Cree has reported the assignment of the company’s new CFO, Neill Reynold. The appointment will be effective on August 27th 2018. Reynolds will succeed Mike McDevitt at that time, per the transition plan announced in June.

After Apple introduced 3D sensing technology in iPhone X last year, the technology has caught the eye of the market as well as its key component, VCSEL. The suppliers have been boosting the manufacturing of VCSEL since then but as the sale of iPhone X did not meet expectations, the in-stock 3D sensing component also influenced the revenue of suppliers. 

General Electric (GE) announced its plan to restructure the company in November 2017 with the intention to cut off its lighting business and to narrow the focus on three sectors, aviation, power and renewable businesses. 

LED plant lighting market scale reaches about USD 224 Million in 2018, and the market scale of LEDs for plant lighting is about USD 58.5 Million. LEDinside estimates that the market scale of LED plant lighting and LEDs will rapidly grow to USD 633 Million and 151 Million by 2022, with CAGR of 30% and 27% during 2018-2022 respectively.

Cochlear implant is a device using electrodes to stimulate the auditory nerve to help hearing-impaired people to “hear.” But it cannot deliver complex sound as the electrode current does not move from the electrode to an auditory neuron directly. Researchers have been exploring the possibilities to replace electricity with light in cochlear implants via optogenetics technology.

After showcasing “The Wall” for the first time at CES 2018 in January, Samsung did not stop moving forward with its progress of Micro LED display. The South Korean display giant announced during a press conference that it is ready to mass produce The Wall display for both commercial and home entertainment use.

Samsung revealed the cinema LED “Onyx” last year in Seoul and the product has been expanded into the international market including the U.S., China, Mexico Thailand and other countries. 

On July 18th, the second working meeting for establishing LED filament standards was successfully held at the head office of Shanghai Wellmax Lighting (WELLMAX)- a top lighting company and the key member of the CSA. Organized by China Solid State Lighting Alliance (CSA), the meeting gathered experts and engineers from reputable companies such as Osram, MLS and Bore to further discuss the standard for LED filament. 

LEDinside hosted Micro LEDforum 2018 last week in Taipei, Taiwan and welcomed international speakers and attendees to join the pioneer event of the industry. Several leading institutes shared their innovative approaches of Micro LED and the technology of mass transfer is definitely the biggest focus. QMAT and Tesoro Scientific, two U.S. based start-up companies, introduced innovative materials and equipment concepts to enable ultra-fast mass transfer methods.

LiDAR sensor (LiDAR – Light Detection And Ranging) detects surrounding objects and captures their distance to the sensor by emitting a very short light pulse and measuring the time that the light travels from the sensor to the object and back. LiDAR is a key technology for several applications including autonomous vehicles, intelligent transportation system, drone, measurement, sweeping robot and others. According to the 2018 Infrared Sensing Application Market Report by LEDinside, LiDAR laser market value is expected to reach USD 154 million in 2020.

A research center of Korea Aerospace University and an audio technology company, Sonictier initiated a joint project to develop a 25 square meter LED display module that is capable of passing sound through its holes.

Osram Opto Semiconductors launched a new infrared LED with a narrower beam angle which allows the illumination unit to be designed without additional secondary optics.

On July 12, 2018 (Japan time), Nitride Semiconductor Co., Ltd. ("Nitride") filed a patent infringement lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against Digi-Key Corporation d/b/a Digi-Key Electronics ("Digi-Key"), which sells UV-LED products on the internet that are manufactured by RayVio Corporation ("RayVio"), a CA-based UV-LED manufacturer, and RayVio. In the complaint, Nitride is seeking injunction(including destruction of infringing products) and damages, asserting that Digi-Key and RayVio infringe Nitride’s patent (JP 3,285,341, “Method for Manufacturing Gallium Nitride Compound Semiconductor”) by manufacturing and selling the UV-LED products

The 2018 Micro LEDforum, hosted by LEDinside, ended on 12 July. This time, experts from various fields were invited to share the six bottlenecks in the Micro LED manufacturing process. In the mass transfer section, this time we invited Uniqarta, SelfArray, eLux, QMAT and KIMM to talk about the features of various transfer technologies and future potential.

Micro LED display has been considered as the next-generation display technology with its features of high resolution, high contrast, high brightness and wide viewing angles. To achieve these characteristics, driver IC is a key component during the manufacturing process. At Micro LEDforum 2018, LEDinside invited Macroblock, the LED driver IC specialist, to talk about how to fully realize the advantages of Mini and Micro LED display from the viewpoint of a driver IC maker.

The City of London Corporation passed a project to set up kinetic light installation on 15 bridges on the River Thames as a free public artwork to emphasize the spirit of the river and its interconnections with the bridges and the city.

Besides display and lighting, LED technology applications in medical field have been progressing to create possibilities for curing cancer. Researchers at Waseda University, Japan have developed an implantable device consisting of LED chips and bio-adhesive nanosheet which has successfully shrank the tumors in mice through photodynamic therapy. The result was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering journal on July 16th 2018. 

Based on researches of wavelength of light, LG Innotek revealed a functional “eye-pleasing (EP)”LED package which controls the wavelength of blue light.

The luxury brand Louis Vuitton has been touring around the world with its exhibition “Volez, Voguez, Voyagez - Louis Vuitton” which tells the history of the brand. At the stop in Seoul, South Korea, the exhibition was lit with lighting solutions which set 260 Gallery LED luminaires from Altman Lighting with the design created by Baesung Kim.

The U.S. based start-up, eLux with its patent technology of Micro LED transfer process and its business cooperation with the Foxconn Group, has been attracting attentions from the industry. LEDinside invited Paul Schule, the founder and CTO of eLux, to speak at Micro LEDforum 2018 to share the company’s technological progress and insights of the industry. 

SelfArray, a startup based in New York, shared its innovative Directed Self-Assembly (DSA) technology which uses diamagnetic levitation to align LEDs automatically at Micro LEDforum 2018. 

AIXTRON, a German deposition equipment supplier reported that the Chinese chip maker Changelight has ordered AIX 2800G4-TM MOCVD systems to expand its production capacities for arsenide-phosphide-based red, orange and yellow LEDs (ROY LED) and solar cells.

The splendor of world landmarks was enhanced by LED lighting decoration. Artists around the world integrate technology and their creativity to add up glamor for the world’s famous architectures.

Though the big brands have been focusing on Micro LED and pushing its development, currently most of the technologies of Micro LED have stayed inside the laboratories and still need further preparation before entering the mass production process. Mini LED, on the other hand, is ready to be applied and to be produced in volume, according to many LED manufactures.

LEDinside was honored to invite Dr. Jae-Hyun Kim, head of the Department of Applied Nano Mechanics at the Korean Institute of Machinery and materials (KIMM) to join Micro LEDforum 2018 to introduce their advanced technology of Micro LED production. Dr. Kim and his team developed the roll-to-plate transfer method to efficiently transfer Micro LEDs and to speed up the production of Micro LED displays.

Last week at Micro LEDforum 2018, experts from the industry have shared their advanced Micro LED technologies and illustrated the possibilities of further development of Micro LED. As mass transfer is the most difficult task to tackle, many speakers have introduced their unique method to solve the issue. Uniqarta, a U.S. based start-up was invited by LEDinside to present its Laser Enabled Advanced Placement (LEAP) technology at Micro LEDforum 2018.

According to the latest report from LEDinside, a division of the market research firm TrendForce, 2018 Chinese Automotive Lighting Market Report- Passenger Car and Logistics Car Market Analysis, the market value of automotive headlamp LED in China is expected to reach US$1.21 billion in 2022, the highest among major automotive applications.

The Belgium based nano-electronic center, Imec and the Taiwan based semiconductor equipment supplier Marketech International Corp are reportedly reported to collaborate for developing a testing chip implantation equipment for Micro LED manufacturing. 

Micro LEDforum 2018 was held successfully yesterday on July 12th in Taipei. Nearly 300 attendees from all over the world joined the giant annual event to learn the trends of the industry and to spark idea exchanges as well as to find the opportunities for business cooperation. LEDinside was honored to invite speakers from leading institutes including eLux, Uniquarta, QMAT, KIMM, Nitride Semiconductors, V-technology, Topcon, Macroblock, KLA, SelfArray and Jasper Display to share their technologies and insights of Micro LED. 

Lufa Farms, a Canadian food supplier based in Montreal, has collaborated with Hort Americas and Current by GE to install LED lights for maximizing the production efficiency of its hydroponic rooftop greenhouses.