Germany-based energy company E. ON will supply power line communications for smart lighting via partnership with enModus, the UK-based smart building solution provider. The two companies have signed an agreement for the cooperation. (Image: enModus) Smart building applications that integrate lighting, sensors and other technologies enable efficient energy and space usage and could save cost for companies. Through the partnership, enModus will makes buildings smart by transforming the existing mains power lines into a building-wide communications network. Power line comm...

Researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology in the U.S. proposed a new designed vertical integration of GaN LED which enables improved efficiency of Micro LED displays. Matthew Hartensveld and Jing Zhang from Rochester Institute of Technology published a new study on IEEE Electron Device Letter describing how they managed to vertically integrated nanowire GaN field-effect transistors (FETs) and InGaN LEDs. The novel structure places the transistor below the LED which for controlling and dimming. (Image: Hartensveld and Zhang) Comb...

Do you have problem waking up in the morning? The right lighting can help people overcome morning drowsiness, according to a study by Korean research team. Researchers from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) suggested that a blue-enriched LED light can effectively boost morning alertness. This study further supports the concept of human centric lighting and provides the basis for major changes in future lighting strategies. The 2017 Nobel Prize winning research unveiled the molecular mechanisms that control circadian rhythms. In the early 2...

Researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) published a new finding of LED medical application for correcting heart rhythm disorder. The research team used a bioelectronics defibrillator implanted with LED to reset irregular heartbeat. They developed a system which detects fast arrhythmias in the atrium of a rat’s heart and sends a signal to an LED device placed near the heart. “The flash of light from this LED then causes the heart to generate an electric current itself to halt the arrhythmia. This is made possible by using gene therapy...

In order to improve the efficiency and lighting quality of LEDs, metal halide perovskites have been considered as a next generation material. Perovskite LEDs (PeLEDs) as emerging light-emitting technology have attracted attentions with the advantages of low manufacturing cost, high light quality and energy efficiency. A research co-led by the scientists from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and Shanghai University developed a new manufacturing process to enhance optical properties and stability of perovskite LEDs. The research team used cesium trifluoroacetate...

Perception solution developer AEye announced that eight patents related to its perception system iDAR (Intelligent Detection and Ranging) have been confirmed. AEye’s iDAR is an integrated system combining solid-state MEMs-based agile LiDAR, fused HD camera, and software definable AI technology. With the aim to solve the challenges of robotic vision for autonomous vehicles, AEye developed iDAR, the artificial perception system that combines LiDAR, HD camera and AI intelligence to create a smart perception sensor that mimic human visual cortex fo...

Signify is speeding up its LiFi development and implement. The leading lighting company announced the trail of LiFi in Europe, North America and Asia through cooperation with more than 30 customers. Signify and its customers set up pilot LiFi installations in worldwide cities. In India, Signify works with Incubex, an incubator for product and business solution, to set up a LiFi implemented meeting room where new startups and firms can apply the technology with Signify’s Philips LiFi-enabled luminaires. In Europe, Signify collaborate with telecoms company...

Zumtobel announced that it has teamed up with pureLiFi, the UK-based LiFi company spun off from the University of Edinburgh, to empower its LED solution with capacity of data transmission. With the partnership, Zumtobel installed pureLiFi’s system with its LED lights. The trial will allow Zumtobel to evaluate the market demand for the technology over the coming months. Then the company aims to leverage LiFi to create value for lead adopters from industries such as medical, defence, industrial and manufacturing. (Image: Zumtobel) Alfred Felder, Zumt...

The way fireflies light up their lanterns has become an inspiration to increase the efficiency of LED. Researchers at the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) found out that LEDs made with firefly-mimicking structures could improve lighting efficiency. Enhancing luminous efficiency of LED has been a research field for many scientists. Stuart (Shizhuo) Yin, professor of electrical engineering at Penn State, noted, "Overall commercial LED efficiency is currently only about 50 percent. One of the major concerns is how to improve the so-called light extra...

Point Engineering (PEC) is a UV LED package manufacturer based in South Korea who specialized in its vertical insulator aluminum metal frame for UV LED package. According to the analysis of LEDinside, the UV LED market is expected to increase to US$ 1.224 billion in 2022, with a CAGR of 33% during 2017-2022. Apart from the steady curing market growth, surface sterilization, static water sterilization, and flowing water sterilization are the market momentums to drive the growth of UV LED during 2018 to 2022. The development for LED chips becom...

Researchers found a new method of photonic cooling by running LED with electrodes reversed. Researchers believe that this approach could improve cooling technology for future microprocessors, which will include various transistors in a small space that current methods cannot remove heat quickly enough. The finding was published on Nature on February 13 by a research team at the University of Michigan. Linxiao Zhu, the lead author on the research article, explained, “Usually for thermal radiation, the intensity only depends on temperature, but we actually have an additio...

Researchers at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have achieved new technology developments including foldable flexible perovskite LEDs and a core chip for 3D image sensors respectively, reported BusinessKorea. The research team at UNIST announced that it has developed foldable perovskite LEDs (PeLED) with a transparent material as electrode of the device. PeLED uses perovskite material as light emitting layer through electricity. In the study, resear...

A research team consists of scholars from Taiwan and China has developed a microscopic imaging system for inspecting Micro LED display surface luminance. Currently the major luminance measurement systems focus on inspecting the total luminance of LEDs which do not meet the requirement of Micro LED as the luminance of each individual Micro LED chips need to be evaluated. To solve the issue, researchers from Xiamen University in China and National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan proposed a method to accurately inspect the luminance of a whole micro-LED array a...

An international research team led by the Georgia Institute of Technology illustrates the potential of next-generation semiconducting materials in transforming lighting technology. . Researchers have found out that the quantum particles of the hybrid semiconductors could create desirable optoelectronic (light-electronic) properties. The particles moving through these new materials also engage the material itself in the quantum action. The researchers were able to measure patterns in the material caused by relating them to the emerging material’s quantum properties and to ener...

Driving LED by constant power mode has been a popular topic recently. Why do LEDs must be driven by the constant current? Why not with a constant power source? Before discussing the above issue, we have to understand why the LED must be driven by a constant current. As shown in Figure (a) LED I-V curve, when the LED forward voltage changed about 2.5%, the current through the LED will correspondingly change about 16%, and forward voltage of the LED is easily affected by junction temperature. The change of high and low temperature may even make the voltage chan...

One essential features of LED lighting is that its wavelength and intensities can be managed to meet various requirements of different applications. Jeff Tsao, a researcher of Sandia National Laboratories, believes that engineered light has great potential to improve human health and productivity. Tsao and his colleagues have published a Nature “Perspectives” article in November 2018 to illustrate the unlimited potential of LED lighting. (Image: SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES) The authors addressed that "LED lighting is o...

AIXTRON announced that the company will supply multiple AIX 2800G4-TM (IC2) cluster systems to San’an Optoelectronics. The Chinese chipmaker with its long-term plan for the rising market demands for fine pitch displays requires a capacity increase in red, orange and yellow LEDs (ROY LEDs). AIXTRON’s AIX 2800G4-TM (IC2) tools will feature a configuration of 15x4 inches and are scheduled for shipment between 4Q18 and 2Q19.

Signify announced an innovative creation of virtual reality (VR) development for its customers. With the new lighting VR apps, Philips Fashion Lighting VR and Philips Urban VR, users can immerse themselves in the virtual world to visualize how lighting can transform their fashion store or city street.

The on-going development of LED research and bioelectronics medicine has sparked off a new solution for curing bladder problems. A team consisting of researchers from Washington University School of Medicine, the University of Illinois and Northwestern University has created an implantable device with biointegrated LEDs that can detect and tamp overactivity in the bladder. The research team of neuroscientists and engineers introduced a miniaturized bio-optoelectronic device that is soft and stretchy and implanted it around the bladder of the lab rats. The device expands ...

This year at CES, big names for TVs and displays have again geared up with their most attracting products to amaze visitors from all over the world. Large size TV with ultra-high resolution is taking over the market with the leading brands presenting 8K TV. Meanwhile, OLED and Micro LED are still two of the most noticeable display technologies at the show as Samsung revealed its latest Micro LED display and LG showcased the world’s first rollable OLED TV. Micro LED Displays: Samsung, PlayNitride and Sanan Optoelectronics Samsung’s ...

Hyundai MOBIS is showcasing the latest Communication Lighting concept at CES 2019. Communication Lighting uses an "Indicating Lighting Zone" to indicate when an autonomous vehicle is operating in self-driving mode. The concept also includes a "Communication Lighting Zone" that uses LED, digital boards, headlamp projection and sound to communicate with nearby pedestrians and vehicles during various driving scenarios. According to Hyundai MOBIS, autonomous vehicles outfitted with Communication Lighting can detect a pedestrian from more tha...

AIXTRON announced that it has signed a Joint Collaboration Agreement with PlayNitride to accelerate technical and commercial breakthroughs of Micro LED. AIXTRON’s AIX G5+ C MOCVD system will be adopted by PlayNitride for the manufacturing of GaN-based (gallium nitride) Micro LEDs. PlayNitride has presented Micro LED displays with high resolution and supplied its Micro LED chips to Samsung for the 75-inch Micro LED display demonstrated at CES 2019. By signing a joint collaboration agreement, AIXTRON and PlayNitride ...

ams announced its cooperation with Face++, a Chinese AI software developer, to accelerate OEMs’ and system integrators’ deployments of 3D optical sensing technologies such as face recognition. According to ams, the partnership with Face++ will enable manufacturers to bring facial recognition and other systems to market faster including functions like facial payments, Animoji creation and augmented/virtual reality. The 3D optical sensing solutions created by ams and Face++ use infrared light projectors to map the surface of real-world objects such as a user’...

ams, the Austria-based Apple supplier, has announced the release of its new sensing component which can measure ambient light from behind an OLED screen. The newly launched RGB light and IR proximity sensor IC, TCS3701, is featured with behind-screen light measuring ability. The capability supports today’s industrial design trend to maximize smartphone display area by eliminating front-facing bezels, where an ambient light/proximity sensor is typically located. With the new sensor, the next iPhone could be notch-free. (Image: ams) According to ams, it has...

Autonomous driving is one of the featured technologies at CES 2019. Automobile manufacturers, LiDAR developers as well as sensing components providers have all prepared to join the high profile event with their cutting-edge technologies. LEDinside has selected some noticeable exhibitors who are showcasing the next generation technology for autonomous driving applications. Velodyne Lidar Velodyne continues to present new products for CES 2019. Last week the company released that it will demonstrate Velodyne Alpha Puck™ and Velodyne Velarray™, sensors ma...

Plessey Semiconductors announced that it has worked with Nanoco Technologies, the UK-based cadmium-free quantum dot (CFQD) provider to shrink the pixel size of monolithic Micro LED displays. By combining Nanoco’s CFQD semiconductor nanoparticle technology and its existing monolithic process, Plessey will integrate the quantum dots into selected regions of blue LED wafers to add red and green light. The process could shrink the practical pixel size by 87 percent, from today’s 30µm to 4µm. The advance enables the production of smaller Micro...

Technology has realized many stories we learnt from sci-fi fictions and movies. A new technology like the “dermal regenerator” in Star Trek that heals wound with laser was developed by a research team from Arizona State University. Kaushal Rege, professor of Chemical Engineering at Arizona State University, and his team members has published a paper on Advanced Functional Materials which describes how they successfully repaired animal wounds with laser-activated silk and gold nanomaterials. The researchers embedded gold nanorods in a silk protein matrix as...

A student team from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology applied a freeform optical engineering concept for automotive LED headlight and has won a prize in the 2018 Global Capstone Design Fair held in South Korea. The students’ prototype utilizes freeform optics which requires less working parts than current headlight models. By utilizing molded plastic instead of the current practice of metal reflector cones, the headlight could be easier and cheaper to manufacture. With non-sequential ray tracing, the students designed a 3-D freeform lightguide to direct the light...

Apple was grated with several patents relating to smart fabric in the past week. One of them is a glove with integrated circuity and forces sensors that could connect to Apple device for monitoring blood pressure, respiration and heart rate, reported Patently Apple. (Image: The US Patent and Trademark Office) According to the patent, Apple embeds force sensing circuity into fabrics that could sense pressure and force on the fingers and/or palm area of the glove. The glove can transmit the information collected from the circuitry to other devices for further processing an...

Having looked back at the industry updates of Micro LED technology, let’s keep on reviewing the technology breakthroughs of Micro LED in the past year. KAIST Team Develops Flexible Vertical Micro LED to Cure Hair loss Problem In January, a researcher team at KAIST announced the development of flexible vertical micro LEDs (f-VLEDs). These f-VLEDs achieved optical power density (30 mW/mm2) three times higher than that of lateral Micro LEDs and can be applied to optogenetics for controlling the behavior of neuron cells and brains with...