The world’s biggest lighting company, Signify, announced to its customers that it will raise price on all LED and lamp electronics as the cost in its logistics chains keep rising due to coronavirus spread. Signify sent a letter to its customers in the U.S. noting that the company is treating the coronavirus epidemic as a force majeure event which had led to considerable additional costs in its logistics chain. As a result, the company is going to charge a temporary increase of 3% on all LED electronics (including Emergency products), and Lamp electronics (Magnetic a...

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the progress of Micro LED technology continues to go on. After AIXTRON reported that it has received orders from the Konka Group for Micro LED pilot production, another equipment supplier, CyperOptics, who specialized in high precision 3D sensing technology, also announced orders for Micro LED production. Based in Minnesota, USA, CyberOptics develops and manufactures 3D sensing technology solutions for inspection and metrology in the SMT and semiconductor markets to improve yields and productivity. (Image: CyberO...

Many businesses are updating their outlook of the year as the global business has been affected by the continuously spreading coronavirus across the world. Osram announced on March 18 the withdrawal of the guidance for its fiscal 2020 as the German photonics company thinks it is unlikely to achieve its corporate targets due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. (Image: Pixabay) Osram noted that the unprecedented operational and financial challenges posed by the spread of COVID-19 and the uncertain developments in the coming weeks are leading to economic impact on the...

AU Optronics (AUO), the Taiwan-based panel manufacturer, held an annual press event displaying its new products and applications in 2020 including 8K TVs, Micro LED automotive displays, Mini LED backlit displays. (Image: LEDinside) The wide range of displays target diverse fields covering medical applications, gaming displays, public information displays, automotive displays and more. AUO noted that orders for medical and educational applications such as electronic whiteboards and digital X-ray panels have increased with rising needs in home education and med...

The COVID-19 coronavirus outbreaks across the world has forced the industry to take actions as impacts brought the epidemic continue to expand. In the U.S., equipment provider Veeco said that the epidemic is inevitably affecting its business for 1Q20 and thus withdrew its guidance for the first quarter. LiDAR maker Velodyne also noted that its offices in Bay Area, San Francisco are closed, following the mandatory “shelter-in-place” order in the area. (Image: Pixabay) Veeco said that it puts the health and well-being of its employees, customers, suppli...

AIXTRON announced that Konka Group has ordered multiple AIX G5+ C and AIX 2800G4-TM MOCVD systems to build its own volume production of GaN-based (gallium nitride) and AsP-based (Arsenide-Phosphide) Mini- and Micro LEDs. Konka, which recently announced its plans to enter the North American consumer electronics market in 2020, established its Micro LED initiative as a joint venture with Chongqing Liangshan Industrial Investment. The company also increase an investment of over US$210 million for Micro LED development. Most recently, ...

UV light exposure not only kills microorganism, it can also assess meat quality. A research team with scientists of Sechenov University in Russia, Macquarie University and University of New South Wales in Australia proposed a method incorporating UV light emission to classify meat into standard quality categories. The study was published in Journal of Biophotonics under the title “Autofluorescence excitation-emission matrices as a quantitative tool for the assessment of meat quality.” Conventionally, to evaluate the quality of beef, specialists pay attentio...

Korea’s LED company, Seoul Semiconductor, announced that its former R&D employee (“Kim”, age of 40) was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment as he divulged key LED technology from the company. At the end of February, the Incheon Criminal District Court sentenced eight months in prison, two years of probation and 120 hours of community service to a former R&D employee of Seoul Semiconductor, who resigned in December 2014, charged with the Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology. The Court sa...

85,000 lights points in the city of Cologne, Germany, are connected with Signify’s Interact City lighting management system to make the city smarter. The installation is expected to increase the city’s energy efficiency and reduce costs while improve the safety and quality of life of the citizens. The system can also accommodate the integration of sensors into the luminaires, providing data that offer environmental benefits that go beyond lighting. RheinEnergie, which is responsible for the city’s lighting, will replace all the light points with connected luminaire...

LED suppliers in Taiwan are seizing their opportunity in Mini LED with their production capacities in Taiwan which are less impacted by the coronavirus epidemic and free from tariffs. With Apple reportedly to launch iPad and MacBook based on Mini LED backlight technology, many expect that demands for Mini LED will surge. Seeing the trends, industry players in Taiwan believes that they can take the advantages in both technology development and production. Many Taiwan-based companies own capacity in Taiwan, China and also other countries. Since the trade disp...

A multi-departmental research team at Taiwan’s National Chi Nan University (NCNU) collaborated with local famers and developed a LED lighting system for water bamboo (Zizania latifolia) cultivation to improve the growth with a new design of LED lenses. The advanced technology tackled the existing issues and proved to benefit the harvest. The results were published Applied Sciences in February 2020, titled “Optimized LED-Integrated Agricultural Facilities for Adjusting the Growth of Water Bamboo (Zizania latifolia).” The optimized LED...

LightFair International, originally scheduled to take place during May 3-7, 2020, in Las Vegas, was postponed due to the spreading coronavirus epidemic. Also, Prolight + Sound, which was postponed to May 26-29, has been cancelled. (Image: LightFair) On March 13, LightFair announced the postponement of the trade show and conference. The fair will be moved to late summer or early fall pending on the conditions. Dan Darby, the show director, addressed that safety and wellbeing of all LightFair attendees is the first priority and postponing the show is the most res...

Signify launched new Philips IoT sensor bundles that collect and deliver data via the Interact Office connected lighting system and Environmental monitoring API’s. The new sensors that are being launched enable businesses to monitor their office environment and optimize conditions for employee health and wellbeing. (Image: Signify) The new sensor bundles can monitor occupancy, the number of people, temperature (at room and at desk level), noise levels, daylight levels, relative humidity and are Bluetooth enabled, to provide indoor positioning and navigation capabil...

Micro LED technology builder VerLASE introduced a novel mass transfer technique for Micro LED display production based on its “Large Area Assembly Platform” (LAAP), which the company revealed in June, 2019. With similar concept, the company transfer the technology into a simpler, semiconductor-fab compatible solution based on Photo-Mechanical Actuation (PMA). According to VerLASE, the solution uses a novel formulation comprising of fab compatible chemistries and transfer stamp architecture in a unique way to deterministically pick-up a large ...

Velodyne Lidar announced a multi-year sales agreement with NAVYA, an autonomous driving system provider. NAYVA is a French company expert in autonomous driving system. The company has put into service autonomous mobility solutions in 2015 and used Velodyne’s LiDAR sensors in production for its autonomous shuttle fleet that provides mobility services to cities and private sites. (Image: Velodyne Lidar/NAVYA) With the sales agreement, NAVYA plans to pursue the worldwide expansion of its shuttle with Velodyne’s sensors for precise real-time...

The coronavirus has now declared a worldwide pandemic by the World Health Organization and the infected numbers continues to rise all over the world. Products used for preventing infection thus became bestsellers everywhere. Featuring disinfecting function, UVC LED embedded products are also drawing attentions in the market. LED companies who have been progressing UV LED technologies now leverage their strengths to launch UV LED products for meeting the surging demands for disinfection applications. (Image: Pixabay) Lextar, the vertical integrated LED ...

Mitsubishi Electric announced that it has developed a compact LiDAR solution incorporating a micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) that achieves an extra-wide horizontal scanning angle to accurately detect the shapes and distances of objects ahead in autonomous driving systems. The new LiDAR solution irradiates objects by laser and uses a dual-axis (horizontal and vertical) MEMS mirror to scan for the reflected light, generating three-dimensional images of vehicles and pedestrians. Mitsubishi Electric expects this compact, low-cost solution to contribute to th...

A new type of light emitting textile may enable innovative wearable applications. Researchers at the University of Windsor in Canada published their development in the journal Matters, revealing a stretchable, lighting emitting fabric based on typical ultrasheer pantyhose coated in a thin gold film. (Image: Matters) The new development tackled some of the limitations of existing light-emitting fabrics and use the textile structure as an integral part of the wearable device design. With effective power sources, the light emitting fabric could be further developed into more fun...

Scientist at University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) have created a blue LED from a new semiconductor material halide perovskite, overcoming a major barrier to employing these cheap, easy-to-make materials in electronic devices. Published in Science Advances on January 24, the study demonstrates the technology breakthrough of applying the unstable material as halide perovskite changes with temperature, humidity and the chemical environment and their optical and electronic properties are thus disrupted. Making semiconductor diodes that emit blue light has always b...

Researchers of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) develop a new material for blue light emitting LEDs which can replace gallium nitride (GaN). According to the report of BusinessKorea, the new technology breakthrough might enable Korea to reduce the dependence of Japan on LED materials. Published on Scientific Report on March 04, 2020, the study titled “Intrinsically p-type cuprous iodide semiconductor for hybrid light emitting diodes,” demonstrate the single crystal epitaxy of cuprous iodide (CuI) film grown on Si and sapphire s...

After Light + Building and ProLight + Sound postponed due to concern of the coronavirus epidemic, another lighting related event LEDucation that was scheduled from March 17 to 18, has been moved to August 18 to 19, 2020. LEDucation is a non-profit event organized by the Designers Lighting Forum of New York, serving as a platform for industry professionals to experience new technologies or advance their knowledge with series of seminars and conference arranged. The event takes place in New York City and is expecting over 400 exhibitors and more than 6000 attendees ...

Osram announced that it has decided to shut down server support for smart lamps from the Lightify lighting system. Osram and its system distributor LEDVANCE noted that customers are now using comprehensive Smart Home solutions with intelligent assistants to control smart lighting, instead of using a separate lighting control system or gateway. Osram will therefore be shutting down the cloud server for controlling the Lightify gateway on August 31, 2021. In the beginning of 2019, LEDVANCE finished selling the gateway while part of the Smart+ products are still s...

Display technology continues to advance and display companies has pushed their development in market expansion and technology improvement. OLED, Mini LED and Micro LED are currently the major technologies that players in the display industry focus on. BOE, as the leading display company in China, has also invest great amount of resources in OLED and Mini LED. Lately, BOE replied to its investors about the progress in Mini LED. BOE demonstrated its Mini LED technology at CES 2020. The company is able to provide solutions achieving ultra-thin, h...

After the acquisition of Osram by ams, the two companies are accelerating their integration. Last Friday, Osram announced that its CFO Ingo Bank will become CFO of ams on May 1, 2020 following the latest appointment. (Ingo Bank; image: Osram) Austria-based sensor and semiconductor expert ams has successfully launched a takeover offer for all the outstanding shares of OSRAM in 2019. Together the two companies agreed to possibly expand the number of ams board members through the course of the acquisition with the appointment of an Osram board member. At Osra...

A research team at University College London published its development of an antimicrobial coating which kills bacteria when exposed to light. The creation can be used to coat phones screen, keyboards, and the inside of catheters and breathing tubes for prevent the spread of diseases in hospitals and healthcare institutes. The research, published today in Nature Communications, is the first to show a light activated antimicrobial coating successfully killing bacteria in low intensity, ambient light (300 Lux), such as that found in wards and waiting rooms to stop healthcare-associ...

SiLC Technologies, the developer of integrated single-chip FMCW LiDAR solutions, announced that it closed US$12 million in seed funding led by Dell Technologies Capital. Decent Capital, ITIC Ventures, and several prominent angel investors also participated in the funding round. SiLC will use the funding to scale its R&D and operations to develop its frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) silicon photonic 4D+ Vision Chip platform. SiLC demonstrated its integrated FMCW chip and long-range LiDAR resolution at CES 2020. The company al...

Following the launch of Plessey’s Data-Vµ segmented Micro LED display products in 2019, the company has now extended the range with the introduction of passive matrix pixelized Micro LED displays, based on Plessey’s proprietary monolithic GaN-on-Silicon technology. (Image: Plessey) These fully addressable micro-displays can provide the high brightness/low power image source demanded by the advanced compact optical projectors embedded in AR/MR information systems. The displays can be customized to provide the specific resolution and color requir...

Samsung has added Epistar, the Taiwan based LED chip provider, as a supplier of Micro LED chips to diversity its supply chain, reported Korean media, TheElec. (Image: Samsung) The report said that Samsung included Epistar to its Micro LED supply chain to secure its promise for launching Micro LED TVs in the second half of 2020. Samsung revealed its Micro LED TV lineup earlier this year at CES 2020. The company aims to debut four sizes Micro LED TVs covering 75 inches, 88 inches 93 inches and 110 inches to the market in Europe, North Ameri...

Electroninks, the supplier of particle-free silver, gold, and platinum conductive inks and pastes, announced the strategic alliance with Enjet Inc., the ultra-high resolution printing expert to support advanced manufacturing of display, touchpanel, and packaging products. The two companies will leverage their capabilities and resources to demonstrate conductive ink and printing equipment products.    Electroninks and Enjet will work together as a dynamic team to supply conductive ink printing at <10µm in several markets including Micro LED, Mini LED, EM...

Another lighting event has been postponed due to the increased spread of the coronavirus in Europe. Messe Frankfurt announced that Prolight + Sound 2020 will be moved to May 26 to 29 2020 after intensive consultations. The event was originally taking place from March 31 to April 3 2020. (Image: Prolight + Sound) Prolight + Sound offers a communication platform for business covering light and sound with integration between theater, stage, AV system, display and media technology. Since late February, the confirmed cases of coronavirus continue to surge in Europe,...