Seoul Viosys, the subsidiary of Seoul Semiconductor focusing on UV LED technology, announced that its Violeds technology has been adopted in washing machines and are now mass produced by Chinese companies Hisense and Haier. The laundry tank sometimes contains invisible contamination and germs, causing odors and molds in the washing machine. By implementing Violeds technology from Seoul Viosys, the Chinese companies solved the problem of laundry tank sterilization and deodorization. Seoul Viosys posted its 1Q20 financial results last week noting that its business p...

LED lighting technology helps to enhance sustainability not only by reducing general energy consumption, it also prevent wildlife in many ways. Recently in Alabama, USA, a turtle-friendly LED lighting is installed in the Gulf Coast to protect a wide variety of sea turtles living in the area. Also, Bangor University in the UK found that attaching LED lights to big holes in net can guide non-target species to escape and significantly reduce bycatch. Alabama’s Gulf Coast with beautiful beaches attracts more than five million visitors annually with visitors. And...

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York City is using UV lamps to sanitize subway cars and buses for COVID-19 infection prevention, reported New York Daily News. MTA announced that it will close the subway system from one to five a.m. every day since May 6, 2020 to deep clean and disinfect all the trains and buses to combat coronavirus. One of its disinfecting solution is using UV lamps to deliver UVC radiation for diminishing bacteria, viruses and other pathogens in the cars. (Image: Pixabay) The disinfection project applying U...

A research team at Seoul National University (SNU) successfully grew a Micro LED array on a 100 nm-thick sapphire nano-membrane. The results were published on Scientific Reports on May 5, 2020. According to the published paper, the team, led by Euijoon Yoon of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of SNU, designed the sapphire nano-membrane array to grow an array of multi-faced Micro LEDs sized 4 μm × 16 μm. With the method, the Micro LED chip singulation does not need to go through plasma etching process, leading to a better ext...

Apple has begun construction of its new facility in Taiwan since last year and LEDinside covered the progress of the building in November 2019. Now the iPhone maker was said to develop innovative display technologies, Micro LED and Mini LED, with its partners in Taiwan, Epistar and AUO, according Taiwanese media, Economic Daily. (Apple's new facility in Taoyuan, Taiwan) The facility is said to be focus on Micro LED and Mini LED technology for iPhone or iPad display applications. As the facility is built within the Longtan Science Park under...

GE Current, a Daintree company announced on May 4 that it has opened a new distribution center in the greater Atlanta area in the U.S. With the addition of this location to its distribution network, GE Current will be able to provide same-day and next-day service to its lighting and controls customers regionally. The company aims to meet the growing needs of its customer in the southeastern United State. (Image: GE Current) Georgia State has started to reopen its shops and business amid the coronavirus pandemic since April 24, which could be an advantage for G...

Volvo unveiled its plan to launch its next generation self-driving car in 2022 by integrating LiDAR technology supported by Luminar. Volvo Cars, the Sweden-based company now owned by Geely Holding of China, said that its next generation SPA2 modular vehicle architecture will be available as hardware-ready for autonomous drive from production start in 2022,with the Luminar LiDAR seamlessly integrated into the roof. (Image: Volvo/Luminar) The LiDAR technology of Volvo’ new car is supported by Luminar, a LiDAR startup company aiming to make cost ...

Veeco Instrument posted financial results for the first quarter of 2020 ended March 31, 2020 and announced the recent adjustment of its Board of Directors. The equipment supplier reported that its former CEO and Chairman, John Peelter has retired and is passing the role to Richard D’Amore, who has been a General Partner of North Bridge Venture Partners and served on the Veeco Board for years. Meanwhile, Mary Jane Raymond, CFO of II-VI Incorporated, joined Veeco’s Board of Directors. Veeco’s revenue for 1Q20 grew by 5.13% YoY...

Osram announced its FY2Q20 financial results and said that it has achieved a good second quarter given the global challenges. The company registered a revenue of EUR 821 million (US$ 890.25 million), which dropped by 7.9% YoY. Despite that, the adjusted EBITDA increased by 36.8% YoY and adjusted EBITDA margin also improved by 3.6 p.p to 11.7%. Due to restructuring costs for the change in structural and personnel adjustments, Osram reported a loss of EUR 39.3 million (US$ 42.61 million). Osram CEO, Olaf Berlien, said that the company had reacted very...

Taiwan-based panel maker AU Optronics (AUO) is going to demerge its General Display and Public Information Display businesses and set up a new wholly owned subsidiary Da Qing. By establishing the new company, AUO aims to accelerate the building of ecosystems with partners across diverse domains, extending the value chain for smart display applications, integrating AIoT and novel technologies to seize new market opportunities. (Image: AUO) Facing severe competition in the panel industry and the declining market demand resulted by the coronavirus outbreak, globa...

Compound Photonics (CP), a U.S.-based AR/MR microdisplay solutions developer, announced the launch of its digital backplane which enables Micro LED technology builder for high definition microdisplay subsystem integration. CP re-engineered its market-ready LCoS backplane technology into an innovative constant current drive configuration for Micro LED pixels based on its 0.26-inch (~3 μm pixel) 1080p display format. The technology can be integrated with Micro LED displays to accelerate the manufacture process by bonding the devices to a backplane driven by C...

Florida State University (FSU) researchers have discovered a novel structure for organic-inorganic hybrid materials that shows potential for more efficient technologies. Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Biwu Ma and his team have published a new study in the journal Science Advances that explains how they created a hollow nanostructure for metal halide perovskites that would allow the material to emit a highly efficient blue light. Metal halide perovskites are a material that have shown great potential for photon-related technologies such as light-emitting diodes and l...

A research team at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) announced their achievement in manufacturing InGaN red LEDS with a peak wavelength of 665nm as well as improved light output power and external quantum efficacy. Their achievement is believed to support more efficient process of full color Micro LED display development. (Image: KAUST) One of the challenges of Micro LED display is producing red LEDs with GaN, which is considered almost impossible, according to Kazuhiro Ohkawa, leader of the research group. Red colo...

Korean giants Samsung and LG announced their financial results for the first quarter of 2020 and they both reported that the COVID-19 outbreak has affected their business performance. Samsung registered a total revenue of KRW 55.33 trillion (US$ 45.11 billion) with an on-year increase of 5.6%. Operating profit is KRW 6.45 trillion (US$ 5.28 billion) decreased by 9.8% QoQ but increased by 3.2% YoY. Compared to the previous quarter 4Q19 which is usually the peak season of the year, the revenue of 1Q20 went down due to seasonality. And the on-year growth was due ...

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...