Signify reported the financial results of the second quarter of 2019 and announced that it has agreed to buy a 51% share of Klite Lighting, a China-based LED luminaires manufacturer. Signify registered sales of EUR 1.477 billion (US$ 1.65 billion) with an on-year decrease of 6.1%. LED-based sales increased by 0.2%, accounting for 77% of total revenue. The adjusted gross margin declined by 20 bps to 37.7% due to lower sales volumes and price erosion, largely offset by ongoing procurement savings. Adjusted EBITA amounted to EUR 133 million (US$ 148.22 million) co...

Semiconductor equipment provider AIXTRON revealed its financial results for the first half and the second quarter of 2019. The 1H19 revenue of AIXTRON increased by 12% YoY to EUR 132 million (US$147.11 million), gross profit also grew by 4% YoY to EUR 52.4 million (US$ 58.4 million) despite that its order intake dropped by 36% YoY to EUR 98.3 million (US$109.22 million). AIXTRON noted that customer’s reluctance to invest in production expansion due to the ongoing US-China trade dispute has led to order intake decrease for the first ...

LiDAR sensor provider Ouster announced its partnership with food delivery firm Postmates. The LiDAR company will provider its Ouster OS1 LiDAR sensor for use in Postmates’ latest autonomous delivery rover, Serve. The Ouster OS1 LiDAR is a 64-channel sensor based on complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology, enabling Serve to seamlessly and safely navigate sidewalks, detect pedestrians, and interact with the community. Combining Postmates’ patented Socially-Aware-Navigation system with Ouster’s multi-beam flash lidar ...

Osram Opto Semiconductor announced the launch of its new high power LED, the Osconiq P 3030, providing long lifetime and high brightness. (Image: Osram) Osram combined its experience in the automotive sector and lead-frame technology to make the new product for expanding its high power LED portfolio for general lighting applications. The specially developed SMD (Surface Mounted Device) package with silicone lens delivers outstanding brightness and efficiency values, as well as a better lumens-per-dollar ratio than ceramic packages used in similar applications. T...

Heliospectra, the Sweden-based intelligent horticulture lighting technology provider, announces the formation of Heliospectra Japan and the opening of a new Tokyo, Japan office in July 2019. The Japan Office will be operated under the leadership of General Manager Yasuhiro Suzuki, providing Heliospectra’s integrated LED and lighting control solution to Japan’s plant factories and vertical farms. As Japan’s plant factories and controlled environment farms create new demand for light control and horticultural LED lighting integrations as well a...

UK-based wafer supplier IQE announced that it has started initial VCSEL production for a second major customer at its Newport Mega Foundry. The products will serve the Android supply chains and several more in advanced stages of qualification. The company noted that performance data from the Newport Foundry has exceeded previously attained performance levels, and several new qualifications are now in long term reliability testing. As a result, IQE has signed a contract extension with one of its largest VCSEL customers, extending the current contract until the...

Nanotechnology development company UbiQD announced an optical fiber-coupled luminescent concentrator technology as a new tool for optimizing light in controlled environments, enabling light-guiding to future UbiGro™ spectrum-control greenhouse products. "We continue to push the envelope with light optimization in greenhouses," said Dr. Hunter McDaniel, CEO of UbiQD. "One exciting potential use case is in vertical farming, where you could use our quantum dot-based luminescent fibers to harvest sunlight and optimally transmit that energy to multiple la...

Sensor maker ams once again changed its mind for the Osram takeover plan. The company said on July 23rd that decided to re-evaluate a potential transaction with Osram after ams talked with its potential financial partners. ams reported last week that it did not see “sufficient basis” for continuous talking with Osram one day after the German company announced in public ams’ takeover approach. ams has proposed an offer of EUR 38.5 (US$42.9) per share for acquiring Osram. However, the Austrian company now said that after discussion with potential financial p...

Lumileds announced on July 23rd that the Superior Court of California has issued permanent Injunction against Elec-Tech International (ETI) for misappropriation of trade secrets, prohibiting ETI and its affiliates from using, disclosing, licensing, or selling Lumileds’ epitaxy technology trade secrets. The injunction also prohibits ETI from manufacturing, distributing, importing, exporting, or selling any products that use certain of ETI’s own epitaxy growth recipes that the jury concluded were produced using Lumileds’ trade secrets. In August...

Celebrating Macroblock’s20th anniversary and facing the rise of 5G era, Macroblock this year helds a whole day symposium with interesting topics regarding 5G era LED displays and HDR challenges and solutions. Furthermore, the demonstration zones also roll out advanced LED display technologies for the 2nd half of 2019. Fig.1 Comprehensive LED display solution demos at Macroblock’s Symposium Macroblock spreads outthe demo zones into 4 zones: 1. 5G Future-High Frame Rate Demo 2.Highly-integrated LED Display Driver IC Demo 3. 16-Channel L...

In the old town of Lutry, a Swiss municipality on the shore of Lake Geneva, a church dated back to the 11th century has been updated with LED lighting as well as smart lighting control system. In 2018, the people in charge at Lutry’s Service decided to switch the existing halogen lighting to LED lighting for energy saving as well as reducing maintenance costs. In addition, they wanted to have a control system to more easily adjust the lighting for different uses of the church. A lighting design office in Lausanne, Switzerland, Senseco, took the challenge and ha...

LEDs can be lit on by urine without electricity! A Japanese professor developed a fuel cell which can be powered by urea, a component of urine, to light up LEDs. The approach would offer light source when being in places without electricity such as in the mountains or in times of disaster. The Japan News reported that Keiichi Kaneto, a visiting professor at the Osaka Institute of Technology, created an electricity generable sheet which contains an alloy of copper and nickel and was coated by resin. The sheep reacted to urine drops and could then illuminate a small blue L...

Velodyne Lidar announced the acquisition of Mapper.ai, a mapping and localization software developer. Velodyne Lidar aims to leverage Mapper technology to accelerate development of Vella™, the software that establishes its directional view Velarray™ lidar sensor. The Velarray is the first solid-state LiDAR sensor that is embeddable and fits behind a windshield, as an integral component for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Mapper’s entire leadership and engineering teams will join Velodyne, bolstering the company’s growing software deve...

Sense Photonics, a company building the next generation LiDAR and 3D sensor solutions for autonomous vehicles, industrial equipment and other applications, announced a close of a US$26 million Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Acadia Woods Partners and Congruent Ventures, with participation from a number of other investors, including Prelude Ventures, Samsung Ventures and Shell Ventures. LEDinside was honored to have a conversation with Scott Burroughs, CEO of Sense Photonics, to understand how the company’s solid-state LiDAR system us...

Natural colour rendering of Optisolis™ LEDs lets visitors experience artwork as the artist intended without degrading the work. Tokushima, Japan – 23 July 2019: Nichia Corporation, the leader in high brightness LED technologies, announces continued success with Optisolis™ – the world’s first series of packaged LEDs and Chip-on-Board (COB) solutions that accurately mimics natural sunlight without producing any harmful ultraviolet (UV) light. The Optisolis™ family of LED products continues to successfully transform the visit...

Austria-based lighting group Zumtobel Group announced it has secured a contract with the Mongolian government for installing approximately 11,000 LED streetlights of the Thorn brand in the north of Mongolia’s capital. Zumtobel said that the contract is in the low double-digit million euros range. The Mongolian government aims to use light to reduce crime rate and enhance safety of the area on a sustained basis. In addition, the provision of essential infrastructure such as lighting is a key factor for attracting companies and therefore serves the overall economic upswin...

Seoul Semiconductor announced the results of a series of experiments that demonstrated a higher growth rate and higher flavonol (a type of antioxidant) content in crops grown under SunLike Series natural spectrum LEDs than those grown under standard white LEDs. The experiments were conducted on lettuce using SunLike Series LED lighting and standard white LED lighting of the same color temperature and light intensity. After two weeks of crop growth, the fresh weight and flavonol content of the lettuce were measured and compared. The fresh weight of lettuce grown unde...

LED technology improvement supports various advanced lighting applications for different scenes. By accurately mimicking natural sunlight without producing UV light, Nichia’s Optisolis™ series products have been installed for evaluation throughout 2019 at the Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso Münster, the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz and the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen in Germany. Designed to replace halogen and conventional LED directional lighting applications, the natural color rendering performance delivered by the Optisolis LED products allows v...

Nichia announced that it has filed patent infringement lawsuits in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on July 19, 2019 against Lighting Science Group (LSG), a US-based manufacturer of LED lighting products, as well as its affiliates, Health and VividGro. In its lawsuits, Nichia has asserted 13 patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 6,838,693, 7,348,602, 7,750,337, 8,120,057, 8,309,375, 8,309,948, 8,344,402, 8,530,250, 8,728,916, 8,796,721, 9,444,011, 9,865,773 and 10,276,751) against the three entities. The patents cover various manufactur...

Quanergy Systems announced a partnership with Chinese automotive manufacturer Chery Automobile. Quanergy signed on to Chery Lion’s Smart Partner Program as the LiDAR partner, to focus efforts on advancing autonomous driving and smart cities in China. Quanergy‘s S3 automotive grade solid state LiDARs are based on optical phased arrays (OPA) produced in CMOS silicon. These sensors, being fully solid state with no moving parts on any scale, offer an unparalleled level of quality and reliability. Further, the CMOS silicon node used in wafer fabri...

LED technology enables a wider range of lighting applications, including various types of luminaires. A German company, LUCEM, created a material of light-emitting concrete which is made of layers of transmitting optical fibers. The material allows designers to break the limitation of luminaires for more flexible and creative architecture and interior design. (Image: LUCEM) The products are mixture of fine concrete and optical fibers. The company used thousands of fine optical fibers that are only 0.5 mm diameter, put them layers by layers with the specially designed...

Throughout the development of Micro LED, the next generation display technology, cross-industry integration has always been a key. Worldwide chip vendors, panel manufacturers, process technology providers and systems suppliers and others invariably sought collaboration with each other to fully leverage their technological strengths and accelerate their way along the roadmap of Micro LED technology. Among them, equipment solution providers are no doubt the unifiers of processes and technology in each stage along the chain, from upstream chip manufacturing all the way down. If c...

The rumors of Apple using Micro LED in its Apple Watch continue. This time, it was said that the strategic appliance of Taiwan’s PlayNitride and RiTdisplay will provide their Micro LED technologies including chips and display modules for the Apple Watch, according to the report of Taiwan’s Economy Daily News. PlayNitride’s expertise is Micro LED technology has been recognized by worldwide partners. At SID 2019, PlayNitride showcased a 7.65-inch full color transparent Micro LED display, a flexible Micro LED display and a wearabl...

According to the latest Infrared Sensing Application Market Trend Report by LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, seeing that smartphone shipments are predicted to decline for whole 2019 year, cell phone brands will be engaging in a 'specs -contest' with their flagship devices for the second half-year, and 3D sensing modules will become an important component in that race. Market revenue for VCSELs used by cell phones utilizing 3D sensing is projected to reach US$1.139 billion as a result of this trend. “For 2019, besides Apple, who will be implementing...

UV LEDs cover a wide range of applications including light curing, medical treatment and disinfection. And now, UV LEDs are put on drones to spew UV light in subway stations and trains for sanitization. An online magazine, Yanko Design, reported that Korean designers at Off Garage Studio created a UV LED integrated drone as a “space care system,” providing autonomous sterilization service. Equipped with sensors and UVC LEDs, the drone is designed to flies smoothly around the station and emits UV LED light in the subways to efficiently and e...

Micro LED technology moved steps forwards since 2019 with worldwide companies showcasing their Micro LED products at big trade shows. LEDinside has noted in “2019 Micro LED Next Generation Display Key Technology Report” that featured with high brightness, high contrast, high response time and power saving, Micro LED technology would suppress other display technology such as LCD and OLED. A wider range of applications including watches, mobile phones, automotive displays, AR/VR devices, monitors, TVs and large displays can also develop toward...

The HBGC-300 series is a newly developed LED driver for bay light and outdoor floodlight luminaires applications with DALI 2 dimming function which can operate with intelligently dimming control to increase the luminaire’s value and functions. Besides, the HBGC-300 is designed with MEAN WELL’s patented metal housing (Patented No. CN201220314551) and is able to operate with constant power mode to avoid the compatible issue and reduce the output models. HBGC-300 provides three in one and DALI 2 dimming function. Also the series is complian...

Unity Semiconductor (UnitySC), the France-based semiconductor inspection solution provider, announced that it has demonstrate the capability of detecting topographic defects on GaAs wafers for VCSEL in LiDAR and 3D recognition applications. On top of common Surface Scanning Inspection Systems (SSIS) and Automatic Optical Inspection (AOI) systems, UnitySC noted that it is able to find out defects that are not visible on standard optical inspection systems. These defects do not scatter or absorb light, and can only be revealed by their topography but the...

According to the latest 2019 Chinese LED Chip and Package Industry Market by LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, growth in the global LED lighting market has slowed down noticeably due to the global economic recession and the US- China trade dispute. Revenues for lighting LED packages were affected as a result. In 2018, China's LED packaging market scale for general lighting applications stood at US$5.2 billion, with a visible slowdown glanced from a CAGR of only 3% throughout the forecast period, 2018-2023. “Due to the limited decline experi...

Casambi, the expert in wireless lighting controls based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), has teamed up with Seoul Semiconductor to provide lighting designers with precision control of LED lights that match the spectrum of sunlight. The development puts true human centric lighting in the hands of designers for the first time. Casambi’s wireless control technology can now be used with Seoul Semiconductor’s innovative SunLike Series LEDs, whose spectra match to real sunlight, to realize human centric lighting. “Human-centric lighting” describes...