A European Apple patent application related to the technology of Micro LED display was published, reported Patently Apple.

  Scientists have continuously worked on improving the performance of LED. LED based on Perovskite (PLED) could be a new approach. Scientists have found out that the performance of the material surpasses OLED and that it could be processed with low cost solutions. Two research teams have published their studies of perovskite LED on Nature in October, notifying the potential of its further development.

Dr. Hiroshi Amano, a 2014 Nobel laureate in physics, delivered a lecture at Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan on October 3rd, sharing his research progress on GaN blue LED with Prof. Isamu Akasaki and how he has transferred his research focus from blue LED to UV LED and GaN power. He also highlighted the potential applications of GaN technology in the era of IoT and 5G. 

Dr. Hiroshi Amano, Nobel Laureate in Physics 2014, will deliver a lecture on October 3rd at Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. The topic of the lecture is “The History of the Development of Blue & UV-LEDs and Their Future Prospects.”

Held on September 20th in Taipei, Taiwan, Imec Technology Forum Taiwan has gathered professionals from Imec’s R&D center to present their cutting edge technology and achievements in hardware-software integration.

A research project led by Brunel University London and a consortium of partners including Marks & Spencer, Tata Steel and AIXTRON plans to reduce the production cost of flexible OLED lighting panels to bring more options for lighting. 

Regrowing hair for mice is the new application unveiled by researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) with their red flexible vertical Micro LED technology. They published their result in ACS Nano in August.

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Nubia has unveiled a wearable smartphone at IFA 2018. The wearable smartphone, named Nubia Alpha, has adopted a flexible display so the screen can wrap around the wrist. 

Chinese LED packaging company Nationstar has demonstrated its Mini LED applications at Display International, Touch Taiwan and announced its plan to sell its subsidiary at the latest conference call on September 5th.

The development of the LED display industry has been blooming in 2018 with the progresses of Mini LED, Micro LED, Fine pitch LED and OLED showing up one after another. According to the latest report from LEDinside, it is estimated that the market value of Micro LED and Mini LED will reach US$ 1.38 billion by 2022.

Lextar has announced that the company will launch the latest Micro LED chips with the size smaller than 20 µm and two different Micro LED chip solutions for display applications at Touch Taiwan 2018.

Taiwanese panel manufacturer Innolux is to showcase its latest products including gaming panels, QLED notebook panels and smart watches with flexible OLED displays at Touch Taiwan 2018. 

Quantum Materials Corp, a U.S. based quantum dot manufacturer, has announced its achievement of exceeding 7,000 hour continuous on-time durability test for the company's cadmium-free quantum dots in a remote LED.

Telecom operator O2 has announced its partnership with pureLiFi for a trail network using LED lights to provide high-speed wireless connection for data transmission. 

Industry sources have leaked in February that LG planned to release its first Micro LED TV in September. LG Electronics will reportedly launch its Micro LED TV at the IFA electronics trade show in Germany, according to a report from The Investor. 

Lextar has released a series of Mini LED products including Mini LED RGB display modules and Mini LED backlight for notebooks and monitors. The products will be demonstrated at Touch Taiwan 2018 by the end of August in Taipei, Taiwan. 

Chinese company BOE Technology will reportedly begin trial production of Micro OLED display in the beginning of 2019 which will be applied for VR and AR, according to Korea’s ET News. 

A research team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has produced a fiber-based “soft hardware” with embedded LED and diode photodetectors which can be used to make clothes.

As one of the most important display shows of the industry, Touch Taiwan will take place during August 29 – 31 in Taipei, Taiwan. Manufacturers of the supply chain including LED chip, panel, driver IC and end-product applications will gather at the event to demonstrate their innovative technologies as well as to discuss the development trend of the industry. Micro LED, considered to be the next generation display technology, will be a spotlight of the event.

Nokia has announced its commercial partnership with Current by GE for applying smart city technology to Canadian cities to improve infrastructures and citizen services.

Cochlear implant is a device using electrodes to stimulate the auditory nerve to help hearing-impaired people to “hear.” But it cannot deliver complex sound as the electrode current does not move from the electrode to an auditory neuron directly. Researchers have been exploring the possibilities to replace electricity with light in cochlear implants via optogenetics technology.

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. 

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.

Besides display and lighting, LED technology applications in medical field have been progressing to create possibilities for curing cancer. Researchers at Waseda University, Japan have developed an implantable device consisting of LED chips and bio-adhesive nanosheet which has successfully shrank the tumors in mice through photodynamic therapy. The result was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering journal on July 16th 2018. 

The U.S. based start-up, eLux with its patent technology of Micro LED transfer process and its business cooperation with the Foxconn Group, has been attracting attentions from the industry. LEDinside invited Paul Schule, the founder and CTO of eLux, to speak at Micro LEDforum 2018 to share the company’s technological progress and insights of the industry. 

SelfArray, a startup based in New York, shared its innovative Directed Self-Assembly (DSA) technology which uses diamagnetic levitation to align LEDs automatically at Micro LEDforum 2018. 

LEDinside was honored to invite Dr. Jae-Hyun Kim, head of the Department of Applied Nano Mechanics at the Korean Institute of Machinery and materials (KIMM) to join Micro LEDforum 2018 to introduce their advanced technology of Micro LED production. Dr. Kim and his team developed the roll-to-plate transfer method to efficiently transfer Micro LEDs and to speed up the production of Micro LED displays.