North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.12 billion in billings worldwide in November 2019 (three-month average basis), according to the November Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI. The billings figure is 1.9 percent higher than the final October 2019 level of $2.08 billion, and is 9.1 percent higher than the November 2018 billings level of $1.94 billion.
Seoul Semiconductor’s SunLike Series Natural Spectrum LEDs Selected for WalaLight’s Healthy Circadian Rhythm LED Lighting Systems
Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ 046890), a leading global innovator of LED technology, announced that its SunLike Series natural spectrum LEDs, which implement light that closely matches the spectrum of sunlight, has been selected by WalaLight™ for its Healthy Circadian LED Lighting System, designed as a passive adaptive LED lighting system that delivers the appropriate spectrum of lighting through a smart Kelvin-changing technology to improve human wellness. Combining WalaLight’s state-of-the-art automated wireless Bluetooth and wired Dali lighting control systems with Seoul Semiconductor’s SunLike natural spectrum LED technology, consumers experience light that closely matches the spectrum of natural sunlight, and can replicate sunlight’s spectral changes by remotely and automatically adjusting the Kelvin color temperature, dimming, and zone control of each light in the system over a 24-hour period to optimize the indoor environment for ideal light exposure, enabling a healthy circadian rhythm.
BOE Launches Joint Venture with Rohinni to Develop Mini and Micro LED-based LCD Displays and Video Walls
BOE and Rohinni today officially launched BOE Pixey. This exclusive joint venture between a world leader in the semiconductor display industry and the fast-growing mini and micro LED technology startup will bring the power and brilliance of micron-scale LEDs to mass-market fruition. In development for more than two years, BOE Pixey will design and build LCD display backlights, direct-emission displays and display-related sensors for high- performance televisions, video walls and other large-format end products. The JV rolls out at CES 2020, with demos that will offer visitors a glimpse of the future of high-performance display products.
Atmosic Technologies Raises $28.5 Million in Latest Round of Funding
Atmosic™ Technologies, innovator of ultra-low-power wireless for the Internet of Things (IoT), today announced the completion of its Series B funding, raising $28.5 million. This investment, led by Sutter Hill Ventures – along with investments from Clear Ventures, Walden International, Dolby Family Ventures, and Arden Road Investments – brings the total amount of funding raised to $49.5 million since the company’s inception in 2016. This new round of funding will be used to deploy Atmosic’s award-winning M2 and M3 series Bluetooth 5 system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions into commercial products in early 2020. The funding will also support the company’s continued laser focus on R&D to develop its next generation solutions, and Atmosic’s efforts to scale the business as the supplier of the lowest-power consumption wireless technologies for the IoT.
Tweaks Behind the Rebirth of Nearly Discarded Organic Solar Technologies
A solar energy material that is remarkably durable and affordable is regrettably also unusable if it barely generates electricity, thus many researchers had abandoned emerging organic solar technologies. But lately, a shift in the underlying chemistry has boosted power output, and a new study has revealedcounterintuitive tweaks making the new chemistry successful. The shift is from “fullerene” to “non-fullerene acceptors” (NFAs), terms detailed below, and in photovoltaic electricity generation, the acceptor is a molecule with the potential to be to electrons what a catcher is to a baseball. Corresponding donor molecules “pitch” electrons to acceptor “catchers” to create electric current. Highly cited chemist Jean-Luc Brédas at the Georgia Institute of Technology has furthered the technology and also led the new study.
LiFi-Multicell at CES 2020: The World’s First Smart Orchestrator for Interference-Free LiFi Networks
LiFi, or visible-light communication, has significant advantages over WiFi, such as data-transmission speed and the data security it offers because light does not penetrate walls. But wide adoption is constrained primarily because of interference between devices using LiFi networks and LiFi’s resulting poor performance in large areas. Until now. CEA-Leti’s LiFi-multicell system is the first-ever smart interference orchestrator that automatically detects interference between lighting zones in networks and optimizes data transmission rates for each nearby device. The system also manages—asymmetrically and independently—uplink/downlink interference.
On-Chip Light Source Produces Versatile Range of Wavelengths
Researchers have designed a new chip-integrated light source that can transform infrared wavelengths into visible wavelengths, which have been difficult to produce with technology based on silicon chips. This flexible approach to on-chip light generation is poised to enable highly miniaturized photonic instrumentation that is easy to manufacture and rugged enough to use outside the lab. In Optica, The Optical Society’s (OSA) journal for high impact research, investigators from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), University of Maryland, and University of Coloradodescribe their new optical parametric oscillator (OPO) light source and show that it can produce output light that is a very different color, or wavelength, than the input light. In addition to creating light at visible wavelengths, the OPO simultaneously generates near-infrared wavelengths that can be used for telecommunication applications.
XMC Introduces 50nm High-Performance Serial NOR Flash Memory
As a world leading provider of non-volatile memory, XMC, a core subsidiary of Unigroup, today announced the mass production status of new SPI NOR Flash series – XM25QWxxC, with the industry’s advanced 50nm Floating Gate NOR Flash manufacturing process, which features wide voltage range and low power consumption, offering excellent design flexibility for IoT, wearable and other power consumption sensitive applications.
ON Semiconductor to Demonstrate Intelligent IoT Technologies Including Advanced Audio Processing at CES 2020
ON Semiconductor (Nasdaq: ON), driving energy efficient innovations, will showcase a wide range of innovative technologies for smart homes, connected buildings and personal IoT at CES 2020. The rise of voice control and Voice User Interfaces (VUI) has made audio processing critical to the success of a wide range of building automation and household applications. ON Semiconductor will feature two demonstrations using its LC823455, which provides key features for portable sound solutions and support for VUI. A Strata-enabled stereo speaker capable of streaming music over Bluetooth® will show various advanced audio functionalities including touch sensor-based volume control and voice commands. The LC823455 will also be featured in a cloud-based VUI demonstration for communication with IoT edge-nodes applications.
Boston Semi Equipment Extends Peak Voltage for Handling MOSFET, IGBT, Gate Arrays and SiC Power ICs
Boston Semi Equipment (BSE), a global semiconductor test handler manufacturer and an innovative provider of test automation technical services, announced today that it has enhanced its Zeus gravity feed handlers for MOSFET, IGBT, gate drivers, and SiC power ICs. A new test site design provides increased voltage isolation during testing, raising the peak voltage handled by the Zeus high voltage handler to 8.4kV RMS (11.8kV peak). The growing market for power ICs is driven by increasing demand for energy efficient products, such as electric vehicles. Automotive, medical, industrial and consumer markets will benefit from the efficiencies and lower cost of test by handling high voltage MOSFET, IGBT, gate drivers, and SiC devices in BSE’s Zeus handler.
