In the old town of Lutry, a Swiss municipality on the shore of Lake Geneva, a church dated back to the 11th century has been updated with LED lighting as well as smart lighting control system. In 2018, the people in charge at Lutry’s Service decided to switch the existing halogen lighting to LED lighting for energy saving as well as reducing maintenance costs. In addition, they wanted to have a control system to more easily adjust the lighting for different uses of the church. A lighting design office in Lausanne, Switzerland, Senseco, took the challenge and ha...

LEDs can be lit on by urine without electricity! A Japanese professor developed a fuel cell which can be powered by urea, a component of urine, to light up LEDs. The approach would offer light source when being in places without electricity such as in the mountains or in times of disaster. The Japan News reported that Keiichi Kaneto, a visiting professor at the Osaka Institute of Technology, created an electricity generable sheet which contains an alloy of copper and nickel and was coated by resin. The sheep reacted to urine drops and could then illuminate a small blue L...

Velodyne Lidar announced the acquisition of Mapper.ai, a mapping and localization software developer. Velodyne Lidar aims to leverage Mapper technology to accelerate development of Vella™, the software that establishes its directional view Velarray™ lidar sensor. The Velarray is the first solid-state LiDAR sensor that is embeddable and fits behind a windshield, as an integral component for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Mapper’s entire leadership and engineering teams will join Velodyne, bolstering the company’s growing software deve...

Sense Photonics, a company building the next generation LiDAR and 3D sensor solutions for autonomous vehicles, industrial equipment and other applications, announced a close of a US$26 million Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Acadia Woods Partners and Congruent Ventures, with participation from a number of other investors, including Prelude Ventures, Samsung Ventures and Shell Ventures. LEDinside was honored to have a conversation with Scott Burroughs, CEO of Sense Photonics, to understand how the company’s solid-state LiDAR system us...

Natural colour rendering of Optisolis™ LEDs lets visitors experience artwork as the artist intended without degrading the work. Tokushima, Japan – 23 July 2019: Nichia Corporation, the leader in high brightness LED technologies, announces continued success with Optisolis™ – the world’s first series of packaged LEDs and Chip-on-Board (COB) solutions that accurately mimics natural sunlight without producing any harmful ultraviolet (UV) light. The Optisolis™ family of LED products continues to successfully transform the visit...

Austria-based lighting group Zumtobel Group announced it has secured a contract with the Mongolian government for installing approximately 11,000 LED streetlights of the Thorn brand in the north of Mongolia’s capital. Zumtobel said that the contract is in the low double-digit million euros range. The Mongolian government aims to use light to reduce crime rate and enhance safety of the area on a sustained basis. In addition, the provision of essential infrastructure such as lighting is a key factor for attracting companies and therefore serves the overall economic upswin...

Seoul Semiconductor announced the results of a series of experiments that demonstrated a higher growth rate and higher flavonol (a type of antioxidant) content in crops grown under SunLike Series natural spectrum LEDs than those grown under standard white LEDs. The experiments were conducted on lettuce using SunLike Series LED lighting and standard white LED lighting of the same color temperature and light intensity. After two weeks of crop growth, the fresh weight and flavonol content of the lettuce were measured and compared. The fresh weight of lettuce grown unde...

LED technology improvement supports various advanced lighting applications for different scenes. By accurately mimicking natural sunlight without producing UV light, Nichia’s Optisolis™ series products have been installed for evaluation throughout 2019 at the Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso Münster, the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz and the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen in Germany. Designed to replace halogen and conventional LED directional lighting applications, the natural color rendering performance delivered by the Optisolis LED products allows v...

Nichia announced that it has filed patent infringement lawsuits in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on July 19, 2019 against Lighting Science Group (LSG), a US-based manufacturer of LED lighting products, as well as its affiliates, Health and VividGro. In its lawsuits, Nichia has asserted 13 patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 6,838,693, 7,348,602, 7,750,337, 8,120,057, 8,309,375, 8,309,948, 8,344,402, 8,530,250, 8,728,916, 8,796,721, 9,444,011, 9,865,773 and 10,276,751) against the three entities. The patents cover various manufactur...

Quanergy Systems announced a partnership with Chinese automotive manufacturer Chery Automobile. Quanergy signed on to Chery Lion’s Smart Partner Program as the LiDAR partner, to focus efforts on advancing autonomous driving and smart cities in China. Quanergy‘s S3 automotive grade solid state LiDARs are based on optical phased arrays (OPA) produced in CMOS silicon. These sensors, being fully solid state with no moving parts on any scale, offer an unparalleled level of quality and reliability. Further, the CMOS silicon node used in wafer fabri...

LED technology enables a wider range of lighting applications, including various types of luminaires. A German company, LUCEM, created a material of light-emitting concrete which is made of layers of transmitting optical fibers. The material allows designers to break the limitation of luminaires for more flexible and creative architecture and interior design. (Image: LUCEM) The products are mixture of fine concrete and optical fibers. The company used thousands of fine optical fibers that are only 0.5 mm diameter, put them layers by layers with the specially designed...

Throughout the development of Micro LED, the next generation display technology, cross-industry integration has always been a key. Worldwide chip vendors, panel manufacturers, process technology providers and systems suppliers and others invariably sought collaboration with each other to fully leverage their technological strengths and accelerate their way along the roadmap of Micro LED technology. Among them, equipment solution providers are no doubt the unifiers of processes and technology in each stage along the chain, from upstream chip manufacturing all the way down. If c...

The rumors of Apple using Micro LED in its Apple Watch continue. This time, it was said that the strategic appliance of Taiwan’s PlayNitride and RiTdisplay will provide their Micro LED technologies including chips and display modules for the Apple Watch, according to the report of Taiwan’s Economy Daily News. PlayNitride’s expertise is Micro LED technology has been recognized by worldwide partners. At SID 2019, PlayNitride showcased a 7.65-inch full color transparent Micro LED display, a flexible Micro LED display and a wearabl...

According to the latest Infrared Sensing Application Market Trend Report by LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, seeing that smartphone shipments are predicted to decline for whole 2019 year, cell phone brands will be engaging in a 'specs -contest' with their flagship devices for the second half-year, and 3D sensing modules will become an important component in that race. Market revenue for VCSELs used by cell phones utilizing 3D sensing is projected to reach US$1.139 billion as a result of this trend. “For 2019, besides Apple, who will be implementing...

UV LEDs cover a wide range of applications including light curing, medical treatment and disinfection. And now, UV LEDs are put on drones to spew UV light in subway stations and trains for sanitization. An online magazine, Yanko Design, reported that Korean designers at Off Garage Studio created a UV LED integrated drone as a “space care system,” providing autonomous sterilization service. Equipped with sensors and UVC LEDs, the drone is designed to flies smoothly around the station and emits UV LED light in the subways to efficiently and e...

Micro LED technology moved steps forwards since 2019 with worldwide companies showcasing their Micro LED products at big trade shows. LEDinside has noted in “2019 Micro LED Next Generation Display Key Technology Report” that featured with high brightness, high contrast, high response time and power saving, Micro LED technology would suppress other display technology such as LCD and OLED. A wider range of applications including watches, mobile phones, automotive displays, AR/VR devices, monitors, TVs and large displays can also develop toward...

The HBGC-300 series is a newly developed LED driver for bay light and outdoor floodlight luminaires applications with DALI 2 dimming function which can operate with intelligently dimming control to increase the luminaire’s value and functions. Besides, the HBGC-300 is designed with MEAN WELL’s patented metal housing (Patented No. CN201220314551) and is able to operate with constant power mode to avoid the compatible issue and reduce the output models. HBGC-300 provides three in one and DALI 2 dimming function. Also the series is complian...

Unity Semiconductor (UnitySC), the France-based semiconductor inspection solution provider, announced that it has demonstrate the capability of detecting topographic defects on GaAs wafers for VCSEL in LiDAR and 3D recognition applications. On top of common Surface Scanning Inspection Systems (SSIS) and Automatic Optical Inspection (AOI) systems, UnitySC noted that it is able to find out defects that are not visible on standard optical inspection systems. These defects do not scatter or absorb light, and can only be revealed by their topography but the...

According to the latest 2019 Chinese LED Chip and Package Industry Market by LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, growth in the global LED lighting market has slowed down noticeably due to the global economic recession and the US- China trade dispute. Revenues for lighting LED packages were affected as a result. In 2018, China's LED packaging market scale for general lighting applications stood at US$5.2 billion, with a visible slowdown glanced from a CAGR of only 3% throughout the forecast period, 2018-2023. “Due to the limited decline experi...

Casambi, the expert in wireless lighting controls based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), has teamed up with Seoul Semiconductor to provide lighting designers with precision control of LED lights that match the spectrum of sunlight. The development puts true human centric lighting in the hands of designers for the first time. Casambi’s wireless control technology can now be used with Seoul Semiconductor’s innovative SunLike Series LEDs, whose spectra match to real sunlight, to realize human centric lighting. “Human-centric lighting” describes...

Scientists at Linkoping University working with colleagues from China have shown how to achieve efficient perovskite LEDs. In an article published in Nature Communications, they provide guidelines on fabricating high-quality perovskite light emitters for high-efficiency perovskite LEDs. Since solution-processed perovskites contain large amounts of defects, which are mostly halide vacancies, efficient control of the perovskite crystallinity is required for high-performance optoelectronic devices. The research group at LiU, under the leadership of Senior Lecturer Feng G...

Signify announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Diamond Developers, a Dubai-based sustainable communities builder, as part of their mutual commitment to utilize creative and innovative technologies and solutions designed to promote sustainability. The agreement is a testament to a collaborative approach that seeks to accelerate innovation in sustainable energy and vertical farming. The agreement is built on two pillars of collaboration; the first pillar is centered on providing advanced lighting solutions and innovations that contribute to the city&...

Velodyne Lidar announced Kaarta has included Velodyne’s smart, powerful lidar technology in Kaarta’s new Stencil 2-32 ground surface mapping solution. Equipped with Velodyne LiDAR, Stencil 2-32 scans ground level surfaces, mapping items such as curbs, manholes, signs, poles, and other features at a fraction of the cost of traditional mobile mapping systems. The Stencil platform helps enable city planning for infrastructure improvements as well as parking and traffic management. The 3D data generated by Stencil 2-32 can be utilized for a range of applications ...

Automotive applications including exterior/interior lighting and displays are the targeted area of several LED companies. Rising development of alternative fuel vehicles and self-driving technology push the deployment of LEDs in automobile as the features of higher lifetime and lower energy consumption have become even more critical. As results, several Taiwan-based LED companies have deepened their engagement in automotive LED applications, focusing lighting, sensing technology and display. Tesla supplier EOI continues to expand its automotive product portfolio and...

Smart glasses and AR devices have been targeted by Micro LED display technology and were considered to be the first applications entering the market. Previously LEDinside has collected news about Apple’s patent applications related to Micro LED and AR smart glasses. However, rumors said that Apple might have dropped its AR glasses project. Apple’s project of AR/VR headset development might have been suspended due to immature capability of building 5G connectivity and data, according to the report of Digitimes. The report said that the team was dis...

Telensa, the UK-based smart street lighting and smart city solution provider, announced that its smart streetlight system has been selected by Dunedin City Council (DCC) in New Zealand as part of a contract with Broadspectrum to upgrade Dunedin’s streetlighting network. There are approximately 15,000 high-pressure sodium streetlights on the Dunedin streetlight network. These lights are reaching the end of their useful life and are being converted by Broadspectrum to LEDs, which will be wirelessly connected and managed by Telensa’s PLANet system. PL...

LiDAR sensor manufacturer Quanergy announced its distribution partnership with Ingram Micro Brazil, a subsidiary of Ingram Micro for expanding it market penetration into South America. Ingram Micro will provide Quanergy’s LiDAR technology to a range of diverse industries focusing on bringing connected IoT solutions to companies across mining, transportation, security, energy, and finance. (Image: Quanergy) "Quanergy’s LiDAR solution complements our security and IoT portfolio," said Alexandre Nakano, Director of Security and Ne...

Osram announced that it Austrian company ams has approached with the interest of a public takeover of Osram with a value of EUR 38.50 (US$ 43.36) per share. However, right after Osram’s announcement, ams decided to withdraw the offer as the company did not see “sufficient basis” for continually talking with Osram. According to Osram, ams showed the interest of acquiring Osram by EUR 38.5 per share. The announcement noticed that to support the offer, ams will need a temporary bridge-loan facility of EUR 4.2 billion (US$ 4.73 billion) and a capital i...

A research team led by a professor from Department of Optics and Photonics at Taiwan’s National Central University revealed a new production method for Micro LED epitaxy wafer. The team developed GaN thin film wafer under low temperature via an approach of high-energy physic. According to the researchers, the method would cost only one tenth of the current Micro LED production cost and could be applied for mass production. (Image:NCU) By combining data analysis and semiconductor manufacture process, the researchers aim to find innovative approaches for M...

The City of Wilmington in Delaware, US and Ontario Airport in Canada, have switched to smart LED lighting system. The City of Wilmington collaborated with Delmarva Power on a new citywide smart lighting system. The project begins in July 2019 with the installation of 215 LED street lights and 50 smart sensors in West Center City, North Market Street, and Baynard Boulevard. The final goal is to convert all 7,050 streetlights to LEDs. With the project, the city aims to save up to US$150,000 per year by converting all the streetlights into sensor-equipped...