Environmental Groups in the U.S. filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for challenging the recent rollback of energy-saving light bulb standard. In September 2019, the Trump’s administration withdrew the Obama’s decision in 2017 which added additional light bulb types to the lighting efficiency standard. By doing so, it is analyzed by American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) that the U.S. consumer will spend US$ 15 billion on electricity annually and the environmental impact will be intensified with more carbo...

LED lighting combining hydroponics system enables people to cultivate food anytime anywhere. In France, a startup company has turned an underground garage in Paris into a vertical farm to grow mushroom and greens, providing fresh food for local people. The government built several parking spaces under the city of Paris during 1960’s to 1970’s and these spaces become abandoned as the driving population declined. La Caverne, a French startup, thus decided to grow vegetables via urban agriculture project in a garage under the city. (Image: La Caverne) Fou...

Earlier this year, the largest LED chip provider in China, Sanan Optoelectronics announced that its Micro LED and Mini LED chip production lines are under construction. And now the company reportedly begins the production of 6-inch Micro LED wafer in the four quarter of 2019, according to Digitimes. Sanan was said to have developed Micro LED chips of 10*20 µm and is aiming to further shrink the chip size in 2020, providing testing data and samples to its clients. Production of 6-inch wafer is a critical move for Micro LED cost reduction as currently ...

Getac, a rugged tablet and PC manufacturer announced its partnership with pureLiFi for integrating LiFi technology into ruggedized wireless devices. For military, automotive, and manufacturing customers, security, safety and reliability are paramount to their operations. As LiFi enables data transmission via light rather than radio waves, the technology features secure and reliable high speed internet connection, supporting Getac the latest technologies to provide customers with solutions to overcome challenges and safeguard and improve productivity. "Getac's pa...

U.S.-based Lighting control supplier Leviton announced that it has acquired Viscor, the largest independent lighting manufacturer in Canada; while Architectural Lighting Works (ALW) reported the acquisition of v2 Lighting Group. (Image: Leviton) Leviton’ acquisition of Viscor reiterates its commitment to strategically expand the lighting and controls product offering. "By adding Viscor to the Leviton family, we will be able to provide a much deeper portfolio of lighting options for our customers. Equally important, Viscor's product portfolio will b...

Sweden-based horticulture lighting solution provider Heliospectra announced new orders for its new LED lighting solutions from Bridge Farm Group in the UK and Nectar Farms in Australia. The two farms will install Heliospectra’s new MITRA LED lighting solutions in greenhouses for commercial food production. Bridge Farm Group is the largest commercial producers and suppliers of plants in the UK. The company has been producing greenhouse grown flowers, potted outdoor plants, microgreens, herbs and ornamentals for more than 30 years. Bridge Farm Group was...

Seoul Semiconductor announced its financial results of the third quarter of 2019 with revenues of KRW 283.4 billion (US$ 244.3 million), an operating profit of KRW 12 billion (US$ 10.34 million), and EBITDA of KRW 32.6 billion (US$ 28.10 million). The company said that it has achieved its guided range of KRW 280 billion to KRW 300 billion of revenues for the quarter. Despite the weak general lighting market, Seoul Semiconductor reported growing sales of WICOP products as the demand of larger and slimmer screen in the TV market increase. The sales...

At the Micro LED product launch, Konka invited Shuiji Nakamura, the Nobel winner in 2014, to share his ideas about Micro LED displays and the technology progress of his laboratory. According to Nakamura, Micro LED outpaces OLED in all the features including brightness, contrast, durability and more, however, the only challenge for Micro LED is production cost. And in order to reduce cost, the miniaturize process of LED might lead to efficiency degrease. Currently the research team has developed a 10μm Micro LED chip which is able to achieve 42% EO...

Konka Group from China hold a product launch event on October 31 and introduced its latest Micro LED display products including a 118-inch 4K TV, a 117-inch 6K TV and a 236-inch 8K TV under the brand name “APHAEA.” Konka called its Micro LED TV product “Smart Wall,” aiming to challenge Samsung’s “The Wall.” The Micro LED displays of Konka are also modular display that can be customized into different shapes and sizes. The Smart Wall TVs use more than 100 million Micro LED chips to reach a brigh...

Apple is currently constructing a new facility in Taiwan, next to Apple’s Taoyuan plant opened in 2015, reported Taiwan’s Wealth Magazine. According to the report, Apple is building the third plant in Taiwan which is scheduled to be finished in December 2019. Many believe that the new facility, like the old ones, are for Micro LED. (Apple's Micro LED research center in Taiwan, image: Seeking Alpha) Taiwan has been a key place for Apple in developing Micro LED technology where the iPhone maker strategically collaborated with local supply ch...

As the trade war between the U.S. and China goes on, some companies from other area enjoy the benefits from order transfer. Taiwan’s LED packager Unity-Opto, recently reported that it has receive orders from U.S. wholesalers and is seeing revenue growth for 4Q19. In order to avoid extra tariffs, companies across the world who target the U.S. market are seeking suppliers who have production lines outside China. With its production lines located in Taiwan, Unity-Opto thus benefits from the order transfer with sales in 1H19 rising 30%YoY. The company also too...

Cree announced the results of its fiscal 1Q20 ended September 29, 2019. For the fiscal quarter, Cree registered a revenue of US$242.8 million, which represents an on-year decrease of 11% and a 3% decrease compared to the previous quarter. GAAP net loss from continuing operations for the first quarter was $37.8 million compared to GAAP net loss from continuing operations of $0.8 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2019. On a non-GAAP basis, net loss from continuing operations for the first quarter of fiscal 2020 was $3.6 million. The company has sold its light...

Lighting company Tridonic and NMB-Minebea-GmbH, which is part of the MinebeaMitsumi group who manufacture machinery components and electronics devices, have signed a contract to form a strategic partnership. The partnership aims to develop intelligent outdoor lighting solutions for Smart Cities. Based on Tridonic’s lighting technology and Paradox Engineering’s connectivity platform and applications ecosystem, the partnership aims to provide integrated Smart City services. For this purpose, hardware and software from both partners will be aligned so that the...

Smart street lighting company Telensa is going to expand its PLANet intelligent street lighting system to Wiltshire County, adding 7,000 more lights across the county. The established deployment already controls 35,000 lights, and paid for itself in just six years through reduced energy and maintenance costs. These controls are also being upgraded as part of a broader LED replacement program for which Ringway is the contractor and Atkins is the consultant. The combination of Telensa smart controls and advanced LED lights from Urbis Schréder has enabled the Co...

LED technology has progressed to create lights that are similar to natural lights for progresses, which might help to enhance wellbeing for not only human beings but also other creatures. Several researches suggested that mood, sense of well-being, productivity and cognition might all benefit from lighting that tracks the solar day. Thus, LED and lighting companies across the world are releasing advanced products for health improvement. Cree Lighting announced the availability of its architectural-grade Cadiant™ Dynamic Lighting Experience. The company introduced Cad...

Signify announced the partnership with aircraft manufacturer Latécoère for the industrial scale-up of its LiFi technology. The two companies have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on its Trulifi technology. The partnership also include South Korea’s aerospace and defense specialist, Huneed Technologies, for data communication electronics and software. “The Paris Air Show 2019 gave Latécoère the opportunity to demonstrate the power of the LiFi speed. Our technology, which showcases our Group’s worldwide lead in in...

With increasing urban population across the world that drives food demands in cities, innovative growing techniques are critical for sustaining food supply. Vertical farming that cultivate crops with LED lighting and controlled environment has served as a solution to provide fresh food for areas with high population density with less water and space consumed. Agritech companies in the U.S. are expanding their vertical farming business across the country. Plenty, a vertical farming company based in California, USA, announced that it will build a new farm in Los Angeles later...

German equipment solution provider AIXTRON announced the financial results for the third quarter and the first nine month of 2019. The company reported an on-year revenue increase of 2% to EUR 184.6 billion for 3Q19 and an operating result of EUR 24.5 million (US$ 27.16 million) that grew by 18%YoY. AIXTRON said that the order situation slightly recovered compared to the previous quarter. Sales were lower than in the previous quarters partly due to longer than expected processes to grant export licenses. Nevertheless, sales for the first nine months of 2019 in...

Signify published the financial results of 3Q19 last week with a 5% decrease in comparable sales growth while its LED-based business improved on-year by 2.6%. The company said that the “challenging macro environment with lower market activity in Europe, U.S., Greater China as well as a major impact of tightening liquidity in India,” was a major reason for the flat sales growth. The Dutch lighting company reported a revenue of EUR 1.53 billion (US$ 1.7 billion) in 3Q19, down by 3.3%YoY. Accumulated revenue for 2019 until the end of September came to E...

Automotive applications mark a niche market for global LED makers. While the developing electronic vehicle and autonomous driving technology with higher requirement for power saving open more opportunities for LED producers, LED technology progress also supports more application options for automobile manufacturers. Head up display (HUD) which enables drivers to obtain information while looking the frond is an application that can be enhanced through advance LED technologies. A HUD system usually include a picture generating unit (PGU) consisting of an LED arra...

The applications of water disinfection and purification are expanding and becomes a driving force of the UVC LED market. One of the growing applications is UV-C embedded water bottle. LEDinside reported in August one model of the UV-C LED integrated bottle offered by an on-line design shop NOERDEN. Soon after that, we found more and more similar products launched in the past two months. In most of the bottles, a UV-C LED module with Li-Polymer battery is equipped with the bottle cap and can be activated to water disinfection by tapping the cap. Th...

Apple’s AR glasses have become even more materialized as Bloomberg reported on October 21 that the iPhone maker is likely to introduce AR headset which synchronize the new 5G upgraded iPhone in 2020. According to Bloomberg, the glasses will wirelessly connected with iPhone to show information over users’ field of vision, displaying texts, emails, maps or even games. Apple was also said to include an App Store with the headset. (Image: the United States Patent and Trademark Office) The Apple’s AR glasses are expected to have holographic dis...

IoT solution provider WiSilica announced a global strategic collaboration with LED lighting technology company Bridgelux for providing intelligent wireless control solutions and intuitive applications. This affiliation allows Bridgelux to deliver streamlined experiences in human-centric lighting and wireless controls. In a fast urbanizing world like today’s, the benefits of IoT and connected lighting are immense; primarily in driving cost benefits, convenience, and energy efficiency. Bridgelux and WiSilica are ready to cater efficiently to these requirements. WiSil...

Horticulture lighting technology supplier Heliospectra announced that it will supply spectra controllable LED lighting solutions and light control system for Canadian cannabis grower. The horticulture LED lighting and control solutions are designed to ensure high-quality production and healthy plants from propagation to harvest. Eco Canadian Organic (E.C.O.) is a family-owned commercial cannabis late-stage license applicant with Health Canada ACMPR and is located in New Brunswick, Canada. The company will apply the new cultivation facility to focus on medicinal ...

A research team of The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) developed a new light-emitting material which combines quantum dot with a polymer medium filled with popcorn-like air bag. The new material, compared to conventional pure quantum dot films, perform 21 times better luminous intensity and 45% better durability. (Image: KAIST) The study was published online in September on Nano Letters, titles “Order-of-Magnitude, Broadband-Enhanced Light Emission from Quantum Dots Assembled in Multiscale Phase-Separated Block Copol...

As display technology continues to progress, worldwide big names have launched innovative displays that the resolution has evolved from full HD to 4K. Nevertheless, without high contrast, the refined display performance of high resolution would not be fully presented. High contrast intensifies the brightness and darkness of images and videos on TVs and gaming monitors and enables AR wearables or automotive displays to deliver clear picture under sunlight. Thus, the demands for high contrast display keep rising. LEDs, with its self-emitting feature, can be adopted to various ...

Hyundai Mobis announced its partnership with Velodyne Lidar for mass-producing level 3 autonomous driving LiDAR system. Hyundai Mobis will also invest US$50 million in Velodyne to reinforce business cooperation in LiDAR commercialization. (Image: Hyundai Mobis) The two companies will collaborate on new LiDAR system supply by integrating Velodyne’s latest LiDAR sensors with Hyundai Mobis’ cognitive software. Hyundai Mobis’ cognitive software will process the outside vehicle environment data gathered by LiDAR sensors which means tha...

Seoul Semiconductor reported that it has successfully obtained a judgement of permanent injunction in a patent infringement lawsuit against Fry’s Electronics, a U.S. consumer electronics retailer. Seoul filed patent infringement litigation against Fry’s Electronics in September 2018, accusing the retailer of selling Philips TV products that violate 15 patents of Seoul. Later, the Korean company amended its complaints and asserted that the TV products infringe 19 patents covering a Multi-Wavelength Insulation Reflector widely used for “0.5W to 3W&r...

People become more and more aware of how lighting can affect human well-being and are paying attention to the quality of lighting. For enhancing light quality, researchers found out people have different perception of light sources depending on their age and highlighted the importance of taking age factor into consideration when designing white LED lighting. A study published in The Optical Society (OSA) journal Optics Express investigated the perception variability related to short-wavelength effects and confirmed that the perception of white LEDs is affected by the view...

Chemistry company BASF announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with EMDE Development of Light (EMDE), a Germany-based innovative lighting design company. Under the agreement, EMDE will distribute BASF’s innovative LED Sunvue® lighting products in Europe. In addition, the lighting company will adopt BASF’s color conversion technology to design new lighting products and solutions. (Image: BASF) BASF’s proprietary Sunvue technology is developed to optimize blue LED light for different applications. The te...