The 2019 Taiwan International Lighting Show (TILS) rounded off in the beginning of May. The show demonstrated that LED technology has delved deep into general lighting, and major LED lighting manufacturers have expanded to multiple niche applications. However, regardless of the changes and upgrades in applications, LED driver is always the core element of lighting and the heart of electronic application. As LED lighting moves towards differentiation and niche development, how will LED driver, the star behind the scenes, play to its strengths and keep up with th...

LIGHTFAIR International (LFI) 2019 officially kicked off in Philadelphia on May 21st, 2019. At the event, the FSP Group from Taiwan will showcase its high-power horticultural lighting and IoT-enabled smart lighting products. With the help of these products, FSP is poised to create a new niche sector for the maturing LED lighting industry. Foraying into the cash crop markets with high efficiency power supplies The applications of LED lighting in horticulture have become more and more popular in recent years, thanks to its adjustable illumination effe...

As a leading group in Taiwan's electronic industry, Lite-On Technology has been cultivating the automotive LED market for many years. From March 21 to March 22 at the 5th Shanghai International Auto Lamp Exhibition (ALE), Lite-On exhibited a series of automotive LED products and solutions. During this period, LEDinside was fortunate to interview Mr. Sander Su, Senior Director of Optoelectronics Product Solutions SBG Office of Lite-On Technology Co., Ltd, and invited him to share Lite-On Technology’s development plans in the automotive LED market. According to Director Sander Su, in terms of optoelectronics business, Lite-On predicted that general lighting market would enter into the Red Ocean in 2014, so Lite-On decided to withdraw it and fully deployed the Blue Ocean markets such as automotive and infrared and sensors. Currently, Lite-On has cut into the OE supply chains of majority of international auto lamp manufactures, and is also actively building business relationship with mainstream auto lamp manufacturers and vehicle manufacturers in China. In the context of a floundering vehicle market in the year of 2018, Lite-On's revenue in automotive lighting still realized doubled growth. At this exhibition, combining with LEDs, smart sensors and new light source technologies together, Lite-On completely demonstrated their automotive lighting products and innovative lighting source solutions through concatenating those application scenarios including front, rear, interior and smart sensing...

Connected LED lighting with intelligent applications has been a leading trend in the lighting industry. In order to enhance the connected system, global leading LED provider Cree has developed an advanced LED portfolio to fulfill the requirement of connected lighting. LEDinside was pleased to share some insights from Paul Scheidt, Product Marketing Manager at Cree. Paul Scheidt talked about how the connected system might influence the performance of LEDs and how Cree optimizes its LED product lines to tackle the issues. (Image: Cree) Scheidt pointed ...

In recent years, with the development of LED industry becoming more and more mature, general lighting market has gradually become saturated, and major lighting brands have launched fierce competition in order to seize market share. Channel layout has become a key part of the competition for lighting companies. It is also an important way for lighting enterprises to improve product coverage, market share and market competitiveness. EVERLIGHT, as the benchmark for Taiwan’s LED packaging companies, knows the importance of channel distribution for lighting companies. ...

Based in the heart of Silicon Valley, Violumas, the UV division of Flip Chip Opto under Cofan Group, is known as a supplier for full-service UV LED products and solutions. Their patented 3-Pad Flip Chip technology allows them to engage in UV technologies and applications with more powerful and reliable solutions. Violumas provides the products from chip, package to modules in UV-A, UV-B and UV-C range (405 to 265 nm) and expertise in optical, mechanical and thermal design. LEDinside was very honored to have a face to face interview with Saya Han from...

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.

imec as a world-leading R&D center and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technology has been dedicated to using the power of technology to improve lives. The institute has gathered researchers from around the world to transform conceptual ideas into solid solutions to tackle real world problems. imec has also been extending its collaboration with international partners and has set up its first R&D center outside Europe in Hsinchu, Taiwan, ten years ago.

As one of the most important next generation display technologies, Micro LED performs excellently and can be widely applied in wearables, mobile phones, automotive displays, AR/VR, video wall (digital display), TV and others. For solving the technology bottlenecks of Micro LED, the development of technology relies on cooperation between different companies with their expertise in equipment, materials, panels and brands.

The lighting brand under Everlight Electronics has changed its name from Everlight Solid-State Lighting to Everlight Intelligence Technology. The gesture is to indicate the company’s transformation from a lighting producer to an integrated solution provider who connects lighting with IoT and other novel technologies to offer diverse intelligent solutions according to different needs. 

The competition in the LED market has intensified in the recent years as brand companies continue to undercut each other to gain market shares. The reshuffling of the market has become more frequent not only in the downstream sections of the LED lighting supply chain but also in the mid-stream and upstream sections.

Germany-based IP licensing company ALLOS Semiconductors sees itself as the leading provider of GaN-on-Si wafer technology for LED, power and RF applications and claims to have the best performance in the market with respect to essential properties like crystal quality, uniformity, and low wafer bow.

The FSP Group, one of the world’s major power supply vendors, will be presenting its latest smart lighting technologies at this year’s LIGHTFAIR International (LFI) that will be held in Chicago from May 8 to 10. Solutions that FSP will bring to the event include intelligent programming for smart lighting controls and high-efficiency lighting products, both of which are central to the company’s committed strategy to stake out a position in the growing market of the Internet of Things (IoT).

At Light and Building 2018, LEDinside had a face-to-face interview with Dr. Jacob Tarn, new CEO of LEDVANCE, who shared his insights on the market and the company’s strategic outlook.

With years of development in LED component field, Lite-On has had its place in the market. Themed on “Our Profession, Your Brilliant” this year, Lite-On exhibits full series of automotive LED, sensing products and solutions at 2018 ALE (exhibition booth: T238) as it aims at front lighting, tail light, interior lighting, smart sensor and other applications based on the automotive hardware design trends. For many years, its Optoelectronics Business Group has been dedicated to grasping new automotive design trends, understanding customer demand, and assisting customers in creating excellent value through providing high-performance, high-quality products and flexible, customized services. LEDinside has the chance to interview the senior director of the global marketing division and the New Product Division of Lite-on's Optoelectronics Business Group, Su Yuhong, who shares the business operation and future strategy of Lite-on.

LEDinside editor visited Shenzhen Moso Power Supply Technology Co., Ltd., one of the leaders of LED power supply industry, and interviewed Mr. Wu Chunxiao, Deputy Marketing GM of Moso on November 21st, 2017, deeply communicating and discussing the current market situation of LED power supply and its future development.

LEDinside has the honor to interview the president of Guangyu LED Lighting Co. Ltd., Mr. Xu Fugui, and unveil this mysterious technology enterprise for you, which is located in Linfen, the hometown of Emperor Yao and the coal capital.

LEDinside interviewed Lisa Brown, Senior National Director of Municipal Infrastructure and Smart Cities for Johnson Controls, on the progress of smart cities transformation.

LEDinside had an interview with Aaron Ganick, Global Head of Smart Business, LEDVANCE on the company’s newly launched SYLVANIA SMART+ A19 bulb and the trends of smart lighting in the next five years.

Automotive CoB LED is a segment that the LED industry pays less attention to for two reasons. First, CoB has been a niche market with a market scale far less than SMD's. Second, this segment is only one of the applications that adopt CoB LEDs. It’s quite a small market, so why discussing it now?

2017-2018 is a pivotal period for the display industry. Companies are scrambling for new display technologies to bring better user experience with devices that sport them. Micro LED display technology is believed to combine the LED and display industries together to create a supply chain rolling out screen products more appealing, power-saving, and refined. This chain is even anticipated to replace a part of the current LCD chain worth USD 30-40 billion in the future (see here). The Korean Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) revealed two months ago a refined roll-transfer technology which enables a successful mass Micro LED transfer onto flexible target substrates.

LED filaments have been gaining popularity as its technology progressed. More new manufacturing equipment is introduced and the market keeps scaling up. A growing number of distributors and end-consumers show interest to want to know more about LED filaments.

Technology progresses, and the way of making it should be smarter, too. With the continuous scaling semiconductor and CMOS technology, the circuitry becomes more intricate, and PCB designs more compact and complicated, possibly leading to more time inefficiently spent on creating and collecting electronic design data with schematic and PCB design tools with a broad range of models and symbols enough to tire out engineers. That had propelled Natasha Baker to derail from her former electronic design product marketing job and found SnapEDA.

Wars in the space of LED lighting technology patent never end and are even growing in numbers in the post oligopoly era. LEDinside did a series of quick Q&As with Tim Lester, CEO of Bridgelux. The CEO articulated his views on the transition of patent landscape and strong confidence to withstand competitions from rivals.

Earlier in May, the world’s highest PPI emissive Micro LED display was announced. The whole industry was left baffled with knowing that it came out from a young Canadian startup- VueReal. When other companies- some of them are major in other application sectors-are still moping over poor yields and technological difficulties during Micro LED’s manufacturing processes, the launch already spoke for the company’s competency.

LEDs have become a ubiquitous part of our lives, finding their way into our big screen HDTV’s, into our cars, on our streets, at work and in our homes. The global LED lighting market is booming now as LED prices have dropped significantly over the past few years. However, we are on the verge of a 2nd revolution in LED lighting. The next generation of LED optics will deliver LED lighting that is more comfortable, safer, very high quality and digitally connected, all at affordable prices. Light Polymers, a San Francisco-based nanochemistry startup, is eyeing the LED lighting industry with its unique and disruptive proprietary lyotropic materials technology.

The China LED chip industry is highly concentrated at this point. It is undergoing an reshuffle and slowly transitioning to a dynamic where LED chip and package behemoths San’an Opto and HC SemiTek pretty much lead and even control the pack. In the face of upcoming capacity expansion from major manufacturers, is there really a way for other SMEs to sail through such turbulent waters?

To shift or not to shift, that is the question. At this point within the LED industry, in terms of business transformation, companies are facing a turning point to shift business focus to new niche markets with high gross margins such as UV and IR LED, or to stay at LED lighting, where they began with; and of course, some chose to embrace all.

From dome optical lens to liquid silicone materials for encapsulation and adhesion, on the booth’s panel, noted LED package material manufacturer Dow Corning, now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Company, showcased a myriad of advanced silicone products for various package types. At GILE 2017, LEDinside had an interview with Mr. Takuhiro Tsuchiya, Global Segment Leader at Dow Corning, on current trends and the company’s role in the LED package industry.

Within the LED lighting industry, more and more companies shifted their focuses to niche markets and specialty lighting to get away from bitter price wars in the general lighting market. Sectors such as horticultural lighting, healthcare, shipping, and intelligent lighting began to witness the emergence of LED products, and it also seemed a definite trend to replace traditional low-price LED tubes with advanced high efficient ones. As for the decorative lighting market where consumes a massive amount of LEDs, it also experienced a series of changes when LED technology gradually takes hold. In light of the fact that it has earned a favourable reception among traders, distributors, and lighting designers, LED filament soon became considerably desirable to replace conventional low wattage LED bulbs and LED candle bulbs producing high thermal runaway. Accordingly, in recent years, LED filament has been a great hit in the market.