Welcome to the LEDs Magazine News & Insights newsletter for July 29, 2020. Well, once again things are changing rapidly in the COVID-19 world that we are simply attempting to live in.
My guess is that you may have heard the following news, but we need to make sure everyone does. We will be moving Strategies in Light 2021 to June 22–24 in Santa Clara next summer. The event had been scheduled for Feb. 9–11. I won’t suggest our crystal ball is any more accurate than what the rest of you are depending on in making your own future plans. But after discussion with California and exhibition officials, we believe it would be in the best interest of everyone to move the event. The June dates should allow everyone to safely attend and fortunately the Santa Clara Convention Center was able to accommodate the change. We have a full explanation posted on the Strategies in Light website.
Wow, just a few months ago, the industry expected to resume live events later this summer. Of course, that won’t happen and we have already transitioned our October HortiCann Light + Tech event to a virtual format and I will have some more virtual learning opportunities to unveil to you soon. We are far from the only organization that is having to make difficult event decisions. Just yesterday, the massive CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show), hosted annually in Las Vegas just after New Year's, made the announcement that the 2021 event will be held virtually.
In other news, we have the obligatory story on ultraviolet (UV) disinfection relative to COVID-19 masquerading this time as coverage of a Signify earnings report. Signify would not provide details of what UV sales have brought to its bottom line thus far. I expect that the company is still in the ramping-up stage in terms of expanding production lines that we mentioned recently. I continue to hear that all UV-C sources are back-ordered.
At first glance, the Signify results would indicate that the company is hanging tough in total sales and managing expenses to achieve decent results. But were it not for acquisitions, the year-over-year data would not look so favorable. And please understand I’m not singling out Signify. It just happens to be the largest company and one easy to examine. Our LED and SSL sectors need a break and hopefully the flattening of the US COVID-19 surge seen in recent days continues and our global neighbors continue to manage the situation well.
We also have an interesting automotive SSL story for you this week. I really like the auto application because the use of LED technology adds flair and enhances safety. Unfortunately, a lot of that happens behind closed doors. We reported on a new LED driver IC from Taiwan Semiconductor. And Diodes Inc is now supporting matrix designs for turn indicators — read flair and style. Dynamic animations look cool, but they also make it easier for other drivers to understand and predict traffic flow.
Last Friday, I mentioned that we had posted our inaugural list of 40 Under 40 honorees. Some of you may have perused the list fully in our digital magazine platform. We are also rotating the honorees through our homepage as we post the HTML versions of their career summaries. Check the website every day for an update.
You will find many more stories of interest in the body of today’s newsletter. And always feel free to contact me to discuss content we post or to pitch a contributed article.
- Maury Wright, (858) 748-6785, [email protected]