Automotive applications mark a niche market for global LED makers. While the developing electronic vehicle and autonomous driving technology with higher requirement for power saving open more opportunities for LED producers, LED technology progress also supports more application options for automobile manufacturers. Head up display (HUD) which enables drivers to obtain information while looking the frond is an application that can be enhanced through advance LED technologies. A HUD system usually include a picture generating unit (PGU) consisting of an LED arra...

Connected lighting with smart light bulbs that can be controlled via mobile phone or tablets help to improve life convenience. However, a new study by researchers at the University of Texas, San Antonio (UTSA) warns that personal data and information could be hacked via smart light bulbs. Researchers at UTSA have conducted a review of the security holes that exist in popular smart-light brands. According to the analysis, the next prime target could be that smart bulb that shoppers buy for the coming holiday season. "Your smart bulb could come equipped with infrare...

The applications of water disinfection and purification are expanding and becomes a driving force of the UVC LED market. One of the growing applications is UV-C embedded water bottle. LEDinside reported in August one model of the UV-C LED integrated bottle offered by an on-line design shop NOERDEN. Soon after that, we found more and more similar products launched in the past two months. In most of the bottles, a UV-C LED module with Li-Polymer battery is equipped with the bottle cap and can be activated to water disinfection by tapping the cap. Th...

Apple’s AR glasses have become even more materialized as Bloomberg reported on October 21 that the iPhone maker is likely to introduce AR headset which synchronize the new 5G upgraded iPhone in 2020. According to Bloomberg, the glasses will wirelessly connected with iPhone to show information over users’ field of vision, displaying texts, emails, maps or even games. Apple was also said to include an App Store with the headset. (Image: the United States Patent and Trademark Office) The Apple’s AR glasses are expected to have holographic dis...

IoT solution provider WiSilica announced a global strategic collaboration with LED lighting technology company Bridgelux for providing intelligent wireless control solutions and intuitive applications. This affiliation allows Bridgelux to deliver streamlined experiences in human-centric lighting and wireless controls. In a fast urbanizing world like today’s, the benefits of IoT and connected lighting are immense; primarily in driving cost benefits, convenience, and energy efficiency. Bridgelux and WiSilica are ready to cater efficiently to these requirements. WiSil...

Horticulture lighting technology supplier Heliospectra announced that it will supply spectra controllable LED lighting solutions and light control system for Canadian cannabis grower. The horticulture LED lighting and control solutions are designed to ensure high-quality production and healthy plants from propagation to harvest. Eco Canadian Organic (E.C.O.) is a family-owned commercial cannabis late-stage license applicant with Health Canada ACMPR and is located in New Brunswick, Canada. The company will apply the new cultivation facility to focus on medicinal ...

A research team of The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) developed a new light-emitting material which combines quantum dot with a polymer medium filled with popcorn-like air bag. The new material, compared to conventional pure quantum dot films, perform 21 times better luminous intensity and 45% better durability. (Image: KAIST) The study was published online in September on Nano Letters, titles “Order-of-Magnitude, Broadband-Enhanced Light Emission from Quantum Dots Assembled in Multiscale Phase-Separated Block Copol...

As display technology continues to progress, worldwide big names have launched innovative displays that the resolution has evolved from full HD to 4K. Nevertheless, without high contrast, the refined display performance of high resolution would not be fully presented. High contrast intensifies the brightness and darkness of images and videos on TVs and gaming monitors and enables AR wearables or automotive displays to deliver clear picture under sunlight. Thus, the demands for high contrast display keep rising. LEDs, with its self-emitting feature, can be adopted to various ...

Hyundai Mobis announced its partnership with Velodyne Lidar for mass-producing level 3 autonomous driving LiDAR system. Hyundai Mobis will also invest US$50 million in Velodyne to reinforce business cooperation in LiDAR commercialization. (Image: Hyundai Mobis) The two companies will collaborate on new LiDAR system supply by integrating Velodyne’s latest LiDAR sensors with Hyundai Mobis’ cognitive software. Hyundai Mobis’ cognitive software will process the outside vehicle environment data gathered by LiDAR sensors which means tha...

Seoul Semiconductor reported that it has successfully obtained a judgement of permanent injunction in a patent infringement lawsuit against Fry’s Electronics, a U.S. consumer electronics retailer. Seoul filed patent infringement litigation against Fry’s Electronics in September 2018, accusing the retailer of selling Philips TV products that violate 15 patents of Seoul. Later, the Korean company amended its complaints and asserted that the TV products infringe 19 patents covering a Multi-Wavelength Insulation Reflector widely used for “0.5W to 3W&r...

Lighting companies are diving into human centric lighting with more and more fixture manufacturers presenting products with enhanced light source for different lighting environments and applications. U.S.-based Focal Point reported that it will showcase the latest luminaires and acoustic solutions at the LED Specifier Summit in Chicago, USA. The company will exhibit the expanding Seem 1 family, a series of linear luminaires providing design flexibility. Focal Point is also presenting a preview of the soon-to-be-released acoustic lighting products Blume and Zyl. (I...

A new study by researchers at Oregon State University suggests that the blue wavelengths produced by LED damage cells in the brain as well as retinas. The study, published today in Aging and Mechanisms of Disease, involved a widely used organism, Drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly, an important model organism because of the cellular and developmental mechanisms it shares with other animals and humans. Jaga Giebultowicz, the researcher from the OSU College of Science, has led a research collaboration that examined how flies responded to daily 12-hour exposu...

Shanghai Orient-chip Technology (OCS) is a deep tech company that focuses on integrated IC and optoelectronics product. Headquarters of the company are in Shanghai, China and its R&D centers locate in Shanghai, Taipei and Hsinchu. OCS’s IC and optoelectronics R&D teams focus on TX total solution for Time of Flight (TOF) since 2015. They developed a series VCSEL package for TOF that integrates metal holder and brings two advantage. First, heat dissipation on metal holder product is better then plastic holder product. Second, metal holde...

People become more and more aware of how lighting can affect human well-being and are paying attention to the quality of lighting. For enhancing light quality, researchers found out people have different perception of light sources depending on their age and highlighted the importance of taking age factor into consideration when designing white LED lighting. A study published in The Optical Society (OSA) journal Optics Express investigated the perception variability related to short-wavelength effects and confirmed that the perception of white LEDs is affected by the view...

Chemistry company BASF announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with EMDE Development of Light (EMDE), a Germany-based innovative lighting design company. Under the agreement, EMDE will distribute BASF’s innovative LED Sunvue® lighting products in Europe. In addition, the lighting company will adopt BASF’s color conversion technology to design new lighting products and solutions. (Image: BASF) BASF’s proprietary Sunvue technology is developed to optimize blue LED light for different applications. The te...

As China's largest foreign trade promotion platform, the China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair) has made important contributions to the world’s economic growth. Every year, the fair brings orders from all over the world to Chinese manufacturers, kicking out the peak purchase season. The 126th Canton fair, with over 25,000 exhibitors, concluded last Saturday on October 19. As the most long-standing participant of the fair, Shanghai Wellmax Lighting (WELLMAX) made a great hit again by presenting its innovative lighting solutions. WELLMAX&rsq...

AMS re-approached Osram with a new bidding offer launched on October 18. With the new offer, the Austrian company aims to acquire Osram with a price of EUR 41 (US$ 46) per share with the minimum acceptance rate of 55%. The sensor maker failed the first attempt to takeover Osram in the beginning of October as it did not reach the minimum acceptance threshold of 62.5%. Within two weeks, AMS keeps its words of continuing the acquisition plan and proposed the new offer with the same price of EUR 41 per share but a lower acceptance rate of 55%. The offer values Osram w...

Google launched its latest smart phones Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL on October 15, featuring advanced camera functions, motion sensing and face unlock. The new features of Pixel 4 are supported by sensing technology specialists including Infineon and ams. (Image: Google) Google created Motion Sense to detect users hand motions based on its technology from Project Soli. The technology allows user operate the device simply by swiping or waving hands in front of it Instead of touching or holding the phone. This function was achieved thanks to Infineon’s radar chip. T...

ON Semiconductor and AImotive have jointly announced that they will work together to develop prototype sensor fusion platforms for automotive applications. The collaboration will help customers explore highly integrated solutions for future generations of sensor data conditioning hardware platforms. The companies plan to develop a series of hardware platform demonstrators, combining ON Semiconductor’s latest HD camera and radar sensor and pre-processor chipsets and expertise with AImotive’s AI-based perception algorithms, hardware acceleration and simulation ca...

Specialized in facial recognition, the U.S.-based company StereoVision Imaging (SVI) announced that it won eight patents related to Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) LiDAR technology. Conventional FMCW LiDAR systems are typically limited in various aspects of operation. For example, these conventional systems are not able to provide range and/or range rate information instantaneously based on the target signal or unambiguously determine distance and velocity. These limitations may be exacerbated by various operating conditions such as, for example,...

Chinese water treatment system developer Canature and Canada-based UV LED water disinfection technology provider announced their partnership for UV-LED water treatment technology solutions. (Image: Acuva) Acuva Technologies utilizes UVC-LED technology to build water purification system. The company won CAD 2.1 million (US$ 1.6 million) Canadian government funds last year and received certification by the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) with its UV LED water disinfection module. The company sees Can...

LED lighting is creating a magical feeling for LEGO-built city with the creation of Brick City Lights. A family in Illinois, United States, built their first LEGO city in 1980 as a Christmas activity and turned the family tradition into the world’s largest known LED brick city lit up with LEDs. (Image: Brick City Lights) In 2018, the family enlarged their LEGO town and decided to light up the construction with LED lights. They used thousands of miniature LED lights and transform the town into a magical experience. Currently the fami...

Power management company Eaton and lighting company Signify announced that they have entered that Signify is going to purchase Cooper Lighting Solutions in cash with US$1.4 billion. Signify aims to strengthen its market position in North America with the acquisition. With the new business, the Dutch company hopes to improve the business mix in its Professional section. The transition is expected to finish in the first quarter of 2020. Eaton announced its plan to spin off its lighting business in March and is now selling it to Signify after a comprehensive review of v...

LG Business Solutions USA has launched the first 4K Ultra HD TVs designed specifically for the hospitality market with NanoCell display technology. LG is bringing its display technology from the consumer market into the hotel room for the first time. These new hotel TVs leverage the power of LG's NanoCell IPS technology panels to enhance picture performance with better color accuracy and wider viewing angles for LED-backlit LCD TVs. (Image: LG) LG's proprietary NanoCell technology uses nano particles to absorb surplus wavelengths of ...

City College of New York (CCNY) announced their research breakthroughs in the realm of photonics, the researchers successfully demonstrated an LED based on half-light half-matter quasiparticles in atomically thin materials. According to CCNY, this is also the first successful test of an electrically driven light emitter using atomically thin semiconductors embedded in a light trapping structure. (Schematic of a half-light- half-matter quasiparticle based LED developed in Vinod Menon's group using atomically thin materials. Image credit: Visakh Menon) The ...

In spite of slump price, LED makers are still releasing new chip products targeting niche lighting applications such as commercial retail lighting and human centric lighting. Lumileds launched LUXEON CoB Core Range PW, a line of chip on board LEDs built for high impact retail, indoor area lighting and other commercial lighting applications. The product features Lumileds’ proprietary SLA phosphor technology to achieve the highest efficacy in the industry at 138 lm/W and color temperature of 4000K 90CRI. (Image: Lumileds) “We’re alway...

Microdisplay solutions provider Compound Photonics (CP) announced its partnership with Plessey, the UK-based Micro LED technology builder, for developing the world’s smallest 1080p (1920x1080 pixel) GaN-on-Silicon Micro LED based microdisplay solution suitable for integration into AR and MR smart glasses. Under this partnership, Plessey will bond CP’s high speed digital low-latency backplane silicon wafer with Plessey’s proprietary GaN on Silicon monolithic Micro LED array wafer. In turn, CP will utilize its deep experience in microd...

In order to find out optimized agronomic conditions for different crops to meet demands from the growing indoor farming business, researchers from the UK are developing advanced growth chamber to conduct food production experiments. Experts from agri-tech company Grobotic Systems, Fraunhofor UK, Stockbridge Technology Center and the University of Sheffield are working together in the Advanced Growth Chamber for the Rapid Optimization of Vertical Farming Systems project. The project aims to provide affordable tools to assess optimum growth conditions for different pl...

EVERLIGHT, a leading player in the global LED and optoelectronics industry, will demonstrate the complete production lines and Mini LED lamp modules as well as other products such as Smart Multi Array Lamp and Fish Scale Rear Lamps at 2019 CEATEC, Japan during October 15 to 18. Everlight will promote the fish scale lamps in the fourth quarter of 2019. By using the light-guided plate with CH2016 package, the luminescence effect is similar to that for OLED, reducing a lot of cost as well as its solidness and reliability better than those for OLED....

Automotive lighting component specialist HELLA announced that it will showcase innovative product solutions for buses and coaches that contribute to greater safety and comfort in road traffic at Busworld 2019. The event is the largest international trade fair for city buses and coaches which will take place in Brussels from October 17 to 23. The focus of Busworld 2019 will be on VISIOTECH projection technology. It enables communication by means of light and can thus visually warn other vehicles and pedestrians. HELLA will present further intelligent lighting sys...