The Taiwanese backlight module and projector producer Coretronic held the earnings conference call of Q2 on July 24th and claimed that the company’s business has not been influenced by the tariff imposed by the U.S. government.

Taiwanese panel producer AUO has reported its revenue for the second season of 2018 and revealed that the company expects to release Mini LED displays for gaming monitors or gaming notebooks in the second half of 2018.

According to the research of LEDinside, the market scale of LED plant lighting is estimated to grow to US$ 633 million by 2022, with a CAGR of 30% during 2018-2022. Many LED producers have entered the market of horticulture lighting to share the expanding opportunities when the demands in the general lighting market are relatively weak. LEDinside has collected the updates of horticultural applications from LED firms of the world. 

The leading Japanese LED producer, Nichia Corporation released the news that the company decided to expand LED production capacity by building a new plant in response to the increasing demands of lighting and backlight LEDs as well as the applications for automotive use and others.

The tariff imposed on Chinese imported products to the U.S. was effective since July 6th. Previously the U.S. government has announced that the U.S. will enforce 25 percent tariffs on 818 Chinese goods which are in total worth about US$34 billion. And on July 10th, the Trump administration proposed additional tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

The price competition of blue LED continues and has impacted the revenue of the Taiwanese LED chip maker, Epistar. Facing the challenges, the company plans to expand the production of four-element LED and to increase the proportion of Mini LED products in blue LED.

Taiwanese LED driver IC provider Macroblock has become a supplier of Samsung’s display products and might benefit from Samsung’s mass production of Micro LED displays.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

iinside, a U.S. based software developer providing human flow intelligence for airport management, announced its partnership with Quanergy Systems, Inc., a LiDAR sensors and smart sensing solutions supplier, for offering airports advanced approach to monitor, analyses, predict and optimize passenger flows.

A Germany based research project coordinated by Osram Opto Semiconductors and six other partners from science and industry reported its achievement of developing optimized approaches for manufacturing small LED chips and packaging technologies.

On July 10th , the Trump administration announced plans to propose additional tariffs on US$200 Billion worth of Chinese goods and released the tariff list. LEDinside analyzed the list right after the announcement and anticipated that the new tariff list might hit the LED industry in China. 

The Japanese LED giant Nichia, according industry sources, will supply Apple with its 0.3t LED chips for use in the backlight of the new iPhone’s LTPS-LCD panels.

On July 6th, China Solid State Lighting Alliance (CSA), the leading semiconductor research organization, held a forum in Fudan University to propose, for the first time, industry-wide standard for LED filament products. The forum invited leading LED lighting enterprises to discuss ways to regulate the design and production of LED filament products. Attendees include engineers from Osram, MLS, Bore and Wellmax Lighting (WELLMAX).

LEDinside is excited to announce that the weather did not lead to any change of the schedule and Micro LEDforum will be held as planned tomorrow starting at AM10:00 (Check-in at AM9:00) at NTUH International Convention Center, Room 201.

Osram Opto Semiconductors plans to extend its business portfolio in Malaysia with on-going invention and donation of advanced equipment to four universities in Malaysia as the company expects the growth potential of automotive applications in the market. 

Samsung Electronics installed the a LED screen measured 7.7 meters tall and 63 meters wide in the Plaza Norte shopping mall in Lima, Peru. With the largest LED screen installed in South America, Samsung expects to expand its large-size screen into the markets. 

The Taiwan-based supplier of wide range LED product, Lextar, released its revenue of the second quarter and reported the company’s plan to boost Mini LED backlight application for the second half of 2018.