spacing and measuring 9 meters high by 52 meters wide. It is a transparent display that faces inward to create an engaging atmosphere for visitors while people outside can see through the display. (Image: Daktronics) "It was challenging to ensure t...

LG Electronics said on June 11 that its LED Cinema Display has been installed in Taiwan’s movie theater. It is the first commercialized LED Cinema Display of LG and the first LED theater display in Taiwan. The display is 14 meters wide and seven meters high, supporting 4K resolution and installed in a 300-seat theater that is operated by Taiwan’s local cinema chain Showtime Cinema. LG also works with audio tech company Dolby Laboratories to add surround sound to the display, offering an advanced experience with its LED Cinema Display. ...

Display technologies keep progressing with new solutions coming up to tackle Mini LED and Micro LED production difficulties and new materials using to create OLED display. Now, scientists are using recycled human hair to develop flexible OLED displays. Researchers from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and Griffith University in Austria have teamed up with a barbershop and develop a method to turn human hair into OLED display. The research was published in Advanced Materials. (Image: Queensland University of Technology) The small hair ...

Japan-based medical equipment supplier Nikkiso has collaborated with the University of Miyazaki and announced that its deep UV LED adopted apace disinfecting device can effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19. The two parties conducted trials by exposing SARS-CoV-2 viruses contained liquid under deep UV LED radiation for 30 second and found that virus infectivity decreased by 99.9%. The experiment went on two months and the effectiveness of deep UV LED for preventing COVID-19 infection is confirmed. (Image: Nikkiso) Researchers said that th...

Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC) and the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) announced that they have won in two patent administrative suits and confirm the validity of a patent (No. ZL201110066517.7) for red phosphor. (image: NIMS) MCC filed the patent infringement litigation with the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court against Shield on January 23, 2015. Another litigation filing with that court was against Intematix, its American parent Intematix Corporation, and Chinese sales agency GrandLux Optoelectronics (collectivel...