According to the latest report by the LEDinside research division of TrendForce, titled 2020 Mini LED Next-Generation Display Technology and Supply Chain Analysis, as Apple pushes forward the development of Mini LED backlight technology, the company is expected to incorporate Mini LED backlight technology to improve the performance its existing products such as the iPad and Pro Display. The application of Mini LED backlight technology is expected to reach 18% penetration rate in the overall market for IT products in 2025. TrendForce Assistant Resear...

Despite that many countries are preparing to loosen lockdowns and resume economic activities, the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact the high-tech industry. Light + Building 2020, which postponed to late September and early October, has been cancelled. (Image: Messe Frankfurt) The event organizers, Mess Frankfurt, ZVEI, ZVEH and the Exhibitor Advisory Council have decided to cancel the event as it is still uncertain how the coronavirus epidemic will develop by September. The world’s largest lighting company Signify has announced that it will not joi...

Seoul Viosys, the subsidiary of Seoul Semiconductor, announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2020. The company registered a consolidated revenue of KRW 87 billion (US$ 71.17 million), which increased by 10% YoY. Seoul Viosys has reported boosting inquiries for its UV LED products “Violeds” for disinfection applications as the coronavirus outbreak stimulated the awareness of consumers for ‘Clean Technologies.’ As a result, despite that sales of visible LEDs declined, Seoul Viosys still reported a double-digit overall grow...

Mojo Vision, the Invisible Computing company who is developing smart contact lens with Micro LED technology, announced by the end of April its additional funding raised in Series B-1 investment round. The found will be used to gear up the development of Mojo Lens, the smart contact lens to realize AR applications. (Image: Mojo Vision) Mojo Vision has raised US$51 million in the B-1 round, bringing the total funding to date to more than US$159 million. The latest round of funding was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with participation from top stra...

Germany-based semiconductor equipment provider AIXTRON published its financial results of the first quarter of 2020. The company reported an on-year increase for order intake but drops in revenue and profit. AIXTRON’s order intake grew by 28% YoY for 1Q20 to EUR 68.8 million (US$ 74.9 million) due to continued strong demand for the increasing use of LED-based display applications and the production of lasers for optical data transmission and 3D sensors, especially in mobile phones. The revenues for in Q120, however, dropped by 40% YoY and 45% QoQ...

Connected streetlights and smart city solution supplier Ubicquia announced that it has acquired smart city platform from GE Current, a Daintree Company. Ubicquia bought all CityIQ® assets including technology, related patents and contracts with major customers and cities across the US and Canada. In addition, all CityIQ Development, Sales and Customer Success team members across Montreal and Cleveland will be fully integrated into Ubicquia’s organization. (Image: Ubicquia) The CityIQ platform has been applied in several cities in the U.S. and ...

Lawrence Lin, who took over the role of CEO in LEDVANCE in November 2018, has left the company, covered by EdisonReport and lightED. Qinghuan Sun, President of MLS, has been appointed as CEO and Managing Director of LEDVANCE since Lin left. Erol Kirilmaz, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, on the other hand, has become Managing Director in the United States and Canada on an interim basis. (Image: LEDVANCE) Lin had been appointed as CEO and Managing Director in 2018 after Jacob Tern, who took the role for only eight month...

Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in Austria has develop a new technology by using LED instead of laser as light sources to make metal component by 3D printing. The research project is named Selective LED-based Melting (SLEDM). SLEDM uses high-power LEDs as light source to melt metal powder for 3D printing manufacturing. The technology is similar to selective laser melting (SLM) and electron beam melting (EBM), in which metal powder is melted by means of a laser or electron beam and built up into a component layer by layer. However, by replacin...

Tridonic, the lighting technology company of the Zumtobel Group, welcomed its new CEO on May 1, 2020. Meanwhile, Dutch lighting company Signify report the pricing of its Eurobond to refinance the bridge loan for the acquisition of Cooper Lighting. Hugo Rohner has become the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tridonic of the Austria based Zumtobel Group. Hugo Rohner is an internationally experienced manager in the fields of digitalisation and IoT (Internet of Things) and was most recently the CEO of the Skidata Group in Salzburg. He will reports directly...

Healthe announced the expansion of the Cleanse® Series that uses UV light which the company claims to be safe for human exposure to continuously sanitize public environments using UV light The UV light equipped series include Cleanse Portal, Cleanse Downlight and Cleanse Air-Sanitizing Troffer. The Cleanse Portal is a free-standing walkthrough arch sanitizer, similar in size and shape to a metal detector, that inactivates bacteria and viruses on skin, clothing and goods with a dosage requirement as low as 20 seconds. The Cleanse Downlight combines general illum...

Signify has teamed up with Russian innovative farming company RIAT to pioneer the growing of tomatoes and cucumbers in a vertical farm without daylight. During the research phase in 2019, RIAT achieved a yield comparable to advanced traditional greenhouses using Philips GreenPower LED grow lights. To cultivate tomatoes and cucumbers that require intensive lighting vertically without the exposure of daylight, sufficient lighting system is critical. Signify supplied its LED grow lights to the Russian company to help it achieving a yield performance comparable to tradit...

LED Driving Design Structure LED modules are typically driven by one of the three structures listed below: - A constant current (CC) LED driver connects to LED directly, luminance controlled by LED driver’s output current. - A constant voltage (CV) LED power supply, typically 12V or 24V, connects to LED strips or tubes which have resistor or simple current limiting circuit on the LED PCB. The resistor or current limiter defines the current and luminance. - Cascade connection of a CV power supply and a DC-to-DC converter (DC/DC) an...

In a report covered by Driving Vision News (DVN) in December 2019, we found that Valeo’s PictureBeam system was tested. The adaptive driving beam (ADB) system was co-developed by Valeo and Cree with a resolution of nearly 4000 pixels to deliver road marking functions. ADB system with high resolution is a trend for automotive lighting. Many automotive component manufacturers have teamed up with LED companies to develop LED array solutions based on Micro LEDs. The PictureBeam system created by Valeo and Cree is one of them. The two companies demonst...

Velodyne Lidar announced a three-year agreement with French autonomous vehicle specialist EasyMile. EasyMile uses Velodyne’s LiDAR sensors in production of its EZ10 autonomous passenger shuttles that are deployed on public and private roads in more than 30 countries around the world. (Image: Velodyne Lidar/EasyMile) EasyMile will enhance its EZ10 shuttle fleet with Velodyne’s sensors for safe and efficient navigation on roadways. Electric and driverless, the EZ10 shuttle was the one of the first autonomous shuttles launched in April 2015. It has...

Cree posted the financial results of the third quarter of its fiscal 2020, ended March 29, 2020. The company registered a revenue of US$215.5 million, representing an on-year decrease of 21% and a 10% decrease compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2020. GAAP net loss from continuing operations attributable to controlling interest for the third quarter was US$61.6 million, or US$0.57 per diluted share. On a non-GAAP basis, net loss from continuing operations attributable to controlling interest for the third quarter of fiscal 2020 was US$15.5 million, or US$0.14 ...

A U.S. based LED company Atomic Blue announced the launch of its high-powered UV-C LED light. The light has been tested by the National Institutes of Health of the U.S. government on the COVID-19 Virus and shown to eradicate the virus by 99.9999%. The study was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting on N95 masks and steel surfaces. According to the NIH website: "N95 respirators can be decontaminated effectively and maintain functional integrity for up to three uses. N95 respirators are designed for single-use and are worn by healthcare provid...

LiDAR supplier Quanergy Systems announced the expansion of its Flow Management™ Platform to support solutions that enforce social distancing amid the crisis of COVID-19 pandemic to halt the spread of disease. These solutions will assist businesses and public entities around the world in returning to work while keeping people safe. Quanergy’s Flow Management Platform combining 3D LiDAR sensors and AI-powered QORTEX™ Perception Software enables the development of social distancing solutions to anonymously and accurately track and analyze t...

Seoul Semiconductor updated its business performance of the first quarter of 2020 with a consolidated revenue of KRW 243 billion (US$199.75 million) and operating profit of KRW 6 billion (US$4.93 million). Despite abruption to production facilities for most global manufacturers due to COVID-19, Seoul achieved its guided range of KRW 240 billion to KRW 260 billion in revenues for the quarter. To mitigate manufacturing risks, Seoul has built manufacturing sites in various locations such as Korea, China, Vietnam and in the US. This has helped the company to...

According to the latest report by the LEDinside research division of TrendForce, 2020 Deep UV LED Application Market and Branding Strategies, the rapid acceleration of COVID-19 has generated a corresponding boom in the disease-prevention business. Case in point, the demand for UV-C LED (wavelength≦280 nm), a type of LED with disinfection/sterilization properties, has skyrocketed since the Lunar New Year, in turn causing massive shortages across the entire supply chain. Given the extreme shortage of UV-C LED chips, LED package suppliers looking to place orders for these chips need to exercise caution when setting chip specifications; these suppliers may also need to bear the risk of possible chip shortages. The current shortage in the UV-C LED market has led to an adjustment to UV-C LED chip quotes, in turn resulting in purchasers being unable to procure chips even with at high bid prices. TrendForce Research Manager Joanne Wu indicates that some UV-C LED suppliers are already seeing order fulfillment schedules that will last till August 2020. In addition, owing to increased orders for UV-C LED, several suppliers are expected to see double-digit YoY growths in their UV-C LED revenues this year, in particular those that have maintained UV-C LED chip and package operations for many years, including Seoul Viosys, Asahi Kasei (Crystal IS), Stanley, Bioraytron (a joint venture by Epileds and HPLighting) and San’an Optoelectronics. UV-C LED chip suppliers primarily include San’an Optoelectronics, Photon Wave, Opto Tech, and Epileds.

Leading laptop and PC makers including MSI, Acer, ASUS and Lenovo are launching products adopting Mini LED technology. The technology is also believed to be seen on the new Apple iPad Pro and MacBook Pro coming in the second half of 2020. With more products using Mini LED entering the market, many hold a positive attitude toward the supply chain. (Image: Pixabay) For Mini LED chip manufacture, Taiwan’s Epistar has expanded its Mini LED production capacity with increased capital expenditures. The new capacity is scheduled to be ready by th...

A research team consisting of material science and nanotechnology specialist and virologist is working on developing a protective film based on nanostructure as a novel mask material to diminish virus and protect healthcare professionals from infection. Sudipta Seal, an engineer specializing in material science and nanotechnology, initiated a project with Griffith Parks, a virologist at College of Medicine of University of Central Florida (UCF) to create nanostructures that can capture the virus and then trigger a chemical reaction using UV light to destroy it. The scienti...

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced a new development of a multi-functional luminescent film that can visualize near-infrared light through wavelength conversion that converts near-infrared light to visible light for innovative applications. Dr. Kwon Seok-joon at the Nanophotonics Research Center of KIST and Ko Doo-hyun, a professor of applied chemistry at Kyung Hee University jointly led the team to develop the flexible, transparent and washable film which can convert infrared light into visible light. The results were published in the ...

A wide range of disinfecting products adopting UV LEDs or UV lamps are become a hit in the consumer electronics market as people are using them to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. However, The International Ultraviolet Association (IUVA) and RadTech North America consisting of UV equipment vendors, scientists, engineers, consultants, and members of the medical profession published a press release to inform the public that UV light is not safe to be used directly on the human body. (Image: Pixabay) These organizations noted that there are no protocols t...

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has prompted the large-scale search for practical solutions that can prevent the spread of the deadly virus — from researchers and scientists committed to finding a solution, to the manufacturers and consumers looking for credible information. In this time of uncertainty, many are seeking information around the potential technologies that can be used to combat the virus. One proven approach is using UV light. Disrupting the DNA of pathogens with UV light UVC light is a commonly used sterilization technology that has been shown to i...

LG Innotek has been planning to quit its LED business and a recent report by TheElec, a Korean media, covered that LG Innotek has sold its LED sector and the back light unit (BLU) LED business will be taken over by Seoul Semiconductor and Wooree E&L. Wooree E&L, a LED packager from South Korea, has secured the sales permit from LG Innotek to sell BLU LED of laptops, monitors, TVs and signage to LG Eletronics, Dell and HP via LG Display. The other Korean LED company Seoul Semiconductor is reportedly taking over more ...

LEDinside has been tracking the schedule and progress update of worldwide events related to the LED industry. Until April 25, 2020, there are more events rescheduled or cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Display Week 2020 has been postponed to August 2-7 and LEDucation has been cancelled. Display Week 2020, originally planned to take place during June 7-12 in San Francisco, USA, is now moved to August 2-7 by the event organizer, the Society for Information Display (SID). SID noted in its press release published in April 15 that the event has be...

Signify announced the company’s first quarter 2020 results with sales amounted to EUR 1.43 billion (US$ 1.53 billion), down by 3.5% YoY. With adjusted for 1.3% currency effects and 10.6% consolidation (mainly related to the acquisitions of Cooper Lighting and Klite) and other changes, comparable sales declined by 15.3%. LED-based sales represent 78% of total sales. The adjusted gross margin increased by 50 bps to 38.2%, including a negative currency effect of 10 bps. Adjusted indirect costs decreased by EUR 4 million (US$ 4.295 million). The Adjusted EBIT...

Sweden-based horticulture lighting technology provider Heliospectra announced a new order from Turner Construction in Miami, Florida. The systems integrator and supplier will install the controllable spectra ELIXIA LED lights for several upcoming greenhouse facilities. Turner Construction is leading the design, construction, and installation services for the commercial-scale greenhouse projects across the United States in 2020. The Heliospectra ELIXIA 600W LED light will benefit the greenhouse projects by improving crop quality and performance in a wide v...

Luminus Devices launched its newest UVC LED, the XBT-3535, with performance ranging from 50 mW to 80 mW in the 275-285 nm range. With the global need for disinfection and sterilization devices increasing, the price-performance combination of the XBT-3535 will allow companies to quickly bring novel and affordable solutions to market. (Image: Luminus) The germicidal effectiveness of UVC LEDs against E-coli, MRSA and a variety of pathogens has been well documented. UVC LEDs with wavelengths less than 280 nm are shown to be as or more effective than mer...

Velodyne Lidar announced its partnership with ground support equipment provider TLD. The two companies signed a three-year agreement that TLD will LiDAR sensors from Velodyne for manufacture its TractEasy autonomous electric baggage tractor for airport and industrial operation. (Image: Velodyne/TLD) TLD will grow its TractEasy tractor fleet with Velodyne’s sensors for safe and efficient navigation on roadways in a variety of weather conditions. TractEasy is a zero-emission tow tractor that transfers baggage and freight from airport terminals to aircra...