With the drives from autonomous car development, LiDAR technology has been under the spotlight. Startups which focus on the technology have also gained attentions from the related industry and continued to unveil their development and updates about the technology. Luminar, a LiDAR startup that aim to increase the accessibility of the technology, has recruited Brent Schwarz, a veteran in the LiDAR sensor industry who has experiences at Velodyne and established his own company, Tyto LiDAR. As his LiDAR startup was acquired by Otto, which was then bought by Uber...

FLEx Lighting, a U.S.-based leader of front lighting for low power displays, announced that it has raised a US$9 million Series B fund from SABIC Ventures, Bascom Ventures, and others. With the funding, FLEx intends to expand its product portfolio with new sized displays while improving its global presentation. FLEx Lighting was founded in 2004 with its initial technology built by converting xenon light bulbs, fiber optics and plastic film into a compact system of LEDs and optical film. The company further developed a power-efficient and sunlight-readable fro...

Quantum dot developer Quantum Materials has announced its achievement of testing a 100% cadmium-free remote phosphor quantum dot LED technology that achieved a 91% Rec2020 color gamut coverage. Quantum Materials has been working with several LED producers, display manufacturers and chemical companies with the technology, aiming to bring the new solution to the current industry. A way for the solution to achieve wide color gamut display is to deposit red and green quantum dots directly on the surface of a blue phosphor driven backlight LED, Quantum Materials has developed...

Pioneer and MooVita, an A*STAR spinoff company focusing on autonomous vehicle, are going to initiate a trial run of an autonomous shuttle bus equipped with Pioneer’s 3D-LiDAR sensor within the campus of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The two companies expect to commercialize the service of the level four autonomous driving with the testing.

Tridonic released its new COB LED modules suitable for spotlights and downlights. The company updated its seventh generation SLE-ADV modules with a LED chip which features higher efficiency, long lifetime and improved thermal management. The dimmable modules also deliver good color rendering covering color temperatures of 2,700, 3,000, 3,500 and 4,000 K. (Image: Tridonic) According to Tridonic, the module series covers the entire range of light-emitting surfaces from 9 to 15 mm. It will debut the versions with LES 13 and LES 15 soon. Lighting Science ...

Osram has announced the financial results of fiscal 2018 and the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018 and addressed that it will focus on digitalization and high-growth markets.

General Electric (GE) has begun organization restructure and unveiled the intention to sell its lighting business since a year ago. In July 2018, the company has scheduled the selling plan to be in the end of the year. Finally, GE announced on November 6th that it has signed a proposed agreement to sell its Current, powered by GE business to American Industrial Partner (AIP)

Porta Nova, a rose grower based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, is expanding its Philips GreenPower LED toplighting to trail a dedicated rose spectrum which will increase light levels year-round without increasing heat. The company decided to expand its invest of the lighting coverage to 5,000 square meters.

UV LEDs are widely applied in medical equipment and household products for sterilization. A Danish research team has further found that by combining treatment with UV irradiation, it helps to increase the effect of bacteria eradication of antibiotics. The light assisted approach can therefore reduce the usage amount of antibiotics. (Image: Pixabay) The overuse of antibiotics could result in bacterial resistance and in the worst case lead to incurable diseases. In order to prevent this situation, researchers are trying to find alternative treatments to reduce the use of an...

The fourth quarter is usually the low season in the LED industry. As business growth slows down, LED producer Epistar has announced plans to restructure the company to efficiently manage resources for reducing operation cost. Meanwhile, Lextar has speeded up the process of product development for new applications. Epistar has announced the merger of four of its subsidiaries including Epistar JV Holding (BVI), UEC Investment, HUGA Holding (BVI) and Bee Rich Corporation. The goal of the merge is to productively distribute the resources of the company and r...

In recent years, as LED industry enjoys rapid growth, market competition gets increasingly furious. Large enterprises move forward in varied ways such as border-crossing integration, devotion to segment markets and extension of industrial chain. Yet, Shanghai Wellmax Lighting (WELLMAX), regarded as the LED Bulb Expert, stands out among them. The company has been in the industry for 31 years and has dedicated to producing LED bulb.

Researchers in the industry and in the academic field have dedicated their efforts to overcome the difficulties of Micro LED display technologies. Currently the bottlenecks of the technology lie in six major areas including mass transferring process, the production of epitaxial wafer, method for full-color display, driver IC design, backplanes and testing and repair technology. One of the articles awarded with honorable mention in the Micro LED Technology Research Contest hosted by LEDinside has focused on the method for full-color display. The article, titled “Q...

The 2018 World Flora Exposition opened on November 3rd in Taichung, Taiwan. Signify has provided its lighting service to the pavilion of the Netherlands and helped to build the main installation art of the exposition. The company has also worked with the city of Taichung to set up LED streetlights with smart systems. 

Finnish autonomous vehicle developer Sensible 4 announced its partnership with Japanese retail brand MUJI to develop an autonomous shuttle bus which is able to work under any weather condition. Sensible 4 will provide its expertise in autonomous driving technology for functions of the bus such as positioning, navigation and obstacle detection, while MUJI will be in charge of user experience and the look of the vehicle. (Image: Sensible 4) The autonomous shuttle bus, named Gacha, will be showcased in Helsinki in March 2019 and start operating in three Finnish cities t...

Heliospectra announced that a Spain-based medicinal plant research center and an AgTech company have ordered its LED lighting solutions. The production shipment of their orders is scheduled in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to Heliospectra.

Micro LED displays require the use of red, green and blue (RGB) LEDs, achieved by mixing nitride LEDs and phosphide LEDs. This mixing causes blue, green and red LEDs to behave differently in terms of temperature and aging, which impacts the quality of image color. Moreover, blue, green and red LEDs each require specific electronic drivers, making integration more complex. (Figure 1: Red emission at 630nm of 100µmx100µm of full InGaN LED grown on Soitec’s InGaNOS) RGB LEDs composed of the same material inducing the same behav...

On October 30th, a patent was granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to Apple for its “Exterior Lighting and Warning System” which uses a lighting system to indicate warnings and information from the outside of a car, reported Appleinsider.

DMF Lighting, a U.S. based LED lighting company has released a press release to emphasize that the company would not raise the prices of its products due to tariffs. The company addressed that it is committed to delivering the same products with value that customers have come to expect. According to DMF Lighting, the majority of its manufacturing facilities are located outside of China, making most of its products unaffected by the tariffs. Its supply chain is also not interrupted. “Our intention is to keep our prices at the same levels despite the Section 30...

Equipment provider VEECO Instruments announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2018. The results did not reach the company’s guided range because of “broader market softness in China across all of our business,” said VEECO.

Osram has kicked off a lighting project at St. Peter’s Basilica in October 2017. After a year of work, the project is going to be completed soon with the initial tests finished, according to the report of Lux.

LG and Samsung have been competing in the field of display, showcasing their novel display technology in international fairs one after another. Samsung revealed “the Wall,” the 146-inch Micro LED modular TV at the CES event in the beginning of the year and by the end of August, LG introduced its 173-inch Micro LED TV at the IFA. Aside from Micro LED, the two companies also fought against each other in the high-end TV market by releasing large sized OLED TVs. The two Korean electronics giants have both revealed their financial results fo...

GCS Holdings reported that it has delivered its VCSEL sample products to clients in the U.S. including Google and Facebook for data transmitting applications. The validation of the products would be completed soon and mass production and shipment will start next year, reported Economic Daily News, a Taiwanese media. According to the report, GCS has provided its receiver (Rx) radio frequency (RF) for Facebook and it will begin to supply the transmitter products from next year. 3D sensing has been the field most of the VCSEL companies focus on. To differenti...

Lite-On Technology has announced capital increase in its subsidiaries in Vietnam and Jordan for expanding production capacities outside China. The total amount of the investment is US$ 97 million

Vertical integrated LED company Lextar is going to announce its I-Mini Square module for automotive tail lamp application. Adopted with Lextar’s latest Mini LED technology, this automotive module can display dynamic images with RGB full color screens. Lextar will debut its concept of application at the biannual Electronica 2018 held in Munich from November 13th to 16th. According to the company,

AIXTRON, the Germany-based semiconductor equipment provider, has announced its financial results for the nine months and the third quarter 2018. The equipment company has reported growing profit with continuous demands for MOCVD systems for the production of power electronics and lasers such as VCSEL or EEL lasers for applications in 3D sensing or optical data transmission as well as red, orange and yellow (ROY) LEDs.

Nichia has announced that WOFI (Leuchten Wortmann & Filz), Everlight’s German subsidiary has withdrawn its appeal against the judgment of the Düsseldorf District Court concerning the YAG patent EP 936 682 (DE 697 02 929) of Nichia.

Japanese LED manufacturer Nichia Corporation has announced to start cooperative researches and experiments with Qwestland International, a Dutch horticulture solution provider. The goal of their partnership is to further explore the potential of the horticulture LED market.

Japan-based NGK Insulators has developed a quartz glass Micro-lens equipped with a cavity to arrange UV LED chip.

Panther Vision, a manufacturer and distributor of lighted headwear, eyewear and safety gear, has provided its lighting solutions to assist in disaster relief efforts. The company has partnered with Team Rubicon, a nonprofit which provide immediate response to emergency situation caused by disasters.

LiDAR technology developers Quanergy and Innovusion have respectively received funding for their technology development and products production.