LEDs support sustainable horticulture development with tunable lighting technologies and other smart applications. Worldwide food suppliers as well as lighting technologies suppliers continue to create innovative growing techniques for improving crops production and quality. Israel based grow light supplier Fotonica has developed and patented its bio-illuminationTM lighting system that optimizes the growth of cannabis, green leaves, vegetables, and ornamentals while providing real-time data and analytics that ensures maximum crop control and profitability. Fotonica’s TM L...

Plessey, the UK-based optoelectronic technology solutions developer, said that it has transferred its business focus from high-powered solid-state lighting, horticultural lighting and healthcare/ safety sensors sector to GaN-on-Si monolithic Micro LED display technology. The company is disrupting the global display market with a new generation of Augmented Reality (AR) devices and display solutions based on the Micro LED technology. (Image: Plessey) Featured with high brightness, high contrast, lower power consumption, fast refresh time and the capabilities of int...

Osram is expanding its photonics portfolio by adding two infrared LEDs for biometric identification in smartwatches. The new infrared LEDs of Osram, SFH 4170S and SFH 4180S, are designed to meet the requirement of smart wearable products with their compact size. The dimensions of the specially developed Oslon P1616 package (1.6 mm x 1.6 mm x 0.85 mm) make the SFH 4170S and SFH 4180S the smallest Osram components for biometric applications. Compared to similar products today, the two IREDs require about 50 percent less space. (Image: Osram) Despit...

Shuiji Nakamura, the blue LED inventor and the winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 2014, visited Taiwan last week and delivered speeches in Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua University and Chung Hsing University, as well as in Micro LED company PlayNitride. Nakamura shared his research experiences in Japan and the U.S. on the way of blue LED development and pointed out the trends and potentials of the LED industry. Shuiji Nakamura was invited to PlayNitride Back in the 1990s, ZnSe was the material that the majority believed to be critical for...

On July 31, 2019, Mitsubishi Chemical reported that it has obtained a judgement recognizing the infringement of its patent for red phosphor in China by the defendants, U.S.-based Intematix Corporation, its affiliate in China, Intematix Suzhou Lighting and its sales agency, GrandLux Optoelectronics. In response, Intematix and Intematix Optoelectronics (Suzhou) filed an appeal at the Beijing Higher People’s Court explaining how the Court’s decision was improper in view of the applicable law and facts. Intermatix also noted that according to the pr...

LG Innotek announced that it will demonstrate its latest automotive products at "Automotive World Nagoya 2019," taking place at Port Messe Nagoya, Japan, from September 18 to 20. LG Innotek is going to present advanced vehicle components under the themes of vehicle LED modules and communication modules. For vehicle LED modules, the company will introduce "Nexlide series", the next generation vehicle LED light sources, reflecting the company's unique light-emitting structure design technology. "Nexlide-HD" emits bright and ...

After AMS confirmed the takeover offer of Osram, the German lighting company is facing internal conflicts regarding the acquisition. The Austrian sensor company published a public takeover offer of EUR 38.50 per share to acquire Osram. The German company announced yesterday (September 16) that its Executive Board and the majority of its Supervisory Board recommended the shareholders to accept the offer from “a financial point of view.” However, employee representatives of Osram oppose the takeover offer with the concern of potential job losses as AMS ...

The latest Mini LED and HDR High-End Display Market Report by LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, reveals that Mini LED backlight displays all have a significant advantage in brightness, reliability and performance, as well as a chance to grab a slice of the high-end display market. It may even extend the lifetime of LCDs. It is predicted that Mini LED backlights in 2024 will enjoy penetration rates of 20%, 15% and 10% in the application markets of ITs, TVs and tablets, respectively. TrendForce points out that, in comparing the features of OLED and...

At this harvest season, the global lighting is gearing up for their two key trade fairs in China-- the 126th Canton Fair unveiled in Guangzhou on October 15, and Hong Kong International Lighting Fair on October 27. As the LED Bulb Expert and the long-established lighting exhibitor, Shanghai Wellmax Lighting (WELLMAX) is going to make a splendid show with perfect lineup to its global clients at the exhibitions. WELLMAX is a famous LED enterprise with 32 years history in the lighting industry. The company always adheres to the business philosophy of ...

One major market trend in the LED lighting industry is to make LED luminaires intelligent. MEAN WELL is dedicated to designing innovative power supplies and has developed the LCM-40/60BLE LED driver with a Bluetooth mesh networking solution. The new driver allows customers to control luminaires using Bluetooth Low Energy 4.0 mesh protocol with their smartphones or tablets to set up settings and controls. Working with the European company Casambi, which is dedicated to developing Bluetooth mesh networking solutions, MEAN WELL has integrated the B...

Sony announced that it has launched its Crystal LED display system for consumers. The Micro LED display from Sony is able to provide up to 16K video content, offering an unrivaled cinema experience at home, if the customers are able to pay US$ 5 million. (Image: Songy) Having initially introduced its Micro LED display Crystal LED for use in commercial and entertainment venues, Sony began to offer residential configurations and installation of its Micro LED display module. The company provided some samples for residential configuration including 4K size w...

The Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP in Germany and Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI) announced their cooperation on the development of printed quantum dots (QD) color filters for Micro LED displays. Dr. Youngsam Kim, President of KETI and Prof. Alexander Böker, Head of the Fraunhofer IAP seal the continuation of their cooperation.  Quantum dots are nanocrystals with optical, magnetic or electronic properties. These nanocrystals have a diameter of about 1-10 nm. The small diameter causes so-called qua...

LITE-ON Technology Corporation, a global leader in optoelectronic components and II‐VI Incorporated, a leader in semiconductor lasers, have announced a partnership on the volume manufacturing and commercialization of packaged semiconductor lasers for mass-market light detection and ranging (LiDAR). LEDinside was honored to have an exclusive interview with Sander Su, Associate Vice President, OPS SBG, LITE-ON Technology Corporation, to share the LiDAR market prospective and market strategies. (Sander Su, Associate Vice President, LITE-O...

Luminis Lighting released its recent outdoor lighting project at Julia Lathrop Homes in Chicago, USA. The buildings were constructed as a public housing development during the Great Depression. The building including 1,116 units of mixed-income housing were restored and modernized with parking, driveways, walkways and surrounding green space. For staying true to the designs of the original architects, there was a focus on restoring building exteriors, including brickwork and limestone pillars, to their former glory. Luminis’ Eclipse Mini EC600 fixtures were select...

After publishing the research paper demonstrating Micro LED integration with amorphous silicon TFTs, the research team from the University of Waterloo in Canada further revealed its approach of transferring InGaN nanowire LEDs on flexible substrate without degrading optical performance of the LEDs when the substrate bends. Researchers use vertical GaN nanowire LEDs to separate the electrically active region of the LEDs from the bending platform. LEDs are transferred onto flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) with a “paste and cut” process...

Solid state LiDAR-based perception systems developer AEye reported that it has provided its AE110 system as an integrated component in the HELLA demonstration vehicle, which will be presented at IAA, the motor show starting from September 12 in Frankfurt, Germany. HELLA and AEye announced in January that the two companies had entered a joint development and manufacturing agreement to bring ADAS solutions to global automotive OEMs. The physical co-location of AEye’s AE110 solid state LiDAR-based artificial perception system with HELLA&...

LiDAR sensors developers continue to advance their products to push autonomous vehicle development. Cepton Technologies, LeddarTech and Quanergy recently announced their new LiDAR sensor products and perception software. Cepton Technologies revealed its newest Vista LiDAR sensor, the Vista™-X120, for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous applications. The product offers a 120° horizontal field of view (FOV), 0.15° angular resolution and a maximum detection range of up to 200 meters at 10% reflectivity. Cepton will demonst...

Acuity Brands announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Acuity Brands Lighting, has entered into a purchase agreement to acquire all of the equity interests of The Luminaires Group (TLG) including its five lighting brands: a-light, Cyclone, Eureka, Luminaire LED and Luminis. TLG generates annual sales of approximately US$100 million and employs over 350 associates located across five locations in the U.S. and Canada. Each TLG brand has its own business focus on indoor architectural lighting, outdoor decorative luminaires, indoor and outdoor contemporary d...

Until the third quarter of 2019, we have seen Micro LED products presented at several international events, marking the progressing maturity of the technology after years of development. Recently, companies of the Micro LED supply chain revealed that they are getting ready for mass production. Taiwan’s RiTdisplay and PlayNitride jointly developed two Micro LED displays for wearable applications. One is a 1.25-inch display and the other is a 0.94-inch flexible display. Both panels are featured with a resolution of 228 ppi. According to RiTdisplay, it has been ...

InnoLas Solutions, the laser processing equipment provider, reported that it has participated in a development project with the Osram to create new laser diodes for automotive lighting. Laser diode based car light can deliver powerful light output with a range of up to 600 m with very compact dimensions while being compact and even smaller than before. LINEXO, the versatile laser processing workstation which InnoLas build a special laser system, helped to reach the required tolerances in this special automotive project. “We are more than happy with the supplied lase...

Delphi Technologies, an automotive propulsion technologies provider, and Cree will collaborate to utilize silicon carbide semiconductor device technology to enable faster, smaller, lighter and more powerful electronic systems for future electric vehicles (EV). Cree’s silicon carbide-based MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) technology coupled with Delphi Technologies’ traction drive inverters, DC/DC converters and chargers will extend driving range and deliver faster charging times of EVs, while also lowering weight, con...

UV-C LED technology provider, AquiSense Technologies, announced that it has participated in ten aerospace projects to support UV-C LED application in the space. According to AquiSense, the company was selected to participate in BIOWYSE, a Horizon 2020 project dedicated to designing and testing a water monitoring and treatment system for next-generation manned space stations in 2015. Since then, several other aerospace projects have looked for leading water treatment technology from AquiSense. These projects include product design and hardware supply to both...

Signify announced that its LiFi system, Trulifi, was installed in the press center at Volkspark stadium in Hamburg, Germany. The installation provides journalists with reliable, secure and fast Internet connections through the room’s ceiling lights and alleviates overloaded wifi connection when the stadium is packed during games. The Volkspark stadium can host 57,000 people and will be one of 10 stadiums for the European football tournament in Germany in 2024. Like other international matches venue, the wireless signal in its busy press center was prone to overload due...

Most facility managers today are using building management systems (BMS), also known as building automation control systems (BACS), to control and monitor some of their buildings’ mechanical and electrical equipment such as heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC), and safety and security systems. However, the lighting system has remained separate from the BMS for some buildings, which is viewed as an opportunity loss for lighting technology providers. Osram, for example, considers that further optimization of energy usage and operations through lighting system an...

IFA 2019 opened on September 6 in Berlin and has attracted more than 1,000 exhibitors from across the world to showcase their latest products and technologies. Display technology has been a focus of worldwide big name recently and display products covering TVs and mobile phones are featured at the show. 8K TV is the battle field for global industry players. Samsung, Sharp, LG, TCL and others all brought their newly developed high end TVs adopting QLED, OLED, Micro LED, Mini LED technologies to the show. Korean giant Samsung announced its new 55-inc...

Patently Apple reported an Apple’s patent published in Europe titled “Display with Embedded Pixel Driver Chips” describing the method of fabricating Micro LED display panels with a display integration scheme that embed an array of LEDs on substrates with the front side up. In the description of the patent application, Apple used figures of flexible and foldable display to illustrate how the approach of LED pixel driver chips can be embedded on different display panels. (Image: World Intellectural Property Organization) With the patent app...

iBeam Materials, a U.S.-based company focusing on technologies for crystal-aligned coatings utilizing ion-beam-assisted deposition (IBAD) texturing, announced that Samsung Venture has invested in the company as Samsung’s strategic investments in Micro LED. iBeam pioneers in the development of ion-beam crystal alignment of thin layers deposited on a variety of substrates for optoelectronic devices. Its breakthrough in LED technology enables LEDs to be manufactured on large-area substrates as opposed to the much smaller single-crystal wafers currently used in th...

Signify announced new smart light products, including an upgraded Hue Go, the Smart button, the Smart plug, and new GU10 and E14 smart bulbs. The Philips Hue Go is a portable smart lamp offering colored smart light with Bluetooth capability for wireless control via app or selected smart home assistants. The upgraded Hue Go also features an improved battery life for an even longer period of time. The Smart plug turns any table or floor lamp into a Hue smart light. And the Smart button can be used to control Hue lights to brighten and dim. When connected to the Ph...

Innovative display technology is no longer a new idea in the industry with more and more Micro/Mini LED display products exhibited at major international events in the past two years. However, there are still several challenging bottlenecks within Micro LED and Mini LED manufacture process that block the way to product commercialization. Therefore, it is expected that more industry players joining the market will help to advance solutions for achieving technology breakthroughs. Flexible, Folding and Transparent Displays: Turning Points for the Oversupplied Displ...

On September 5, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) finalized a set of new rules that eliminate the policy of LED light bulbs transition requirement starting January 1, 2020. The revise policy is considered a roll-back of the efficiency standards passed by Obama in 2017 and will slow down LED light upgrade. The policy was proposed in February 19, 2019 by DOE to withdraw the definitions of general service lamp (GSL) and general service incandescent lamp (GSIL) and other supplemental definition that adopt the efficiency standards. American Council ...