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. 

A research team from Turkey has published its findings on a novel approach to developing new nanomaterial-based white LEDs that achieves record luminous efficiency of 105 lumens per watt in Optica, The Optical Society's journal. 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

At Samsung Electronics’ QLED & Advanced Displays Summit in Los Angeles, California, the company showcased its current progress of the integration of QLED display, 8K ecosystem, Micro LED technology and HDR. 

The market has put a spotlight on Micro LED technology since Apple acquired LuxVue. Manufacturers of the industry have collaborated to boost the momentum of Micro LED as the technology becomes more and more popular in 2017 and 2018. Besides Apple and Sony, Samsung and Foxconn are also the big names that attract most attention. 

Hyundai Mobis revealed its new achievement in developing new materials for making lamps which can defeat the fog problem. The new materials application also helped to reduce the weight of its lamp products by 20% for one lamp.

Micro LED, which is considered the next generation technology, has advantages of high brightness, reliability, short response time and wide viewing angle. The technology development of Micro LED and its applications have been attracting attentions from researchers and professionals worldwide. According to LEDinside, the market value of Micro LED will reach US$2.891 billion by 2025.

Researchers from KAIST published their research on developing a one-step method to transfer thousands of thin-film blue vertical micro LEDs (thickness < 2 μm) on a transparent plastic substrate. 

One major development for wearable devices is to combine health monitoring technologies for medical application. A Korean research team had developed smart contact lenses to detect glucose; their result was published on Science Advances in January. 

NASA is bringing the application of horticultural lighting to another level: the space. Aiming to provide fresh food supplies for astronauts off the earth, NASA has employed LED lighting system for researching the efficient possibilities to produce food during space travel.

Focusing on the technology trend of Micro LED and its manufacturing limitation, this year in Micro LEDforum, LEDinside has invited worldwide experts to dissert and reveal the solutions of Micro LED applications. 

Luminus Devices, Inc. has released its third proprietary spectral technology, PerfectWhite™, which closely replicates the visual characteristics of halogen lamps (3000K). When compared to halogen, PerfectWhite was preferred by lighting designers in testing at both Light + Building and Lightfair. Though the spectrums are a virtual match – Luminus filled the cyan gap – PerfectWhite’s color point is slightly below the black body locus and as a result, there’s no green/yellow tint that is common to halogen. A better halogen has long been a wish of the lighting design community and PerfectWhite delivers without infra-red, without green/yellow tint, and without ultraviolet radiation.

Micro LED since 2014 has been receiving attention. The industry is slowly becoming familiar with the new display technology that motivated Apple to acquire LuxVue. However, in 2008 a company already foresaw Micro LED to be a future display trend and started related development despite lack of market appetite. When the market started noticing Mini/Micro LED UK-based optic tech firm Optovate had already patented ideas to render various applications featuring these microscopic technologies.

2018 is a pivotal year for Mini/Micro LED development. UK-based Plessey Semiconductors in January announced its commitment to launch a Micro LED microdisplay featuring monolithic GaN-on-Silicon Micro LEDs. Following the announcement, LEDinside got in touch with Myles Blake, Marketing Director of Plessey Semiconductors, to learn more about its technology platform and product roadmap.

At SID's Display Week 2018 in Los Angeles, glō and Jasper Display Corp. (JDC) will, for the first time ever, demo the world's brightest self-emitting display panel. The industry's brightest Micro LEDs (10 μm), developed and integrated by glō, paired with JDC's new silicon backplane, the JD67E2, make it possible to deliver the high brightness and contrast that will benefit the next wave of watches, phones, heads-up-displays (HUDs), and augmented reality (AR) products.

In March, LEDinside witnessed a Chinese lighting company being caught red-handed for showcasing patent-infringing LED filament bulbs at Light + Building 2018. Slightly later than that, we also learnt Epistar has approached and initiated talks with a few companies for IP collaborations at that fair. At TILS 2018 in April, LEDinside interviewed Epistar and got more details about the matter.

On May 17th, Visionox (Gu'an) 6th-generation fully flexible AMOLED (active-matrix organic light emitting diode) production line, China's first 6th-generation fully flexible AMOLED production line, was put into operation in Gu'an New Industry City in Hebei Province. Featuring a designed productivity of 30,000 substrates per month, the production line can meet the display demands of approximately 100 million intelligent terminal devices.

Osram’s venture capital arm, Fluxunit, has acquired a stake in Canadian startup Motorleaf, an artificial intelligence company focused on bringing actionable, datadriven insights to greenhouse and indoor farm operators.

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has published a new report on the energy and economic performance of LED horticultural luminaires. The LRC evaluated key factors such as power demand, life-cycle cost, luminaire intensity distribution, and luminaire shading. Of particular importance is the fact that the LRC considered the effectiveness of the entire lighting system for a controlled growing environment.

Philips Lighting announced that it has repurchased 338,652 shares in the period May 7, 2018 to May 11, 2018. The shares were repurchased at an average price of EUR 26.26 per share and an aggregate amount of EUR 8.89 million.

In order to conform to the development trend of TVs, and combing with the accurate judgment of the development of the TV market, BMTC has released its global TV backlighting strategy for 2018. The strategy covers a comprehensive layout in terms of technology and patent, which aims to seize market opportunities and strive for market commanding heights.

Philips Lighting announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Shenzhen LiteMagic Technologies Co., Ltd., a Chinese manufacturer and seller of lighting luminaires and control systems for urban and façade lighting.

LED driver IC specialist Macroblock reported a gross margin of 34.2% for the first quarter of 2018, reaching new high over the past two years. The company expects its 2Q18 revenue to increase by 20% QoQ after its driver IC is chosen and successfully adopted in Samsung’s display products.

Samsung Electronics said on May 10 it released the latest QLED TVs in Vietnam, seeking to penetrate deeper into a market with considerable demand for large displays.

Leyard and Planar, specialized in visualization products, announced May 10 that they have completed the acquisition of eyevis, which includes the company Teracue. In line with the announcement earlier in April, Leyard and Planar have completed the acquisition process.