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.

LEDinside is ready to welcome the experts and professionals in the industry to join us at Micro LEDforum 2018, titled “Key Technology and Application Market – Transfer, Inspection and Drive Solution Boost,” on 12th July at NTUH International Convention Center in Taipei, Taiwan. 

The Climate Group, a UK based organization, has been partnered with Signify to propose worldwide business to adopt LEDs for indoor lighting with the aim to reduce greenhouse gas emission.

With the cooperation of with Chinese investors, Iran plans to build a LED lamps plant in Ardabil Province in Iran. The new plant will provide employment opportunities for local people and it is expected to produce nearly 12,500 LED lamps per day once it starts to run. 

Beginning with Samsung’s demonstration of its Micro LED modular TV “The Wall” at CES 2018, this year there has been news and updates about Micro LED from manufacturers and researchers all over the world. LEDinside has been following the latest movements of the industry and has revealed information of Micro LED development in the past few months. Entering the third quarter of 2018, there are more on-going developments and technical progress that we would like to share. 

Automobile manufacturers have implemented optical sensors on vehicles and boosted the demands of sensors in recent years. Currently each vehicle is installed with four to five set sensing elements. It is forecasted that the number will keep growing and by 2020, every single vehicle might be installed with up to 10 sensing elements. Another major market for sensor applications is wearable devices. The market expansion of wearable devices will increase the needs of photodiode by four-fivefold.

LED applications have opened an explosive market in horticulture lighting. Nichia, the Japanese LED giant, set up a laboratorial plant factory in Shanghai to test how different LED light sources can alter the ingredients of plants to create medicinal effects. 

Nichia considered that in 2H18, the competition between LED makers will still go on due to the excess capacity of LED backlight and the weak market demands in the past two quarters. As the prices of LED chips and packaging has been down for years, there might be more acquisitions between corporates and some collapses for small and medium sized manufacturers. Generally speaking, 2018 is a tough year for the LED industry. 

Nichia, the leading LED Company based in Japan, held a press conference in Taipei, Taiwan and shared its state-of-the-art lighting technologies in automotive, medical, and horticultural applications. 

The global lighting giant, Osram announced the company’s amendment of the yearly forecast in response to market slowdown in the automotive sector. The company reported that the restrictions on trade and sales for automotive manufacturers significantly created business uncertainty.