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...

Last week LEDinside reported that more and more vertical farming startups have received funds from worldwide investors, marking the great potential of the high-tech farming business. Within a week, another US-based vertical farming company, AeroFarms, announced that it has raised US$ 100 million in the Series E funding round. According to the report by the Financial Times, the funding round was led by IKEA’s parent company, Ingka Group, bringing the total funding to US$ 238 million. Other investors include Wheatsheaf, ADM Capital, Mission Point Cap...

Current, powered by GE announced Hort Americas as its sole distributor for LED horticulture lighting solutions in North America. At Cultivate 2019, Hort Americas showcased Current by GE’s new Arize Element Top Light, which is an one-for-one LED replacement for a double-ended 1000-watt high pressure sodium (HPS) fixture. Current worked closely with its customers to design a top light with efficacy levels up to 3.5 micromoles per joule that supports universal installation, enabling growers to grow more and consume less in any region. Combined with advan...

Vertically integrated LED manufacturer Lextar released its revenue of June 2019, which came to NT$845 million (US$27.2 million), up by 15.1% MoM and down by 7.02% YoY. Lextar began restructure in 2018 by drastically cutting off fixtures business and turning into high margin products including Mini LED backlight, display, automotive products and other. Currently, the company is processing Mini LED shipment steadily and plans to increase the share of Mini LED backlight product to 10% by the fourth quarter of 2019. It was also reported that panel manufacture...

US-based LiDAR startup Luminar announced that it is entering the consumer automotive and commercial trucking markets with a sensing and perception platform called Iris. After three years of stealth development and continuously increasing funds, the company revealed its perception software built on its LiDAR sensing platform. (Image: Luminar) A recent addition of US$100 million, along with previously unannounced capital, brings the company’s total raised to date to more than $250 million. Major financial investors include G2VP, two of the most prominent sover...

Juganu, an Israeli company developing and manufacturing innovative LED lighting systems, announced the completion of a financing round, led by Viola Growth, totaling about US$23 million. Other investors include OurCrowd and a Mexican investment fund. Juganu integrates LED lighting technology, sensors and infrastructure with AI, building a proprietary "Digital World" technology in cooperation with software and hardware technology market leaders. The company provides a response for communications and services challenges in public and commercial spaces. (I...

In 2008, MEAN WELL officially released the first LED power supply – CLG-150 series and stepped into the potential LED market. Until now, the selling quantity of LED related products is uncountable. Having a special opportunity, MEAN WELL received several pieces of the CLG-150 products which were manufactured in 2008. A detailed investigation and analysis were executed, and the result is shared below. The number of the components could be from dozens to hundreds depends on the wattage and topology of power supply. Each component is applied to the ...

The evolution of automobile including changes in energy source and improvement of driving technology is also bringing advances in automotive lighting. The leading photonic technology provider Osram has continued to accelerate its development in automotive lighting and other innovative automotive technologies. Mike Godwin, OSRAM’s Director of Automotive LED Marketing, shared his insight of how automotive LED lighting has improved with the progress of autonomous vehicles. (Mike Godwin, OSRAM’s Director of Automotive LED Marketing. Image: Osr...

Velodyne Lidar announced that Idriverplus, a China-based company who commercialized driverless technology, is using Velodyne’s groundbreaking LiDAR sensors in a range of autonomous driving products. Velodyne has strategically teamed with Idriverplus to help Idriverplus with its efforts for mass production of commercial autonomous vehicles, which include street cleaners, passenger cars, and logistics vehicles. Velodyne LiDAR sensors are used in all Idriverplus self-driving vehicles, providing rich computer perception data that allows real-time object and free space ...

WiSilica, an IoT solution provider, and Samsung Electronics’ LED Business Team, announced their strategic partnership in developing next-gen IoT solutions for lighting. With the affiliation, the companies aim to create unified experiences in human-centric lighting, wireless controls, and energy efficiency. WiSilica is known for its location-aware IoT platform, ARIXA, which combines smart lighting and real time location services. The platform integrates hardware, middleware, cloud, and application interfaces to power a wide range of business applications. W...

Seoul Semiconductor (Seoul) filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Conrad Electronic, a European retailer of electronic products, in the District Court of Düsseldorf in Germany. Seoul reported that the LEDs in backlit mobile phones sold by Conrad are infringing the company’s patent for LED light extraction technology. The patent covers fundamental LED chip fabrication technology to extract light efficiently, significantly enhancing brightness. Conrad is currently selling hundreds of different models of Korean, U.S. and China mobile phones. Ac...

AlGaN-based DUV-LEDs are receiving much research attention due to their potential use in sterilization, water purification, phototherapy, and sunlight-independent high-speed optical communication. Scientists are investigating ways to improve their efficiency in converting electrical energy into optical energy. Deep UV LEDs made from AlGaN efficiently transfer electrical energy to optical energy due to the growth of one of its bottom layers in a step-like fashion. This finding, published in the journal Applied Physics Letters, can lead to the development of even more...

Researchers at the German Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have produced nanowires with operating wavelengths that can be freely selected over a wide range by altering the shell structure. Fine-tuned nanowires are able to improve efficiency of various optoelectronic components, making LEDs more colorful and solar cells more efficient, in addition to speeding up computers. The research results were published in Nature Communications in June. Nanowires can be used for miniaturized photonic and electronic components in nanotechnology. Applications include optic...

Japan-based ROHM Semiconductor announced its new lens LED products with compact high output. This new lineup includes 18 devices, comprised of the CSL0901 series featuring standard brightness and the high brightness CSL0902 series. Recently, most vehicle instrument cluster designs have adopted shields to prevent light leakage from the LEDs to surrounding areas. However, light leakage remains a challenge due to a small amount of space that is required between the shield and the PCB to account for expansion caused by temperature changes. Additionally, high reliabili...

Micro LED technology breakthroughs continue to progress in order to tackle challenges occurred in different manufacture process. At Micro LEDforum 2019, professionals in industry introduced their progresses of various technologies for a wide range of Micro LED applications. Yen-Hsiang Fang at Consortium for Intelligent Micro –assembly System (CIMS) of Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) presented the developments of the organization. ITRI began to build up its full color Micro LED display technology since ...

LiDAR provider Quanergy Systems announced that its proprietary LiDAR perimeter security system, QORTEX DTC Solution, will be used to protect a large scale security facility in South Korea. The company is expanding its business in the APAC region with the installation which includes the mass deployment of LiDAR sensors and software licenses. Quanergy’s solution combines hardware and software platform solution consisting of its M8 LiDAR sensor and QORTEX artificial intelligence perception software. The patented M8 LiDAR sensor allows a ...

With its expertise in Micro/Mini LED display and fine-pitch display, LED driver IC company Macroblock sees profit growth in 3Q19 despite that tepid Chinese Market. The increasing demands of fine-pitch LED display and Mini LED backlight display pushed Macroblock’s revenue for 2Q19. With orders for niche products, profit margin of the company may come to 35 percent. For Mini LED backlight, Macroblock has expanded the product portfolio from driver IC to module, providing holistic solutions for clients. New equipment will be installed in 3Q19 and prod...

Everlight, Taiwan’s leading LED packager, showcased a variety of LED applications at GILE 2019, including Mini LED display modules, fine-pitch display, automotive LED products, UV LEDs, IR LEDs, horticulture lighting and more. It even showcased for the very first time lighting products of WOFI, its German subsidiary, which stood out from the rest with designs rich with lines and curves, catching the eyes of many visitors. LEDinside had the chance to hold interviews with P.Y. Liu, Board of Director and Chief Consultant of Everlight, and E...

LEDinside’s annual event, Micro LEDforum, has again gathered many experts in the industry and academia to share about their technological expertise and provide penetrating insights of products and applications in the current Micro LED landscape. The event started with Roger Chu, Research Director of LEDinside, delved into the development of the panel industry. He pointed out that panel production has outpaced market demand, causing furious competition and pushing manufacturers to focus on developing new display technology or improving the functionalities of the...

The US International Trade Commission has concluded a patent infringement investigation according to the complaint filed by Philips Lighting (now named Signify) in 2017. The Commission ruled Feit Electric Company, Lowe’s Companies and Satco did not infringe Philips Lighting’s patents but ruled against MSi Lighting, reported lightED magazine. In 2017, Philips Lighting filed a complaint accusing nine lighting companies of infringing its patents. The accused companies included members of the National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAE...

The expanding horticulture LED lighting business marks the development of high-tech farming including vertical farming which has attracted increasing investment recently. Vertical farming companies from Europe and the US have reported funds from worldwide investors. Berlin-based vertical farming startup InFarm has raised a US$100 billion fund in its Series B investment led by Atomico with other existing investors including Balderton Capital, Astanor Ventures, Cherry Ventures and TriplePoint Capital joining. Founded in 2013, the Germany company has developed the ...

Connected lighting system integrating smart control and tunable light opens a room for health care applications. Hospitals in Berlin, Germany and Barcelona, Spain, showed the benefits of implementing connected LED lighting systems. At Barcelona’s Vall d’Hebron hospital, a human centric lighting system which can tune the lighting spectrum to match natural daylight was installed in the intensive care unit. With seven LED engines and the combination of single-peak LEDs phosphor-converted LEDs, the system enables light emission to match the visible range spa...