Signify announced the company’s first quarter 2020 results with sales amounted to EUR 1.43 billion (US$ 1.53 billion), down by 3.5% YoY. With adjusted for 1.3% currency effects and 10.6% consolidation (mainly related to the acquisitions of Cooper Lighting and Klite) and other changes, comparable sales declined by 15.3%. LED-based sales represent 78% of total sales. The adjusted gross margin increased by 50 bps to 38.2%, including a negative currency effect of 10 bps. Adjusted indirect costs decreased by EUR 4 million (US$ 4.295 million). The Adjusted EBIT...

Sweden-based horticulture lighting technology provider Heliospectra announced a new order from Turner Construction in Miami, Florida. The systems integrator and supplier will install the controllable spectra ELIXIA LED lights for several upcoming greenhouse facilities. Turner Construction is leading the design, construction, and installation services for the commercial-scale greenhouse projects across the United States in 2020. The Heliospectra ELIXIA 600W LED light will benefit the greenhouse projects by improving crop quality and performance in a wide v...

Velodyne Lidar announced its partnership with ground support equipment provider TLD. The two companies signed a three-year agreement that TLD will LiDAR sensors from Velodyne for manufacture its TractEasy autonomous electric baggage tractor for airport and industrial operation. (Image: Velodyne/TLD) TLD will grow its TractEasy tractor fleet with Velodyne’s sensors for safe and efficient navigation on roadways in a variety of weather conditions. TractEasy is a zero-emission tow tractor that transfers baggage and freight from airport terminals to aircra...

Signify, the world’s largest lighting company, recently suspended its 2020 financial outlook and cut 20% wage of its employees in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 22, the company further published a press release explaining its perspective of the crisis. Stephen Rouatt, Signify’s Head of Strategy, Alliances and Market Insights, looks at the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic Rouatt said that the impacts on the global economy caused by COVID-19 will likely to continue until 2021 depending on how governments around the world contain th...

A new study conducted by the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics (IBP) in Germany showed that full spectrum LED products deliver better visual comfort compared to standard LED products. Full spectrum LEDs are usually categorized as those emitting light similar in composition to natural sunlight. The soon-to-be published Fraunhofer IBP study incorporated a technical comparison of the LED spectra to daylight spectra, a literature review addressing the effect of light spectra on humans, and a psychological study with 83 persons in an office setting. Each par...

LiDAR sensing technology is now commonly known as a solution for automotive driving and ADAS system, but the technology also leverage its edges in a time of the COVID-19 crisis. An indoor motion analysis software developer, iinsider, released SafeDistance, a free upgrade to its LiDAR-powered solution for monitoring and analyzing crowd density in public spaces. The software utilizes LiDAR sensors and 3D perception software from Quanergy to help airport, venue and facility managers monitor and mitigate crowding and congestion, and maintain safe distancing within t...

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has developed a free online tool, the horticulture luminaire calculator, to assist growers evaluating the performance, efficiency, and economics of a wide variety of horticultural luminaires, typically used in greenhouses and other controlled agricultural environments. The horticulture luminaire calculator enables growers to compare different luminaires and choose the optimize solutions for their applications. (Image: LRC) Horticulture lighting is become more significant with indoor farming and high-...

Osram announced in its latest press release that the company will shift production of its cinema lamp to Berlin and close the production site in Eichstätt, a Bavarian town in Germany. Osram said the decision is made in response to structural changes in the cinema industry and additional economic challenges being faced as a result of the coronavirus. The market for cinema lamps is impacted by the pandemic as people are not able to go to cinemas, leading to shrinking demands and production decline. German media Die Welt reported that the measure was criticized by IG M...

On March 24, 2020, in a patent infringement lawsuit which Nichia filed against HTC NIPPON, a Japanese affiliate of Taiwanese Company HTC and Kanematsu Communications, the distributor of HTC NIPPON, Tokyo District Court rendered a judgment, holding that defendants have infringed Nichia’s patents. Nichia filed the patent lawsuit in 2016 claiming HTC infringed its patents. In the judgment, the court found that HTC’s smartphone (product name: HTC Desire 626) distributed by defendants were equipped with white LEDs which infringes N...

Taiwan-based display manufacturer AUO has partnered with PlayNitride to unveil their latest Micro LED technology development. The two companies leverage their expertise and developed a 9.4-inch flexible Micro LED display with the world's highest 228 PPI pixel density, achieving yet another industry milestone with pioneering technological breakthroughs. The 9.4-inch flexible Micro LED display is based on an LTPS TFT driven backplane which allows pixels to be lighted separately. With a high-speed mass transfer technology, more than 5.5 million Micro LED...

The Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) will invest US$100 million to four agri-tech companies to set up high-tech agricultural facilities in Abu Dhabi including the world’s largest vertical farm for R&D and other production farms to solve the challenge of local food production. The ADIO partners include AeroFarms, Madar Farms, RNZ and Responsive Drip Irrigation (RDI). AeroFarms from the U.S. will build a new 8200 square meter indoor vertical farm focusing on R&D and commercialization of relevant local crops by leveraging its expertise a...

Sony announced the price and availability for its 2020 TV models demonstrated at CES earlier this year. The 2020 TV lineup includes series of 8K/4K LED TVs and 4K OLED TVs from US$599.99 to US$9999.99. The most expensive product announced by Sony this time is its Z8H 8K HDR LED TVs, the 85-inch model will cost US$9999.99 and the 75-inch one is US$6999.99. With Sony’s Full Array LED technology with 8K X-tended Dynamic Range PRO, the product series features local dimming to address better contrast similar to Mini LED backli...

UC Santa Barbara’s Solid State Lighting & Energy Electronics Center (SSLEEC) and member companies are developing UV LEDs that have the ability to decontaminate surfaces — and potentially air and water — that have come in contact with the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 virus) to combat the world spreading disease. Recently, much attention has turned to the power of UV light to inactivate the novel coronavirus and Seoul Semiconductor, a SSLEEC member company, reported its achievement of “99.9% sterilization of coronavirus (COVID...

The world sweeping COVID-19 pandemic is leading to delay in production as well as some new projects in the industry as many companies have temporary closed their facilities and the supply chain was interrupted. New technology developments might be affected under the challenging time as well. LEDinside shares its insights toward Micro LED technology development in such a global uncertainty and points out that it might be a chance for the next-gen display technology to move a step forward. (Image: LEDinside) According to LEDinside, delays of equipment and material d...

Compound Photonics (CP), a provider of compact high-resolution microdisplay solutions for AR and MR applications introduced a compact, high brightness 1080p optical engine reference design that fits into a volume under 3 cubic centimeters (3cc). The product is optimized for CP’s 0.26-inch Micro LED Integrated Display Module (IDM) with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 resolution and 3.015μm pixel, which will accelerate development of AR/MR smart glasses. (Image: Compound Photonics) The 0.26-inch Micro LED IDM was jointly developed by Compound Ph...

In response to the rising number of disinfecting products and applications based on UV radiation for preventing the spread of COVID-19, the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) issued a new report by their Photobiology Committee, providing professional information for germicidal ultraviolet (GUV) disinfection and its potential to safely reduce the transmission of coronavirus. (Image: Pixabay) The report provided answers to frequently asked questions about GUV, drawing from expertise from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food a...

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) in the U.S. and lighting company Signify published press releases to state the importance of lighting under the threat of COVID-19 pandemic. (Image: Pixabay) NEMA and members of its Lighting Systems Division addressed that lighting and lighting system manufacturers are essential businesses and requested that all government agencies should exclude lighting and lighting systems device manufacturers from stay-home policy to fully support the requirement of public’s needs for lit, safe, and secure envi...

Custom lighting manufacturer ASCENTI Lighting launched the industry’s first AR and VR lighting app which enables architects and designers to create and evaluate their designs remotely. The application provides a safe and secure solution for architects and designers to keep projects moving forward and meet deadlines during and after the coronavirus health crisis. (Image: ASCENTI) State-of-the-art AR capabilities allow architects and designers to view and modify custom fixtures from any room in real-time, eliminating the need to visit project sites in perso...

In the fight against COVID-19, Chinese medical equipment supplier Sunay Healthcare Supply secured an order of autonomous UVC disinfection robots for hospital use from Danish-based company UVD Robots in February. UVD Robots won the IERA award, essentially the robotics industry’s Oscars, in 2019. The company currently sells its robots in more than 40 countries. In addition to operating in the European and U.S. healthcare markets, UVD Robots is also supplying autonomous UV disinfection robots to hospitals in Asia. Hot on the heels of UVD R...

The U.S.-based Innovasonic announced a partnership with CEA-LETI and CEA-LIST institutes to open a wholly-owned subsidiary in France. The company chose to work with CEA Tech Institutes to leverage their expertise in thin-layer piezoelectric material and their technologies in applied research in microelectronics and nanotechnology. Dr. Boris Kobrin, Founder and CEO of Innovasonic said, “Innovasonic addresses LIDAR, automotive cameras, PV solar panels, and other applications that could benefit from the solution's self-cleaning capabilitie...

Korean electronics giants Samsung and LG are cutting down their LCD production and aim to exit the LCD panel manufacturing business in the near future. Japan’s JDI is also suffered from weak business and sold its LCD production equipment to Apple reportedly. According to the latest investigations by the WitsView research division of TrendForce, these measures taken by the Korean and Japanese companies will led to declines in large size LCD production. Meanwhile, market share of Korean manufacturers in large-size panel capacity will shrink to below 10%. ...

Japan Display announced that the company has been involved in improper accounting treatment with a total padded operating profit of JPY 8.2 billion (US$ 76.12 million) in the past six years since 2014, when the company was listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The company was investigated by a third-party committee and revealed the results on April 13, 2020. (Image: JDI) The investigation showed that JDI recorded fictitious inventory of JPY 10 billion (US$92.86 million) in total since the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013. The investigation also...

LettUs Grow is an indoor farming technology provider founded in 2015 in Bristol, UK. The company is speeding up the building of two vertical farm modules in the city of Bristol to help feed vulnerable communities during the Covid-19 outbreak. The company is also forming partnership with the food redistribution charity FareShare South West to ensure the produce gets to those who need it most. LettUs Grow expects the first of the new aeroponic farm modules to be ready to start producing fresh produce from mid-April, with the first harvests ready to be delivered in ten days...

Australia-based BluGlass updated its business operation recently, presenting its developments in its direct-to-market Laser Diode business unit (launched October 2019) and recent progress on its Micro LED and LED programs. (Image: Pixabay) BluGlass has processed new RPCVD tunnel junction laser diode test structures which replaces the heavily lossy and resistive p-AlGaN cladding layers needed in standard laser diodes, paving the way for laser diodes improvement with reduced optical loss. The BluGlass US based Test Facility is on track for completion and f...

Acuva, the Canada based UVC LED water disinfection solution provider, shared professional understanding about how much UV radiation is required to deactivate the novel coronavirus and how UVC LED technology may support the disinfection process. Dr. Babak Adeli, Director of R&D at Acuva Technologies, explained the ways of novel coronavirus (COVID-19 virus/SARS-CoV-2) transmission and its reaction to UV radiation, showing the possible approach of using UVC LED to diminish the virus. Adeli addressed that the novel coronavirus, is a new strai...

Poro Technologies (Porotech), is a spin-out from the University of Cambridge focusing on GaN material technology. The company has closed a GBP 1.5 million (US$ 1.86 million) seed round investment. According to the report of Cambridge, the investment will support Porotech to develop a pilot plant in Cambridge and its first major products. The seed round was co-led by Cambridge Enterprise, the commercialization arm of the University of Cambridge, and IQ Capital Partners, with the additional participation of Martlet Capital and a syndicate of angel investors from ...

Seoul Viosys announced that its Violeds technology has been adopted by China-based automotive component supplier Yanfeng for in-vehicle UV disinfection. Adopting Violeds technology, the Yanfeng’s in-vehicle UV sanitizer can detect for absence of occupants before activating lamps for a period of 10 minutes that can sterilize the cabin including cockpit, seating and steering wheel. The sterilization lamp is embedded in the ceiling for maximum coverage and allows for sterilization of the harmful bacteria and viruses inside. (Violeds technology adopted by Yanfeng for ...

Korean electronics giants LG and Samsung both revealed their preliminary earning guidance for the first quarter of 2020 and the spreading coronavirus pandemic did not seem to impact much on their business. LG Electronics reported tentative consolidated revenues of KRW 14.7 trillion (US$ 12.03 billion) and with an operating profit of KRW 1.1 trillion (US$ 899.8 million) for 1Q20. Compared to 1Q19, the sales was about 1.2% lower but the operating income increased by 21.1% on year. Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics posted its 1Q20 earnings guidance with consolidated...

Nichia reported that the company has reached a judicial settlement with Corlant, a distributor of automotive aftermarket parts under the brand of Valenti, during the proceeding at Tokyo District Court on March 19, 2020. Under the settlement, Corlant acknowledged that the accused products fall within the scope of Nichia’s patents in relation to PSS technology. Further, Corlant agreed to cease manufacturing and selling accused products, and to pay settlement money. Nichia filed the patent infringement lawsuit against Corlant on January 7, 2019, accursing Corlan...

Osram has appointed Kathrin Dahnke as the new CFO and the new position will begin on April 16, succeeding Ingo Bank, who will become CFO of AMS on May 1. Dahnke was appointed by the supervisory board of Osram as the CFO of the Management Board of Osram. Dahnke was most recently a member of the Management Board of the Neuss-based conglomerate Werhahn KG, which operates in the fields of building materials, consumer goods and financial services. The supervisory board of Osram expects Dahnke to take the challenge faced by the company during the transform...