Its brightness level is usually 1,000cd/m² with power input of less than a watt. In ideal operating conditions it has a lifespan of [...]]]> OSRAM Opto Semiconductors have started selling what appears to be the first OLED lighting product.
The warm white, 80 mm diameter ORBEOS panel with an efficiency of 25 lm/W is now available for purchase.

Its brightness level is usually 1,000cd/m² with power input of less than a watt. In ideal operating conditions it has a lifespan of around 5,000 hours.

The company today announced a construction of a new roll-to-roll pilot coating line to manufacture OLED lighting within its Hino facility in Tokyo. The pilot line is dedicated to establish production technology toward mass-production and to sell the product on the limited [...]]]> Konica Minolta is planning a new roll-to-roll pilot manufacturing line for OLED lighting panels.

The company today announced a construction of a new roll-to-roll pilot coating line to manufacture OLED lighting within its Hino facility in Tokyo. The pilot line is dedicated to establish production technology toward mass-production and to sell the product on the limited basis. Spending 3.5 billion yen, the line will be completed in the autumn of 2010 and the product will be commercialized within the fiscal year 2010.

Such technologies as material, coating, multi-layer design, and optical design technologies, nurtured through the development of photographic film and optical lens, have been fully adopted in the development of the OLED lighting. For the pilot line, Konica Minolta designed and developed its own roll-to-roll coating method to manufacture flexible plastic-base OLED lighting. This method will serve as the key to accomplishing cost advantage when the OLED lighting flourishes in the future.

[Via Printed Electronics World]

[via OLED-Info]

[CEO Richard] Kirk is in “advanced talks” towards a £3m funding round which will pay for the [...]]]> UK start-up PolyPhotonix are to set up a production line for large-area OLED lighting at the Printable Electronics Technology Centre (PETEC, part of NETPark in County Durham, UK).
They will be using PLED (polymer OLED) materials under license from CDT.

[CEO Richard] Kirk is in “advanced talks” towards a £3m funding round which will pay for the production line and 30 months of operations.
The firm already has some funding through the Government’s Technology Strategy Board through a project called Manufacturing Emissive Nanotechnology Devices in Polymers (MENDIPs). [...]
PolyPhotonix’ intended main markets are automotive and architectural lighting, but Kirk also expects some interest from makers of general lighting products.
The production line will initially make its OLED emitters on 200×200mm glass substrates. “We are taking the best materials as they are today,” said Kirk.
Flexible plastic substrates are also on the cards once glass-based emitters are in production.

___________________________
Update 2009-02-18: According to IDTechEx’s Printed Electronics World, PolyPhotonix have now raised GBP 4.5 million.

“We want to [...]]]> From the press release:
Ciba has developed a deep red phosphorescent OLED emitter that functions optimally in combination with the Novaled PIN OLED™ technology, delivering a lifetime of 50,000 hours at an initial brightness of 1,000 cd/m2. The new material supports the market trend toward high-performance, low-voltage OLED devices for display and lighting applications.

“We want to provide the market with efficient phosphorescent materials,” says Rolf Drewes, Global Head of Business Line Electronic Materials at Ciba. “In this project, we are developing the full color range of emitters compatible with Novaled’s proprietary OLED technology. Our deep red, the first to become commercially available, offers customers not only long-lifetime performance but also excellent thermal stability. Green and blue are now in progress.”

“Phosphorescent emitter materials together with low-voltage devices are mandatory for the future of the OLED industry, and Novaled is very pleased to see a key industry player developing such materials,” adds Gildas Sorin, CEO of Novaled AG. “This deep red phosphorescent material provides a long lifetime at a lowest operating voltage of 3.3 V as well as good power efficiency of 8.1 lm/W, making it suitable for displays as well as for completely new lighting applications. OLED technology even has potential to surpass the efficiency of energy-saving bulbs.” [...]

In 2006, Ciba and Novaled entered an industrial collaboration to create organic dopant and transport materials for the Novaled PIN OLED™ technology, which enables highly power-efficient OLED performance.

Sumitomo Chemical Company (Sumitomo Chemical) and Cambridge Display Technology (NASDAQ: OLED) (CDT) today jointly announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement whereby Sumitomo Chemical will acquire CDT, a developer of technologies based on polymer organic light emitting diodes (P-OLEDs). Under the merger agreement, Sumitomo Chemical will acquire all outstanding [...]]]> From the press release:

Sumitomo Chemical Company (Sumitomo Chemical) and Cambridge Display Technology (NASDAQ: OLED) (CDT) today jointly announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement whereby Sumitomo Chemical will acquire CDT, a developer of technologies based on polymer organic light emitting diodes (P-OLEDs). Under the merger agreement, Sumitomo Chemical will acquire all outstanding shares of CDT common stock at a price of $12 per share in cash, for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $285 million. The merger consideration represents a 107 percent premium over CDT’s 90-day average closing share price and a 95 percent premium over CDT’s closing share price of $6.15 on July 30.

CDT and Sumitomo Chemical have been working together under the Sumation joint venture since 2005.

started [to] volume produce active-matrix (AM) OLED (organic light-emitting diode) panels in May, with monthly capacity able to reach 500,000 2-inch equivalent panels at present. Zhe-yang Chen, president of CMEL, said the company has begun shipping 2-inch AM OLED panels to China- [...]]]> According to DigiTimes, Chi Mei EL Corporation (CMEL), a Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) subsidiary,

started [to] volume produce active-matrix (AM) OLED (organic light-emitting diode) panels in May, with monthly capacity able to reach 500,000 2-inch equivalent panels at present.
Zhe-yang Chen, president of CMEL, said the company has begun shipping 2-inch AM OLED panels to China- and Japan-based customers and end products adopting CMEL’s panels will hit the market in July at soonest. [...]
The company now sees related yields at 60%, which will be improved to 80% by year-end, said Chen. Achieving high yields in the AM OLED industry is not easy; even leading makers such as Samsung SDI only targets yields at 60-70% initially, he pointed out. [...]
Prices for an AM OLED panels now are still 1.8 times higher than those for the same-size TFT LCD panels. The company expects to see the price gap between the two segments narrow to 1.5 times in the future, according to Chen.

The 2.5-inch prototype display supports 16.8 million colors at a 120 x 160 pixel resolution (80 ppi, .318-mm pixel pitch), is 0.3 mm thick and weighs 1.5 grams without the driver.

The prototype, as well as technical details [...]]]> CNET News is reporting on the world’s first truly flexible OLED display fabricated by Sony.

The 2.5-inch prototype display supports 16.8 million colors at a 120 x 160 pixel resolution (80 ppi, .318-mm pixel pitch), is 0.3 mm thick and weighs 1.5 grams without the driver.

The prototype, as well as technical details were presented at the SID conferernce. Apparently the display is driven by pentacene TFTs with a mobility of 0.1 cm2/Vs.

Each subpixel (red, green or blue)is driven by a two-transistor, one-capacitor PMOS voltage programming circuit. The display operates at a frame rate of 60 Hz with a signal voltage of 12 V.

Sony uses a top-emission structure for its OLED displays, meaning they have driving transistors on the bottom and emit light from a top OLED layer. [...] The structure reportedly allowed the engineers to fabricate the electrodes before fabricating the organic TFT layer, without damaging the semiconductor layer.

The latter is achieved by depositing the pentacene on a patterned, negatively-sloped layer acting as a “built-in shadow mask”.

At a display forum in Tokyo, customers, suppliers, and even rival TV makers turned their backs on 50-inch and bigger TVs to throng before Sony’s tiny 11-inch OLED TVs. “LCD and plasma displays look faded in comparison,” [...]]]> According to Reuters, Sony are planning to be the first to bring OLED TVs to the Market later this year.

At a display forum in Tokyo, customers, suppliers, and even rival TV makers turned their backs on 50-inch and bigger TVs to throng before Sony’s tiny 11-inch OLED TVs.
“LCD and plasma displays look faded in comparison,” said a Denso Corp. employee who declined to be named, fighting to take a picture of the new TVs. [...]
The OLED TV to be launched this year will be made by ST Liquid Crystal Display Corp., a joint venture between Sony and Toyota Industries Corp., Sony spokesperson Daiichi Yamafuji said, declining to give unit targets or a likely price. [...]
The Nikkei business daily reported earlier that Sony would begin by mass-producing about 1,000 of the 11-inch OLED sets a month?a fraction of its LCD TV business?and would aim to keep its price within a few times that of existing flat TVs. [...]
Other companies investing in OLED displays include Seiko Epson, Canon, Samsung and a joint venture between Toshiba and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co..
Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida said on Thursday the company hoped to make larger TV-use OLED panels at the joint venture, Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology Co., by 2009, taking aim at the $35 billion flat TV market, which is currently dominated by LCD and plasma display technology.

Japan’s Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) will commercialize OLED (organic light-emitting diode) panels before the end of fiscal year 2008, according to the company. Jointly with a research institute, the Japanese vendor plans to develop technology to extend the lifespan of panels by ten times that of conventional products to 10,000 hours, with a brightness [...]]]> According to DigiTimes,

Japan’s Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) will commercialize OLED (organic light-emitting diode) panels before the end of fiscal year 2008, according to the company.
Jointly with a research institute, the Japanese vendor plans to develop technology to extend the lifespan of panels by ten times that of conventional products to 10,000 hours, with a brightness at 1,000 cd/m2, the company said.
The maker will start by offering light-emitting sign displays and aims to proceed with development of traffic advertisement applications, DNP noted.

a strategic alliance agreement to accelerate the development and commercialization of OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) devices for lighting applications. The goal is to bring OLED lighting to market within the next 3 years. [...]

On June 30, 2006, KM announced that it had successfully developed a white OLED [...]]]> Konica Minolta (KM) and General Electric (GE) announced

a strategic alliance agreement to accelerate the development and commercialization of OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) devices for lighting applications. The goal is to bring OLED lighting to market within the next 3 years. [...]

On June 30, 2006, KM announced that it had successfully developed a white OLED with a world record power efficiency of 64 lumens per watt at 1,000 candela per square meter — a brightness which is appropriate for lighting applications. Prior to this development, KM developed its own highly efficient and long-life blue phosphorescent materials. Applying these material technologies, along with multi-layer design technology and innovative optical design technology, KM succeeded in developing an OLED having a practical light emission level of approximately 10,000 hours.

In addition to material technology and optical design technology, KM has been developing the ultra-high barrier film fabrication technology to enable high productivity. Superb coating technology nurtured through the development of photographic film and display materials also plays an important role in the development of highly productive OLEDs. Currently, research and development for its commercialization is under way.

GE, as part of its ecomagination initiative, has made substantial investments in OLED research that has resulted in world records for OLED lighting device size and efficiency. In 2004, researchers were able to demonstrate an OLED device that was fully functional as a 24 inch by 24-inch panel, which produced 1,200 lumens of light with an efficiency on par with today’s incandescent bulb technology. This was the first demonstration that OLED technology could potentially be used for lighting applications. Since then, GE has more than doubled the level of OLED efficiency using device architectures that are scalable to a large area and can be produced cost-effectively.

In addition to increasing efficiency, GE has focused on developing all the requirements – ranging from plastic film substrates, ultra-high barrier coatings, and fabrication processes and equipment to enable the high speed, cost-effective “roll-to-roll” manufacturing — required to produce large-area OLED lighting.

the market for OLEDs used in displays and lighting applications is expected to reach $10.9 billion ($US) by 2012 and grow to $15.5 billion by the year 2014.

The report discusses the use of OLEDs for mobile devices, flexible/rollable displays, and lighting applications. [via CNET news]

the PDG – Personal Display Glasses, the world’s first mobile TV viewing experience employing the MDDI standard, is on display at 3GSM 2007 in Barcelona from 12 – 15th February.

The PDG is the most advanced integrated personal display and mobile phone solution on the market. The PDG has [...]]]> MicroEmissive Displays (makers of P-OLED microdisplays) announced that

the PDG – Personal Display Glasses, the world’s first mobile TV viewing experience employing the MDDI standard, is on display at 3GSM 2007 in Barcelona from 12 – 15th February.

The PDG is the most advanced integrated personal display and mobile phone solution on the market. The PDG has been developed by Mobintech A/S from Denmark and is enabled by ultra-low power P-OLED eyescreenâ„¢ microdisplays from MicroEmissive Displays.

will start commissioning and qualification of its new production plant in the Fraunhofer IPMS in Dresden early in 2007. The move comes following the on-time handover of the purpose built cleanroom and delivery of the tool set from ANS Korea.

The 350 m2 purpose built cleanroom is [...]]]> According to their press release, MicroEmissive Displays (MED, Edinburgh, UK)

will start commissioning and qualification of its new production plant in the Fraunhofer IPMS in Dresden early in 2007. The move comes following the on-time handover of the purpose built cleanroom and delivery of the tool set from ANS Korea.

The 350 m² purpose built cleanroom is state of the art and is located within the substantial facilities of the Fraunhofer IPMS campus. Construction of the cleanroom was completed on time; equipment is in place and installation is already underway. The tool set, delivered from ANS Korea in December, comprises polymer OLED based deposition and thin film
encapsulation equipment for mass production.

At the same time MED has announced that

it has received a £2m order for its new polymer-OLED eyescreen™ microdisplay. The order, from a manufacturer of consumer products in the Far East, will also be the first to ship from the company’s new manufacturing facility in Dresden.

The order relates to MED’s new eyescreen™ ME3204 microdisplay. The new device is a compact 6 mm (0.24”) colour P-OLED QVGA display. The P-OLED technology is emissive and so does not require a backlight; as a result eyescreen™ ME3204 is ideal for portable applications such as video glasses or head-mounted displays, electronic view finders and night vision systems. The microdisplay can be combined with magnifying optics to produce a large virtual image that appears to the eye to be equivalent in dimensions to the picture on a TV screen or computer display.

In addition eyescreenâ„¢ ME3204 features a digital video interface together with an integrated display driver eliminating the need for additional driver ICs. This design feature saves space and reduces both power consumption and BoM costs.

that it is able to produce thin film encapsulated OLED devices that meet the shelf-life requirements for commercial use. Not only are these displays manufactured on OTB’s in-line mass manufacturing equipment, but also the deposition of the thin film encapsulation has been proven to render the same optical performance as the conventional, [...]]]> OTB Display announced

that it is able to produce thin film encapsulated OLED devices that meet the shelf-life requirements for commercial use. Not only are these displays manufactured on OTB’s in-line mass manufacturing equipment, but also the deposition of the thin film encapsulation has been proven to render the same optical performance as the conventional, more expensive glass-can encapsulated devices. [...]
Bas van Rens, CEO of OTB Display, explains: “Our integrated in-line mass manufacturing equipment now routinely produces displays which pass the accelerated shelf life of 504 hrs at 60oC / 90% humidity. In our development program we observe rapid progress and we expect to be able to announce shelf lifes exceeding 1000 hours at 85 oC/ 85% this year”