Investing in OLEDs

OLED is a new exciting technology, enabling thin, efficient and bright displays and lighting. Many people consider OLEDs to be the next-generation display, TV and lighting tech. The potential sales of OLEDs in the next few years is billion of dollars. In fact, the OLED display market today is estimated at 600M$, and is forecasted to grow to 5.5B$ by 2015. OLED lighting will take off (hopefully) by 2011, and reach 6B$ in revenue in 2018.

OLED companies

There are many companies working on OLEDs, from big coorporations like Sony, Samsung, LG, Kodak and GE, to small research and IP companies. 

There are several types of companies involved in this market:

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Interview with OLED100.eu's project manager

The OLED100.eu project is a European 3-year OLED lighting project. The 30M$ project is a followup to the OLLA project, ended in June 2008, and it is lead by Philips, OSRAM, Siemens, Novaled and the Franhofer IPMS.

Dr. Stefan Grabowsky, the project's manager has been kind enough to talk to us, answer a few questions and give us more info on the project. Dr. Stefan has a Ph.D in Physics,  from the University of Duisburg. In 2000 he joined Philips Research labs. He's working on OLEDs for several years now, with a focus on device physics and OLED stack development. Since September 2008 he is the project manager for OLED100.eu.

Q: Stefan, thanks for taking the time to do this interview. Can you tell us a bit about OLED100.eu?
OLED100.eu is an European integrated research project that has brought together a consortium of experts from leading industry and academic organizations to accelerate the development of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technologies. It has received €12.5 million funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme to form the technological basis for efficient OLED applications for the general lighting industry in Europe.

Large-area OLED from Philips

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GE to start printing OLED light panels next year

EEtimes says that GE will start volume production of flexible OLED light panels in 2010. GE will print the OLEDs on polymer substrate, and use their ultra-high barrier coating. GE says that they managed to lower production cost by using roll-to-roll printing, and inexpensive substrates (the polymer ones).

GE are also thinking about possible new designs, and have released this video a month ago, which includes several flexible OLED light designs by art students, including wearable OLEDs for emergency safety gear, illuminated stairs, walls and signs in stores and a nice "wall peel" OLED lamp:

UDC awarded US Air Force project for ejection-safe, 6" flexible OLED display prototypes

UDC has been awarded a 750K$ contract from the US Air Force, to work on a non-glass, ejection-safe, flexible OLED display prototype for prospective use by pilots in tactical cockpit settings.

The idea is to provide pilots with a replacement for printed maps and checklists typically held on their knees. The pilots will be able to 'wrap' the OLED around a cylinder for easy storage during flight.

UDC are working on their flexible OLED together with L3 and LG Display, and have already shown some wearable (bracelet) prototypes before. The displays are energy efficient, offer full-color video rate and have wireless communications capabilities.

UDC, LG and L3 will deliver four prototypes based on a bright 6” diagonal, full-color, low power consumption PHOLED display on flexible metal foil. These displays will then be wrapped around cylinders containing power supplies and wireless communications electronics.

A new Japanese company formed to work on white OLED technology

Junji Kido, a professor from the Yamagata University in Japan has formed a new company, called Organic Lighting, to work on white OLEDs. The company's capital is only about 130,000$ currently, and it was setup in the Yamagata Universit'yes Venture Business Laboratory.

Organic Lighting plans to have equipment on the market by the beginning of 2010. It will not have its own factory. They also have plans for OLED emergency lights for public places. They hope to reach several tens of millions of US$ in revenue by 2014. 

Professor Junji Kido is the inventor of the first white OLED.

Via iStockAnalyst