SmartKem is a UK-based organic semiconductor materials producer and it has announced its development of Mini LED backlight prototypes for full array local dimming aimed at TV, monitors and signage applications. The company is showcasing its development at Display Week 2020, which is virtually taking place this week. Organic materials for organic thin-film transistors using SmartKem materials can be used to manufacture active matrix backplanes, driving arrays of thousands of individual Mini LEDs on a substrate, thereby delivering impressive high resolution images with...

Equipment supplier Veeco reported its business performance of the second quarter of 2020 with revenues of US$ 98.6 million. The company also reported GAAP net loss of $ 8.3 million and Non-GAAP net income of $ 5.5 million. Veeco said it has been executing well during the pandemic and all of its production sites have been operating at or near normal capacity in the second quarter. Its Scientific and Industrial market continues to perform well driven by sales to data storage customers. Sales in LED Lighting Display & Compound Semiconductor took 16% of its reven...

Compound Photonics (CP) unveiled its IntelliPix™ Microdisplay Technology Platform for Micro LED featuring multiple video pipeline and system integration innovations addressing power optimization, latency, and bandwidth use with the aim to improve AR experience. (Image: Compound Photonics) CP focuses on Micro LED constant current technology platform with a MIPI interface that enables pixel-to-pixel uniformity in the emerging <5μm Micro LED display space for AR/MR near-eye applications. Given AR imagery, in general, does not fill the ...

A new study published by researchers at Tohoku University in Japan introduced a novel solution for realizing high speed light transmission via deep UV (DUV) LEDs. The results were published in Applied Physics Letters on July 22, 2020. The research team highlighted two major issues of using LEDs as light source for wireless communication. One thing is that faster modulation requires smaller device size but smaller LEDs usually lack power. Another issue is that both visible and infrared optical wireless communications can have significant solar interference. To av...

Ushio announced the initiation of its new laser diodes mass production. The new products HL67191MG and HL67192MG offer operation at the 670 nm wavelength. Providing an optical output power of 15 mW (CW) and 30 mW (pulsed), these single-mode LDs deliver high-temperature performance (up to 70°C) within a φ5.6 mm package. Both LDs achieve a low operating current of 30 mA at 25°C (15 mW in CW operation) and feature built-in monitoring photodiodes. (Image: Ushio) According to Ushio, these new red laser diodes offer a number of improvements over some...

Improving performance of LEDs is a continuous task for researchers. A team consisting of researchers of Imperial College London introduced a method of embedding tailored meta-grid of nanoparticles to LEDs to enhance their light output and lifetime. (Image: Debabrata Sikdar, John B. Pendry, and Alexei A. Kornyshev) The method was published in Light Science & Application in July by Dr. Debabrata Sikdar, Prof. Sir John B. Pendry and Prof. Alexei Kornyshev from Imperial College London. They reported an alternative route for improving light extrac...

VueReal announced that its multi device cartridge structure enables faster population of a display with higher yield and higher alignment accuracy. Most applications such as displays require more than one sub pixels with different devices per sub pixels. In case of Micro LED display, red, green, and blue Micro LEDs are required for each pixel. Moreover, most of these devices are fabricated in different environments using different material sets for higher performance. The common approach is to transfer each device independently to a large substrate. For a 4K MicroLED d...

Like several other international event, Display Week 2020 hosted by the Society for Information Display (SID) turned virtual this year and is taking place online from August 3 to 7, 2020. The virtual version of Display Week still features keynote speeches delivered by industry leaders including IBM, NVIDIA, Merch and AUO who oversee diverse technologies and product innovation within their enterprises. Other highlights addressing innovative display technologies such as Micro LED, Mini LED, OLED, foldable displays and new material are presented by...

Taiwanese panel manufacturer AUO held its investor conference yesterday and announced financial results of 2Q20. Driven by “Stay-at-home” economy, the company reported strong demand for display applications and expects the growth momentum to continue in the second half of the year. For 2Q20, AUO posted consolidated revenues of NTD 63.50 billion (US$ 2.16 million), up by 18.3% QoQ. Gross margin came to 2.7%. In the second quarter of 2020, large-sized panel shipments totaled around 30.71 million units, hiked by 37.0% QoQ. Shipments of small-and-medium-s...

Global warming has drawn enormous attention to green energy and DC house application. Many countries have started to promote energy-saving and safer electricity usage. MEAN WELL develops direct current (DC) input LED drive power supply, the LDH-25/65 series for green energy LED lighting applications, including LED solar street lights or equipment with secondary battery applications, such as camping car/yacht applications. LDH-25/65 series provide customers options for reducing conversion losses between DC bus to DC/DC driver. LDH-25/65W which are d...

Some novel applications of large size outdoor LED displays are happening now. Outdoor LED displays are not merely seen as digital billboards on the buildings or by the highway. Actually, it is very popular to use LED displays as backdrops for commercial events such as movie premiere, live concerts, and more. However, during the coronavirus pandemic, drive-in cinemas become a premier entertainment selection that can remain social distancing. Recently, more and more drive-in cinemas reopen across the world. There are LED display and projection solutions for drive-in cinema...

Singapore based equipment supplier K&S announced financial results of its fiscal 3Q20 ended June 27, 2020. The company posted revenue of US$ 150.5 million which grown by 18.4% YoY. For the third fiscal quarter of 2020, K&S reported a gross profit of US$ 69.4 million and a gross margin of 46.1%. On the non-GAAP base, the company’s net income grew by 258.3% YoY to 12.9 million. The increased profit and revenue were boosted by the company’s recently mass produced Pixalux, which was designed to meet the high speed transfer needs in Mini LED...

Osram announced the financial results of its fiscal 3Q20. The German company said that the performance was better than expected compared to the main sales markets. For Osram’s FY 3Q20, its revenue on a comparable basis fell by 29.4% YoY to EUR 606 million (US$ 711.95 million) due to the impact of the Coronavirus crisis. EBITDA before special items was well above expectations with negative EUR 27 million (US$ 31.75 million). Osram’s Automotive business unit was impacted the most with on-year sales dropped by 35.7% to EUR 282 million (US$ ...

Next-generation Micro/Mini LED display technologies have generated a market which companies hoping to recover from the pandemic-induced global economic downturn look to for the next wave of commercial opportunities. Furthermore, major brands including Samsung, Apple, Facebook, Google, LG, and Sony are also rushing to get a head start in Micro/Mini LED development, in turn galvanizing the growth of the overall supply chain. Total Micro/Mini LED revenue is projected to reach upwards of US$4.2 billion in 2024. TrendForce’s latest investigations find that cu...

Samsung unveiled the financial results for the second quarter of 2020 with consolidate revenues of KRW 52.97 trillion (US$ 44.49 billion) and operating profits of KRW 8.15 trillion (US$ 6.85 billion). (Image: Samsung) Even as the spread of COVID-19 caused closures and slowdowns at stores and production sites around the world, Samsung has managed minimize the impact of the pandemic by strengthening online sales channels and optimizing costs. Quarterly operating profit rose 26% comparing to the previous quarter and grew 23% by year, thanks to firm demand for memor...

Quanergy Systems revealed its new product M1, a 2D industrial LiDAR sensor for mid- to long-range, high precision measurement applications. The M1 joins the company’s M-Series to expand its industrial product portfolio by offering twice the price-performance vs legacy industrial LiDAR sensors. With up to double the range and range accuracy and 75% more data, M1 provides accuracy and object-detection at longer range compared to the legacy LiDAR sensors in the market today. (Image: Quanergy) The M1 2D LiDAR sensor is designed specifically to increase ...

Lucid Motors announced its DreamDrive, an ADAS system combining sensing solutions including LiDARS which will be equipped with Lucid Air revealing on September 9, 2020. Lucid Air that will be delivered in early 2021 is expected to be the first to market with the combination of a driver monitoring system and a sensor suite that includes high-resolution LIDAR as standard equipment. The DreamDrive technology suite supports 19 key safety, driving, and parking assist features that will be available on Lucid Air upon start of production, with another eight features e...

Germicidal LEDs have been wide deployed home appliances such as washing machine and air conditioners for disinfecting function, aiming to prevent the spread of disease especially at the time when COVID-19 still pose threats to the world. To address the disinfecting demands across the globe, Hyosung America, an ATM supplier, announced a disinfection kits for its products to help fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and to help ease consumers’ safety concerns with using ATMs. (Image: Hyosung America) Starting this fall, the company will equip the disinfect...

CES was one of the few events that had not been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. But not anymore. CES 2021 will be held online without any physical activities according to the announcement of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) revealed on July 28, 2020. CES 2021 will be a digital event with all the product launches, keynotes and conferences moving online. Considering the ongoing threat of COVID-19, CTA believes that “it is not possible to safely convene tens of thousands of people in Las Vegas in early January 2021 to meet and do business...

The global supply chains of Mini LED backlight display have been unveiled one after another. After Samsung’s rumor of releasing Mini LED backlit TVs with chips supplied by Taiwan and China chip makers, LG Display is now said to provide panels for Dell. Korean media TheElec reported that LG Display has supplied panel for Dell’s 31.5-inch Mini LED backlit monitor for medical applications. The 31.5-inch display deployed more than 10,000 units of Mini LED to deliver advanced performance with high contrast ratio and brightness. The product was ...

Infineon reported its development of a smart entrance counter solution which can help public places to manage people flow and maintain safe social distancing to support slowing down the COVID-19 spread. The Smart entrance counter solution is a miniaturized, discrete radar board (250 mm x 150 mm) that accurately and anonymously counts people with one single 60 GHz radar sensor and integrated software. A traffic light system informs about if an entry is allowed or not. (Image: Infineon) “We aimed at quickly creating an effective solution that allows everyone of us ...

Lighting Research Center (LRC) conducted a survey to investigate the viewpoint of people towards UV disinfection products. (Image: Pixabay) Demands for UV disinfection products hiked due to the present pandemic crisis. With increasing options for products and applications, many consumers and product specifiers have questions about the safety, effectiveness, and energy efficiency of these products. In order to address these concerns, the LRC is currently examining a range of UV disinfection technologies. The goal of this work is to provide information that will h...

LeddarTech announced that its LiDAR product Leddar Pixell is now adopted by COAST Autonomous in an autonomous delivery vehicle (ADV) at the Kinney County Railport (KCRP) near Brackettville, Texas. KCRP is one of several railyards operated by Harbor Rail Services Company of California. COAST Autonomous selected LeddarTech’s Leddar Pixell Cocoon LiDAR with its 360-degree vehicle coverage as a supplier for this project. The COAST Autonomous electric ADVs operate CO2 emission-free and enable Harbor Rail to operate and mov...

Mini LED backlight products are expect to bring a revolution to the display market with driving momentum from leading brands including Apple and Samsung. The two companies are reportedly launching Mini LED backlight tablets and TVs in the coming months or next year, which will bring up demands for Mini LED chips. LED chips suppliers from Taiwan and China are seeing a surging demands for Mini LED chips in the second half of 2020. Taiwan-based Epistar has been preparing its Mini LED capacity for Apple and will be ready to begin shipment in September. E...

The Franco-German satellite MERLIN is due to be launched into space in 2025 to measure the methane concentration in the Earth's atmosphere - a milestone in climate research. Important components of the LiDAR measurement system come from the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut in Berlin, which has now delivered the required laser diode benches to the project partner. The MERLIN mission aims to better understand the effect of the greenhouse gas methane on global warming. A radar-like laser system on the satellite measures natural and anthropogenic methane emissions: The...

In the first half of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has heavily impacted the world as well as the technology industry with various interruptions occurred in the supply chain. In April, LEDinside covered how Micro LED technology could still have a chance to grow despite the COVID-19 impacts on the industry. And now, we would like to share the breakthroughs of Micro LED unveiled during the first half of the year proving that developments of the technology have not stopped by the pandemic. Micro LED Wafer and Chip Improvements Researchers have been working on...

LG Electronics has added the category of Micro LED to its Business Solution website with its Micro LED display product available for inquiry. The Micro LED TV, named LSAB009 by the company, is a 163-inch 4K screen with a pixel pitch of 0.9mm based on COB technology. (Image: LG) The Micro LED TV of LG delivers a peak brightness of 1,200 nits and typical brightness of 600 nits. The peak contrast ratio achieves 100,000:1 and the max ratio 50,000:1. LG has yet announced the release date of the product but some source said it would start shipping i...

Velodyne Lidar announced a three year sales agreement with PARIFEX, a traffic management and speed measurement systems provider. Based on the agreement, PARIFEX will use Velodyne’s LiDAR sensors in its traffic monitoring solutions which can help reduce road accident rates and enhance roadway safety. (Image: Velodyne Lidar/PARIFEX) PARIFEX equips its NANO-CAM and NOMAD solutions with Velodyne Puck sensors for real-time tracking of static and moving objects including vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists, while preserving anonymit...

Total shipment of AR/VR devices is expected to reach 5.12 million units in 2020, according to TrendForce. Thanks to the release of various glasses-like AR/VR devices, the AR/VR devices market is likely to rapidly expand from 2021 to 2022, with a forecasted shipment of 43.2 million units in 2025. This market is projected to reach a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 53.1% from 2020 to 2025. TrendForce analyst Jason Tsai indicates that the accelerating growth of the AR/VR devices market can be attributed to aggressive product strategies from branded manufactu...

LiDAR sensor and technology builders Cepton and Luminar recently announced their expansion plans respectively, aiming to scale the market as well as to speed up technology development. Cepton Technologies, who began partnership with Japan-based Koito, appointed industry veteran Andrew Klaus as country manager for Japan, marking its continued expansion into the Japanese and Asian markets. Klaus’ role will initially focus on building Cepton’s market share in Japan, where the company has experienced growing demand for its high-performance LiDAR solution...