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Medical Lighting, will it make a breakthrough for the OLED lighting market?

The sizable growth for OLED lighting is expected in the medical lighting market.

At Lighting Japan 2015, Synqroa Corp. introduced Lucuria, the OLED lamp used for dental practice equipment, under the presentation title “Dental-free shadow lamps development and marketing by OLED lighting source”.

The presenter Mitsuhiro Koyama, Vice President Synqroa Corp., said that “OLED lighting is more appropriate than LED or halogen lamp for the medical purposes thanks to its properties including shadow-less, good color rendering and color temperature, and no blue risk. He also speculated “The competent lighting in the medical lighting industry is more about providing the optimal environment for doctors and patients than the price competitiveness.”

Synqroa estimated that the potential for the OLED lighting panel is about six million units with expected annual demand of about 350 thousand units for maintenance assuming that each hospital will use three units (five OLED panels per unit) in about 400 thousand dentists in the world as of 2013. In addition, they also analyzed the OLED lighting panel will take about 12 million units (25% of entire demand) among the demands for the lighting panels applied in operating rooms, patient’s rooms, NICU, etc.

Likewise, the expansion of OLED lighting market is expected to gain momentum if the OLED lighting panel is employed more actively in the medical lighting market equipped with merits of improving health care environments and protecting doctors’ and patients’ eyes.

150120_의료용 조명, OLED lighting 시장의 돌파구 되나1

 

<Comparison of properties for each lighting, Source: Synqroa>

Description: Compared to the LED lighting, the OLED lighting barely emits the ultraviolet rays or blue lights which are harmful to the eyes but enables visibility closest to the natural sunlight free of shadow.

150120_의료용 조명, OLED lighting 시장의 돌파구 되나2

<Synqroa’s OLED lamp for Dental Equipment, Source: Synqroa>

 

Audi’s Love for OLED

150119_Audi의 OLED 사랑

Audi has particular affection for OLED than any other automobile companies. For instance, it has announced the concept car Audi Q7 with its rear lights using OLED light panel and the recently unveiled concept car Prologue is equipped with the flexible OLED display featuring the resolution of 8.9 x 5.6-inch 287ppi (2560 x 1600) and three sheets of rigid OLED display.

For this CES 2015, the letters of Audi was displayed three dimensionally using the OLED light source at the exhibition space intended for R8 LMX together with the phrases of ‘OLED View 2’ and ‘Audi Matrix OLED.’

According to the personnel from Audi, OLED will be used actively as a light source for it has a beautiful quality than any other light sources.

 

LG Chem., provide OLED lighting panel illuminate Tincan, the restaurant in London

LG Chem. continues its intense marketing activities for the OLED lighting. The OLED lighting panels were applied inside the Hanoak (traditional Korean house), remodeled with the IVAAIU City Planning last August, and the butterflied shaped lightings applying 240 OLED lighting panels were supplied to the caf? called Marley coffee in Itaewon. And the circular type OLED lighting panels were used to decorate Tincan, a newly opened pop-up restaurant in London in last September.

 

The OLED light used as the light source at Tincan was the Φ100 OLED Light panel (N6OA30) that the LG Chem. introduced early this year for the first time. The efficacy of the panel is 60lm/W, a high CRI is over 90, and the lifetime is 40,000 hours (LT70) at 3,000 cd/m2, with only 1mm in thickness. The Lamp was designed by the architectural design firm AL_A using 3D printing.

 

LG Chem. is leading the OLED lighting panel business most actively as making the announcement last September for the release of the OLED lighting panel in November which will be equivalent to a LED lighting with the efficacy of 100lm/W and the lifetime of 40,000, and it has secured various lighting companies like Acuity and Zumtobel as a client.

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< LG Chem.’s OLED lighting panel installed at Tincan>

reporter@olednet.co.kr

Life of OLED lighting panel, to reach LED

The life of OLED lighting panel is improving equal to the level of LED (more than 50,000 hours).

According to the NIKKEI report, Kaneka developed the OLED lighting panel with a lifetime of 50,000 hours. The panel is 8×8 cm in size and 1 mm thick, and samples are shipped to some lighting companies. Applying enhanced Blue material, the color change due to thermalization has dropped under 40% and the price is about the same.

KANEKA is producing OLED lighting panel with an annual capacity of about 20,000 panels. In the Lighting fair 2013, the company exhibited OLED lighting panels of 50x50mm and 80x80mm sizes in diverse colors of white, yellow, red, green, and blue which are currently sold at about 4,000 yen for the 50x50mm panel and 6,000 yen for the 80x80mm panel.

The OLED lighting panel with the longest lifetime on sale is LG Chem.’s 100x100mm panel with 80lm/W and 50,000 hours.

The UBI Research issued “2014 OLED lighting Report” prospecting the OLED lighting panel market to be open actively from 2015 and reach about US $ 4,700 million by 2020.

141010_OLEDlightingpanel 수명

<Kaneka announced OLED lighting at Lighting fair 2013>

 

reporter@olednet.co.kr

AMOLED manufacturing equipment market, expected to be about 36 trillion won from 2015 to 2020

According to an equipment report, “2014 AMOLED manufacturing Equipment Technology Analysis and Market Forecast (2015~2020),” published by a market research firm, UBI Research, the AMOLED manufacturing equipment market size will be about 36 trillion won from 2015 to 2020. Stepper appears to be the largest sector in the equipment market by forming about 10 trillion won and taking up about 30 % of market share. Evaporator will take 17% with about 6 trillion.

 

It is forecasted that Chinese makers will start to invest in AMOLED business. Predicted market size is about 6 trillion won in 2015. In 2017, full-scale investment on the AMOLED panel line for TV will be started. About 9.5 trillion won market will be formed and become the largest market size by 2018.

 

From 2015 to 2020, the market share of backplane manufacturing, encapsulation and OLED manufacturing equipment will be 69%, 17% and 14%, respectively, in the overall AMOLED equipment market.

 

In the overall AMOLED equipment market by country, Korean market size is expected to grow to about 20 trillion won taking up 55% market share for six years and it is analyzed that Korea will continuously lead the AMOLED industry.

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<2015~2020, AMOLED manufacturing equipment market>

reporter@olednet.co.kr

JOLED, the last bastion of Japanese OLED

140730612118The Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), JDI, Sony and Panasonic have finalized an agreement on JOLED establishment by January, 2015 through an integration of OLED panel R&D organizations owned by Sony and Panasonic for mass-production, development and early commercialization of the OLED panel.

INCJ has 75% of JOLED’s voting rights. INCJ and JDI have agreed on making an investment in pilot line installation for mass-production.

 

JOLED aims to become a leading company in the OLED sector by collecting the technologies owned by Sony and Panasonic such as the OLED layer technology, oxide TFT technology and flexible display technology, and converging with JDI’s mass-production technology.

JOLED plans to develop the OLED panels for application section first, including tablet PC, note PC and signage for mass-production of medium and large size OLED panels. A future target of JOLED is mass-production of the flexible OLED.

reporter@olednet.co.kr

Everdisplay, the first seller of AMOLED panel in China

Everdisplay announced that it has become the first seller of AMOLED panel with sales of HD AMOLED panel on its homepage on July 23rd.

According to a Chinese medium, ZOL, the specifications of the AMOLED panel sold by Everdisplay include 4.99 inches, 0.66mm thickness, and 10.2g weights with HD (1280×720) resolution and application of real RGB pixel structure. It also complies with NTSC standards, 100% color reproduction, and has 700Mw power consumption.

The sales of AMOLED panel by Everdisplay is expected to be an influential variable to the market of the AMOLED panel for mobiles which is currently dominated by Samsung Display.

Everdisplay plans to hold ‘2014 Everdisplay AMOLED new product launch and eye health protection symposium(2014和辉光电AMOLED新产品推介暨健康护眼研讨会)’’ and 5” HD AMOLED will be displayed.140729_Everdisplay5inchHDAMOLED

 

<Everdisplay’s 5” HD AMOLED panel unveiled on July 23rd, Source: Everdisplay>

KITECH, Developed the world’s first refining technology for organic light-emitting material using ILs for OLED TV

Dr. Taewon Kim’s team of photovoltaic energy convergence research group of Korean Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH, President Yong-Soo Lee) developed an original technology to refine organic light-emitting materials in bulk for fine OLED TV at low price.

Dr. Kim’s team established a new concept for the refining technology by using Ionic Liquids (ILs), and it can solve issues of high cost·low yield rate arisen in production of the organic light-emitting material for the OLED TV.

Ionic Liquids are liquids that only consist of positive and negative ions at room temperature and stays in liquid form at high vacuum (~100℃) with almost no volatility. Recently, ILs became a future clean solvent in green chemistry field with a strength of good solubility for high molecular substance and a feature of metal salts.

Until now, ‘sublimation refining method’ has been used to get high purify organic light-emitting material by utilizing the difference of sublimation points between vaporization and solidification of a material. However, cons of this method are low yield rate and very high production cost because it is impossible to realize complete auto and continuous process.

To address this issue, Dr. Kim’s team started developing the large scale refining technology for the organic light-emitting materials at low cost since 2011 and applied for original patent in December, 2012. Their effort on verifying the possibility of the technology’s application produced this result in 19 months.

The key of the result is the application of the high purity refining technology on the organic light-emitting material for the OLED TV by focusing on the non-volatile feature of ILs at high vacuum·high temperature.

This technology uses a principle of separating impurities in the order of vaporizing the organic light-emitting material in a vacuum chamber; dissolving it in a liquid filter of ionic liquid; and recrystallizing supersaturated material in the liquid. It enables to get 99.95% of high purity organic light-emitting material through one refining process.

It is a completely new concept of large scale refining method based on the non-volatility characteristic of ionic liquid at high vacuum·high temperature.

The team is credited with the success of new technology development which can overcome the cons of the existing sublimation refining method including refinery yield rate, automation and continuous process of equipment, and efficiency of mass production. It is also expected to bring a huge cost reduction effect by recycling; collect and reprocess during refinery process, of the expensive but non-volatile ionic liquid.

According to “2014 OLED Emitting Material Annual Report Market Forecast (~2020)” by a professional OLED market research firm, UBI Research, the OLED emitting material market is expected to grow to 1.3 trillion won in 2017 from 2014 estimation of 543 billion won. Forecasted annual growth rate is over 30% and experts see that the growth will be much larger if large size display market including the AMOLED TV expends in full-scale.

Dr. Taewon Kim, said, “this technology increased the yield rate and decreased the production cost by more than 50%. And an ultimate goal is to reduce the current price by one tenth” and “technology development is in progress with companies.” He also said, “the success is a game changer with enormous potential to turn the OLED TV market-to-explosively grow” and “based on the low-cost and large scale refining original technology, domestic businesses will largely contribute to preoccupy the global market of forward-backward industry regarding the OLED TV.”

The team currently applied 16 cases for patent with related process․equipment technology in and out of the country and plans active technology transfer to related businesses.

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<Comparison of refining methods for organic light emitting materials Source: KITECH>

LG Display forecasts blooming of OLED TV market in 2015

OLED TV market is expected to begin flourishing from the end of 2015.

At the presentation of LG Display’s performance in Q2 held on 23rd at LG Twin-Tower, Yeouido, an executive director of strategic marketing group of LG Display (LGD), Youngkwon Song, emphasized, “LGD is putting efforts to realize the economy of scale and to cut cost including lowering material cost regarding the OLED TV business” and “a significant condition will be developed by the end of 2015 and early 2016.”

Mr. Don Kim, the CFO and a senior vice president of LGD said that “from our point of view on the OLED, the current levels of expected performance and yield rate are at satisfaible level, but innovation in pricing is what we concentrate more” and “by the end of 2015 or early 2016, when the operation is in full capa., we can reach the economy of scale and bring a significant performance.” Mr. Kim also hinted a soon-to-be bloomed of LGD’s OLED TV market.

LGD started supplying panels for the OLED TV to major Chinese TV set makers and plans to operate M2 line for mass-production in this third quarter. It also continuously leads the OLED market with scheduled launch of 55”/65”/77” curved UHD OLED TV.

In the meantime, sales for Q2 in 2014 was 5.979 trillion won which is declined by 9% from the Q2 in 2013 but increased by 7% from the Q1 in 2014. And operating profit was recorded surplus consecutively for nine quarters at 163.1 billion won.

Launching of Gionee’s ultra-thin AMOLED smart phone (5mm) is imminent

Ctimes, a Chinese medium, reported that a Chinese smart phone maker, Gionee, will introduce an ultra-thin smart phone modeled GN9005.

GN9005 used AMOLED panel and is 0.55mm thinner than 5.55mm of the previous model, which was introduced as Elife S5.5 last February.

It is noticeable that 4.8” HD AMOLED panel is applied which is smaller than the 5” FHD Super AMOLED applied to the previous Elife S5.5. In general, the AMOLED panels produced by Samsung Display are named super AMOLED. However, no particular name for the AMOLED panel applied to GN9005 and its low performance indicate that the panel is highly likely to be supplied by AUO.

It is known that AUO has started supply to a Chinese maker from last June but any specifics on the maker has not been revealed.

A Chinese smart phone maker, BBK, drew attention with 5.75mm VIVO X3 after the launch of 6.18mm Ascend P6 by Huawei last year. Followed by launching, Gionee introduced the 5.55mm Elife S5.5 in February and will launch 5mm GN9005 and that fierce competition will begin soon in the ultra-thin smartphone market in China.140722_GioneeElifeS5.5vsGN9005

<Gionee’s ultra-thin smart phone comparison>

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<Gionee’s the world’s thinnest smartphone, ‘5mm’ GN9005, Source : TENAA>