Researchers from Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) in an international team have analyzed data on the impact of light pollution on melatonin formation in humans and vertebrates. They found that even the low light intensities of urban skyglow can suppress melatonin production. Melatonin synchronizes the day-night-rhythm in animals and humans. It adjusts the circadian clocks of cells, tissues and organs, and regulates other seasonal processes like reproduction. In vertebrates, differences in light levels are detected by photoreceptors for examp...

Pioneer and its subsidiary, Pioneer Smart Sensing Innovations (PSSI), announced their development of a mass-production 3D LiDAR sensor in a compact size and improved performance with an extended measurement distance and more. The new LiDAR sensor is expected to be equipped in level 3 and above autonomous driving vehicles and will be released in 1H20 and enter full scale production in the second half of 2020. Pioneer and PSSI have been providing various companies with verification models from 2017 to 2018, and continued verifying performance through demonstration...

On December 5, 2019, Judge Gutierrez of the Central District of California issued the case schedule in Jiaxing Super Lighting Electric Appliance and its U.S. affiliate Obert (collectively “Super Lighting”) patent infringement case against MaxLite. (Case No. CV 19-4047-PSG). Notably, the Court set the following upcoming deadlines: • June 8, 2020 Markman hearing, where the Court will construe the terms of Super Lighting’s six patents related to LED tube lighting technologies. • February 16, 2021 jury trial, where Super Lig...

In recent years, tuneable color application and dynamic ambient lighting have become a major market trend. Nevertheless, design engineers are always facing the challenge of variation in mixed color output of RGB LEDs. This is caused by variations of intensity and wavelength within the color and brightness groupings as well as forward current and temperature dependencies. Everyone is enthusiastic to search for a better solution. DOMINANT Opto Technologies launched the new package family known as seddLED (Smart Embedded Digital Driver LED) since the Electronic...

Each year the innovative products and technologies showcased at CES bring us closer to our imaginative future life. This year at the event, LiDAR manufacturers, sensor chip providers, automobile companies and other technology builders are joining force to present solutions for autonomous driving and smart city applications. Artificial perception provider AEye announced that it has integrated Infineon’s microcontroller into AEye’s iDAR™ platform to ensure a robust, software-definable platform that is functionally safe for automated and autonomous vehicle...

China display manufacturer BOE and Micro LED technology builder Rohinni officially announced the launch of their joint venture, BOE Pixey. The two companies reported in January 2019 that they will form a joint venture focusing on Micro LED and Mini LED based display backlight technology. In development for more than two years, BOE Pixey will design and build LCD display backlights, direct-emission displays and display-related sensors for televisions, video walls and other large-format end products. The joint venture will roll out at CES 2020, with ...

Israeli TowerJazz announced the process development partnership with Aledia, the French 3D LEDs display manufacturer. This development is based on Aledia’s IP and utilizes TowerJazz’s Transfer Optimization and Development Process Services (TOPS). Financed by Intel Capital among others, Aledia's nanowire-LED display technology offers breakthrough solutions for the global display market’s constant growing demand. (Image: TowerJaxx/Aledia) Aledia has expanded its technology to 3D Micro LED production by adopting Veeco’s...

The Konka Group reported that it has increase an investment of RMB 1.5 billion (US$ 213.8 million) for Micro LED R&D and is entering the consumer electronics market in North America in 2020. (Image: Konga) Konka launched its Micro LED TV, named “Smart Wall,” in order to compete with Samsung’s “The Wall” Micro LED display. The Chinese company also formed a joint venture with Chongqing Liangshan Industrial Investment as its Micro LED initiative. The joint venture will invest a total of RMB 2.55 billion (US...

A pioneer in sustainable energy technology, University of California-Santa Barbara materials professor Shuji Nakamura, has won the 2019 Leigh Ann Conn Prize for Renewable Energy from the University of Louisville. The prize recognizes outstanding renewable energy ideas and achievements with proven global impact. Nakamura is recognized for scientific innovations and commercialization of efficient solid-state LEDs. His innovations have enabled efficient use of energy, reduced the burden on the environment and helped create sustainable lighting worldwide. In March ...

CES, the first highlight of the technology industry every year, will take place from September 7 to 10 in Las Vegas. At the coming CES 2020, what are the featured technologies and products that will amaze the industry? Following the on-going trends, LEDinside points out the products and innovations that we might find at the big event in the beginning of 2020. Micro LED Displays and Applications Micro LED technology has moved few steps towards commercialization after years of development. Samsung unveiled its stunning Micro LED displays at CES in the past t...

Researchers at The University of Manchester in the UK discovered that blue light may not be as disruptive to our sleep patterns as originally thought. According to the team, using dim, cooler, lights in the evening and bright warmer lights in the day may be more beneficial to our health. The scientists claimed that twilight is both dimmer and bluer than daylight and the body clock uses both of those features to determine the appropriate times to be asleep and awake. In the research on mice, the team used a specially designed lighting whose color can be adjusted without changin...

École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) together with Geneva School of Art and Design (HEAD – Genève) developed a wearable sensor that measures how much light an individual is exposed to along with the spectral resolution of that light. The wearable sensor, named “Spectrace,” can detect the amount of light one person receives by being put around the neck like a pair of headphones or attached to an item of clothing with a magnetic pin. (Image: EPFL) Scientists have taken a growing interest in how a shortage ...

Korean media etnews covered that Samsung is planning to make an investment in Micro LED facilities in the first half of 2020 to kick off mass production of Micro LED. According to the report, Samsung has been in contact with equipment manufacturers and pending on the scale of the investment. The Korean giant might make its final decision for the Micro LED investment after CES 2020. Samsung was said to reveal the specifications of the Micro LED product at CES 2020 and decide further on the production volume afterwards. The company has showcase its Micro...

Many leading companies in across the world have proactively dedicated to setting up and achieving sustainable goals with the awareness of climate change and other environmental issues. Signify recently announced that it has achieved carbon neutrality in five more market; while AIXTRON reported its certification as a climate neutral company. Osram, also unveiled its intension to become climate neutral by 2030. Signify has achieved carbon neutrality in the market of ASEAN, Far East, India, Indonesia and Pacific, boosting its number of markets with carbon-neutral operati...

Cognata, an ADAS and autonomous vehicles simulation software company, announced that Israeli LiDAR solution provider Innoviz has selected Cognata as its simulation partner for testing and validation of its sensor hardware and perception software offerings. Cognata's simulation platform can replicate how Innoviz's LiDAR technology reflects off of various materials to reproduce how the sensor will work on the road. Simulation provides the only environment where this fast-paced LiDAR technology can be tested and validated extensively for real-life scenarios and...

Researcher at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) found that tailored lighting intervention can significantly help Alzheimer patients to improve sleep quality, and reduce depressive symptoms and agitation behavior. In addition to memory loss, people diagnosed with Alzheimer disease also suffered from sleep disturbances, depression, and agitation. Dr. Mariana Figueiro, the Professor and Director at LRC, has been investigating how lighting intervention can lessen the impact of these symptoms in older adults living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADR...

The Chinese government aims to push innovative display technology development and revealed a new regulation of subsidy.  The Guangzhou government published a notice pointing out that with the goal to upgrade the display technology of the province, the government will support companies investing in novel display technologies including OLED, AMOLED, Mini/Micro LED, QLED, printing display, laser display, 3D display, holographic display, e-paper flexible display, grapheme display and others. (Image: Pixabay) The government will provide a one-time subsidy ...

MaxLite announced that it has filed an additional petition for inter partes review (IPR) before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) seeking to invalidate U.S. Patent No. 9,807,826 (’826 patent), owned by Jiaxing Super Lighting, a Chinese contract manufacturer. This IPR is in addition to the two that were filed last month by MaxLite to invalidate Jiaxing Super Lighting’s 9,897,265 (‘265 patent) and 9,723,662 (‘662 patent) patents. (Image: MaxLite) Like the...

Integrated Device Technology, (IDT), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Renesas Electronics Corporation, announced that it has been tasked by the City of Campbell, California, with making one of its parking lots "intelligent" as part of its efforts to be environmentally friendly, reduce light pollution, and make the lights more interactive for the city's residents. The effort began in June with four overhead lights in the City Hall's employee parking lot and will soon expand to six additional overhead lights in the adjacent fenced Police Department parking lo...

In common sense of people, “one plus one equals two” seems to be an unquestionable truth. But in the fields of philosophy as well as commerce, the conclusion could be different. One plus one can be greater than two, based on the examples we have witnessed in the past few years. In 2005, the co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs made a historic announcement that Apple would start using Intel processors in Macs. Powered by Intel chips, Mac took a huge leap in its performance and configurability, catapulting into the global market and bringing huge profits to Apple. In...

Currently the major LED application in the agriculture industry is horticulture lighting. The combination of LED fixture and hydroponic not only breakthroughs the limitation of environment and weather for growers but also optimizes crop quality by adjusting light spectrum. Horticulture lighting with LEDs is a niche application in recent years that attracts many global LED manufacturers. Taiwan’s leading LED packager EVERLIGHT, who has developed various LEDs for horticulture lighting, is leveraging its LED technologies to other agriculture applicatio...

Trump said on December 13 that the U.S. has reached “phase one” trade deal with China including the pause of the additional tariffs on Chinese products which was scheduled to come to effect on December 15, 2019. Several LED lighting products on the list are thus free from extra tariffs for now. (Image: Pixabay) With the new agreement, the U.S. said it would delay or cancel the new tariffs on the US$160 Chinese goods and reduce the tariffs from 15% to 7.5% for the products imposed with extra tariffs in September. However, according to the United States...

LiDAR sensors and sensing solutions developer Quanergy Systems reported that it was selected as a LiDAR partner for China’s Geely Automotive Group (Geely). Geely and Quanergy will have a deep collaboration in developing and commercializing solutions for the broad deployment of smart city and autonomous vehicle systems. (Image: Quanergy/Geely) This announcement follows an initial deployment of Quanergy’s LiDAR-based smart city solution at intersections across the Hangzhou Bay Area, Ningbo City, and Zhejiang Province. This is the first smart ...

Environmental Lights announced it has been acquired by private equity Pfingsten Partners, who has acquired 139 manufacturing, distribution and business services companies since inception in 1989. "Pfingsten's experience in the lighting industry, growth-oriented approach and focus on the customer will enable us to continue delivering industry-leading products and solutions with superior technical service," said Jamison Day, CEO of Environmental Lights, who will continue leading the business. (Image: Environmental Lights) Jordan Brooks, President of En...

Seoul Semiconductor announced that it has achieved smart lighting design with SunLike Series natural spectrum LEDs in cooperation with Casambi Technologies; and it has been adopted for the Italian designed architectural lighting brand formalighting for a new product line which offers motorized luminaire with smart wireless controls. The SunLike COB LED packages have been adopted by formalighting for the new fixtures in track mounted motorized spotlight range targeting lighting applications in museums, art galleries and commercial spaces. Adding the smart control syste...

Telensa and LIGMAN today announced that they have signed a partnership agreement to combine LED luminaires and wireless controls. With energy and carbon reduction increasingly in the forefront of many cities’ agendas, switching lighting to LED is an obvious next step. Including wireless controls maximizes the benefits of LEDs, generating further energy and maintenance cost-savings, and smart city sensing. (Image: Telensa) “Cities across Asia Pacific are increasingly adopting wireless controls. Over the past couple of years Telensa has deployed smart...

The goal of launching fully autonomous vehicle as well as advanced driver assistance systems is driving LiDAR developers to accelerate their technology developments. Draper, a U.S. LiDAR producer, unveiled its LiDAR with MEMS beam steering technology. Also, Aeva, founded by two former Apple engineers, introduced 4D LiDAR-on-chip. The two companies both focus on scaling down and simplifying LiDAR system. Draper has developed and advanced, a LiDAR-on-a-Chip that uses patented, all-digital MEMS optical switches for beam steering. According to Drap...

In November, Seoul Semiconductor announced that it will auction its patent portfolio of radio frequency (RF) and LED package. As the market response has been enthusiastic since the company released the auction, Seoul Semiconductor reported extension of the auction until February 28, 2020. In the first auction, Seoul Semiconductor is seeking the top bidder for 98 patent assets related to power amplifiers and gallium nitride (GaN) RF semiconductors, including 55 U.S. patents. In the second auction, Seoul Semiconductor will auction 177 patents, including 76 U.S....

Lighting Research Center (LRC) announced the partnership with Eaton to work on a project of additively manufactured LED-integrated luminaire, which is to use 3D printing technology to produce LED luminaires. The 3D printing luminaire development project is under funding from the United States Department of Energy and aims to address the main barriers to widespread adoption of 3D printing technology as applied to solid-state lighting. (Image: LRC/Eaton) Over the next two years, the project partners will conduct material science, electronics, optics, and adv...

Due to the extra tariffs, many US-based lighting companies turned to business expansion in North America to alleviate the impacts. Architectural LED lighting manufacturer Luminii announced the acquisition of Senso Lighting, a Canadian lighting producer who specializes in designing environmentally conscious lighting solutions. (Image: Luminii) Luminii also purchased Optic Arts in August 2019 to complete its product lines. Meanwhile, Blue Highway Capital announces that it has placed a first institutional investment into LEDdynamics for the company to under...