An emerging landscape bereft of standards, some have defined Micro LEDs as anything where the LED semiconductor die is smaller than 70 μm down to perhaps 1μm. Larger die are typically called Mini LEDs, used in applications such as local dimming. The semiconductor die are essentially a miniature version of the die in the well-known, commoditized solid-state lighting (SSL LED) industry. Besides physical dimensions, there are some subtle differences between the SSL industry and the display industry. Spectral tuning notwithstanding, the end goal for SSL industry...

LiDAR sensors not only improve road safety for self-driving cars, they can also help in monitoring and care of elderly. IBM began a trial home care service adopting LiDAR sensors with a UK startup company Cera Care. The pilot project will combine IBM’s machine learning software with LiDAR sensors, reported Reuters. IBM Research UK teamed up with Cera Care to develop an elderly home care system to monitor clients’ activity. They will install LiDAR sensors in the houses of 10 to 15 volunteers in the UK since June to track activities of t...

On May 27, 2019, the authorization conference for COMMON Cathode IC of Guangzhou SiliconCore (SiliconCore) was held at Hilton Hotel in Guangzhou. LEDinside, the LED industry research division of TrendForce was honored to have the chance to interview Mr. Eric Li, the President and CEO of Guangzhou SiliconCore on-site. During the conference, Guangzhou SiliconCore demonstrated the latest products of LED display driver IC based on Common Cathode Technology, including SCL8080 series and SCL8081 series. Combined with the control chip develope...

In order to commercialized Micro LED display, the current goal of Micro LED technology developers is to reduce production cost and improve yield through optimizing manufacture process. One obstruction to the goal comes from the production process of mass transferring and bonding, as assembling million Micro LED chips to targeted substrates poses a great challenge for display makers. Micro LED display is made from Micro LED array consisting of a massive amount of Micro LED chips, forming individual pixels. Since the size of Micro LED chips is less than 100 &m...

Mojo Vision, a California-based startup focusing on invisible computing, revealed it Micro LED display featuring 14,000 PPI, which the company claimed to be the smallest and densest dynamic display ever made. The display sized only 0.48mm, same as a grain of sand but it can deliver a pixel density 300 times greater than current smartphone displays. The prototype technology uses Micro LEDs and is expected to be applied in wearable devices including AR/VR hardware and heads up displays (HUDs). (Image: Mojo Vision) According to Mojo Vision, the new monoc...

glō, the Swedish-American Micro LED company, has been progressing its Micro LED technology since it exhibited the world’s brightest Micro LED display with JDC at Display Week 2018. In 2019, the company showcased four prototypes of Micro LED display including smartwatch display, AR display, HUD and a smartphone-sized panel with Kyocera during Display Week. (Image:glō) The solution of glō features two technology, RGB InGaN Micro LED and direct wafer transfer onto different substrate materials including silicon (CMOS), glass (LTO...

During Display Week 2019, LEDinside noted that Chinese LED makers and panel producers become strong industry players in Micro LED technology developments. The country was also ranked the second in the world with its Micro LED patent application, according to the statistics of the Korean Intellectual Property Office. The National Intellectual Property Administration of China published a patent applied by BOE which focuses on Micro LED transferring. In the patent application, BOE proposed a mass transfer solution with high efficiency in which a magneti...

Velodyne announced that it has won a patent lawsuit filed by its competitor Quanergy. The US Patent Trial and Appeals Board ruled the validity of Velodyne’s US Patent 7,969,558 on May 23, 2019. According to Velodyne, the patent is related to a LiDAR based 3D point cloud measuring system used for Autonomous Vehicles, ADAS, Robotic vision, and other diverse applications. “Velodyne Lidar is the inventor of the surround view LiDAR and we were confident that our patent would be upheld,” said Marta Hall, President of Velodyne Lidar. &ldqu...

In the latest report of LEDinside, titled “LEDinside 2019 Micro LED Next Generation Display Key Technology Report,” Micro LED technology not only features excellent performance in brightness and contrast that surpass OLED, its fast response time, low power consumption and reliability make it a perfect option for mobile and automotive applications. However, complicated production process which leads to low yield and high production cost has slowed down the commercial progress of Micro LED display. One of the challenges lies in the quality of Micr...

CIMCON Lighting, who focuses on smart city solutions and outdoor lighting management systems, launched the next generation of its smart city platform, NearSky. The updated platform includes smart city solutions consisting of sensors, devices and developer tools to simplify digital cities development. CIMCON's NearSky platform is able to transform a city's existing streetlight infrastructure into a city-wide network of connected outdoor digital assets with a streetlight-mounted edge data processor and cloud-based data management software that collect, distribute a...

Aurora, the self-driving technology developer, announced its plan to acquire Blackmore, a US-based LiDAR company, asserting LiDAR as a critical component for autonomous vehicle. In Aurora’s announcement, the company noted that on top of its prior knowledge of self-driving technology, it is now focusing on the next generation LiDAR technology called Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW). Blackmore, with its expertise in FMCW, will provide Aurora advantages of high dynamic range, single photon sensitivity, and interference immunity, which advance s...

RaonTech, a Korean company who provides micro-display solution for AR/VR devices, announced its development of a 0.37-inch micro display with full HD (1920*1080) resolution based on LCoS technology. The display targets the rising market of wearable devices including head mounted display (HMD) and head-up display (HUD). (Image: RaonTech) According to RaonTech, the micro-display is consisted of liquid crystal and a special mirror on silicon wafer and driven by an RGB LED. Through the special mirror, the LED can increase pixel density of the small size d...

Japanese LED maker Nichia Corporation announced that it has terminated its investment in Advanced Optoelectronic Technology (AOT), a LED packaging company under the Foxconn Group. Nichia reported on May 24, 2019 that it has sold all of common stock of AOT by the end of March 2019 which was held by its subsidiary Nichia Taiwan Corporation. Nichia ranked the top for global LED packaging manufacturer in 2018, according to the analysis of LEDinside. The company continues its developments in niche applications including deep UV LEDs and human centric li...

Patently Apple reported that the US Patent and Trademark Office have published several new patents for Apple recently including two patents of Micro LED chip transferring and structure and one related to a head-mounted system with a holographic element. The first patent of Micro LED transferring, titled Micro LED Display, described a Micro LED structure with a metallization layer between a bonding layer and the micro p-n diode, as well as a conformal dieletric barrier layer. The structure of Micro LED enables a phase change during chip transferring and enabl...

Integrated with sensors, IoT technology and data management system, smart lighting applications are believed to improve convenience of life and efficiency of energy usage. Worldwide lighting companies have also been expanding smart lighting product and system development. GE lighting recently announced the launch of its C by GE smart lighting series products while Silicon Labs and Signify announced partnership on the Friends of Hue program. GE Lighting launched the new C by GE series including Full Color Lights, Tunable White bulbs, Smart Switches, and a Smart ...

Lighting companies like Osram and Signify have extended their lighting solutions to smart applications in office and building. And now semiconductor company Arm is joining the market. UK-based semiconductor and software supplier Arm launched Space Analytics as part of the Arm Pelion Smart Spaces solutions for property managers to optimize space usages. Based on Arm’s Pelion IoT platform, Space Analytics securely gathers and analyzes data from off-the-shelf IoT devices (such as smart lighting, sensors, locks, IP cameras, badge readers) to deliver actionable i...

Starting today on May 21, LIGHTFAIR International (LFI) 2019 is taking place in Philadelphia this year. Leading LED and lighting companies across the world including Cree Lighting, Current by GE, Osram and more are presenting their latest lighting technology and innovative products at the event. Connected lighting, human centric lighting and architecture lighting are focuses of the international firms. Cree Lighting, now fully owned by Ideal Industries, will showcase its new product portfolio for indoor, outdoor and intelligent lighting at LFI 2019. Fo...

To further speed up autonomous driving technology development, LiDAR producers are strengthening their cooperation with different strategic partners. Cepton announced partnership with Dataspeed, an autonomous vehicle solution provider while Aeye reported an investment from Japan-based component maker Aisin. Meanwhile, Quanergy revealed that it has met automotive requirement. 3D LiDAR solutions developer Cepton Technologies announced that it has partneredp with autonomous vehicle solution specialist Dataspeed. Through the partnership, Dataspeed’s customers will ...

Promoting IoT applications in commercial, industrial and retail industries has been a major focus of Osram. The German company recently announced its partnership with Facility Solutions Group (FSG), a building technology system specialist design, integration, installation, for advanced smart building IoT solutions. Moreover, it also launched intelligent LED lighting fixtures for industrial IoT applications. The collaboration with FSG will enable Osram to combine its fixture-integrated sensors, controls and components with FSG’s Encelium® Light Mana...

Cree announced that it has been selected as the exclusive silicon carbide partner for the Volkswagen Group’s “Future Automotive Supply Tracks” Initiative (FAST). The aim of FAST is to implement technical innovations more efficiently and effectively to realize global vehicle projects. As the Volkswagen Group aims to increase its electric vehicle production, the automobile manufacturer is seeking for effective network. “Our FAST partners are our strategic partners, each of them outstanding in their respective field. We want to shape the auto...

Plessey announced that it has achieved a significant milestone in the development of its monolithic Micro LED displays with its backplane partner, Jasper Display Corp (JDC). The two companies announced their strategic partnership in September 2018. Though intensive collaboration, Plessey has succeeded in wafer level bonding of its GaN-on-Silicon monolithic Micro LED wafers with JDC’s eSP70 silicon patented backplane technology, resulting in Micro LED displays that contain addressable LEDs. Wafer level bonding poses significant technical challenges ...

Smart glasses and AR technology provider Vuzix and optoelectronic technologies developer Plessey announced an exclusive display device design and long-term supply agreement. With the agreement, the two companies will work together on AR products development and productions combining Micro LED light source from Plessey and smart glasses expertise of Vuzix. Vuzix has developed a Smart Glasses portfolio including Vuzix Blade, which won the CES 2019 Innovation Award. The glasses are equipped with a smart display, offering a see-through viewing experience via its waveg...

Micro LED technology startup VueReal reported that it has developed a solution to offer required yield for high-volume production of Micro LED displays. Right after unveiling its ability to produce Micro LED display with 30,000 ppi with product sample available for order, VueReal announced its development of a Micro LED display mass production solution. Low transfer yield and the need for expensive redundancy or repair solutions have been major limiting factors preventing Micro LED displays from being used in mainstream applications. In order to tackle the issue...

VueReal, the Canada-based Micro LED developer, announced its achievement in Micro LED display production. With its self-aligned technology, VueReal has reached a high yield in Micro LED display production. VueReal will start accepting orders for Micro LED display samples by June 2019. According to VueReal, its self-aligned integration process is able to meet the alignment accuracy requirement without compromising Micro LED performance. Based on the technique and adaptive patterning technologies from VueReal, Reza Chaji, CEO of VueReal, noted that ...

The Tianma Group from China announced that it will exhibit a 7.56-inch Micro LED display, a Mini LED backlit HDR LCD, and a Flexible AMOLED display at Display Week 2019. Tianma will showcase a Micro LED display with over 60 percent transparency and a resolution of 720*480 (114ppi), along with a thin border of less than 0.8mm. With the transparent Micro LED display, Tianma targets automotive applications such as HUD or car window display. (Image: Tianma) The company is also presenting a LTPS Mini LED backlight-based HDR display f...

Advancement of IoT technology enables integration of lighting and other application to improve efficiency of energy usage and save electricity cost. Commercial real estate owners are therefore actively seeking the benefits of data-driven, real-time applications that will modernize a business or learning space. Osram continues to deepen its involvement in smart application development with several strategic partners. The company has recently completed a pilot program with a Canadian university for space optimization. Osram Digital Systems and its growing ecosystem of partners are...

The Society of Information Display (SID) announced the winners of its Display Industry Awards. Winners of Display of the year include Samsung’s “The Wall,” Sony’s Crystal LED Display and Apple’s OLED display for Apple Watch Series 4. Two out of the three winners went to Micro LED displays. Samsung revealed “The Wall,” a 146-inch display at CES 2018 for the first time. In 2019, the Korean company released a 75-inch Micro LED display with the “real” Micro LED chips which is only 1/15 of t...

Australian semiconductor technology developer, BluGlass, announced that its Remote Plasma Chemical Vapour Deposition (RPCVD) p-GaN technology has been adopted by X-Celeprint, a micro-transfer printing company, to develop Micro LED display prototypes. By implementing BluGlass’s RPCVD p-GaN technology, X-Celeprint’s active matrix Micro LED displays demonstrated good luminance with color uniformity, quantum efficiency and forward voltage that equal current high-performance commercial applications of 2000 nits. (Image: X-Celeprint/BluG...

After releasing few warnings in February and March, Osram finally unveiled the financial results of the second quarter of its fiscal 2019 ending March 31. The results went in line with what the company has expected with revenues decreased by 13.5% YoY to EUR862 million (US$965.14 million). The adjusted EBITDA fell by 56% YoY to EUR70 million (US$78.38 million) with an adjusted EBITDA margin dropped from 16.9% to 8.1%. The net loss came to EUR90 million (US$100.78 million). Continuous weak growth in China along with ongoing trade conflicts have led ...

Cree announced it will invest up to US$1 billion in the expansion of its silicon carbide capacity with the development of an automated 200mm silicon carbide fabrication facility and a materials mega factory at its U.S. campus headquarters in Durham, N.C. Cree said that the decision marks the company’s largest investment to date in fueling its Wolfspeed silicon carbide and GaN on silicon carbide business. Upon completion in 2024, the facilities will substantially increase the company’s silicon carbide materials capability and wafer fabrication capacity, allowing wi...