Osram Opto Semiconductors

Ingo Mauer is now showing another beautiful white-light project, using OSRAM's white OLED panels.

The new "object" is called Flying Future,  and is using a bended metal mesh, with over 100 panels attached to it. The whole thing looks like a giant wave. The panels are still not 'commercial', but in a few years it's possible that OLEDs will be ready for white-light. Anyway OLEDs allow for exciting new designs...

The companies behind the OLLA project (Philips, OSRAM, Siemens, Novaled and Franhofer IPMS) agreed to fund another OLED lighting project - the OLED100.eu, a follow-up project.

OSRAM Opto Semiconductors is spearheading the effort to develop cost-effective volume production methods for organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) under the CombOLED project, a European funded research and development project that was conceived to combine new device structures, advantageous manufacturing approaches and less complex materials with the aim to achieve cost effective OLED lighting solutions.

In April 2008, we had the chance of interviewing Mary Kilitziraki, Fast2Light's project manager. Fast2Light is an integrated (9 companies, 3 research institutes and 2 universities) R&D project that aims to research and develop light emitting foils based on OLED tech.

Here are a couple of close-up photos of the tiles in the OSRAM OLED lamp.

OSRAM has announced the world's first OLED lamp. It was designed by lighting designer Ingo Maurer.

Dr. Karsten Heuser, Director of OLED Lighting Technology at OSRAM Opto Semiconductors, is pleased with the excellent intermediate results. “Our development team has reached a real milestone for warm white OLEDs with efficiency of 46 lm/W (CIE of 0.46/0.42 measured in the integrated sphere) and a 5,000-hour lifetime, at a brightness of 1,000 cd/m². With these significant increases, flat OLED light sources are approaching the values of conventional lighting solutions and are therefore becoming attractive for a wide variety of applications.”

The new feature OLED display is offering advanced OLED technology and retrofit function for customers that were displaced by discontinuations. This model features 128x64 monochrome yellow OLED at 1 bit/pixel. This display is perfect for 1RU rack mount designs, automotive, avionics, and a full range of applications both industrial and consumer. The display offers compatibility with parallel, I2C, and SPI interfaces via a standard 24 conductor ZIF-type 0.5mm pitch flex interface. OLED technology features extraordinary contrast of 160:1 minimum and exceeding 1000:1 in ideal conditions. The display is a relatively large OLED display offered at 2.8” @ 84.0 x 25.8 x 2.2 mm outline dimensions.

The large-scale prototype of the transparent white OLED tile with color coordinates 0.396/0.404 (CIEx/y main emissive side) lights up an area of nearly 90 cm². The OLED is transparent whether it is powered on or off, and its transparency is currently rated at 55%. As the product is further developed, this value is expected to reach 75%.

OSRAM Opto Semiconductors will be exiting the production of passive matrix displays based on organic LEDs (OLEDs) at the end of the year. The company will be concentrating its OLED activities on developing market-ready OLED lighting solutions. As a result, the display manufacturing line in Penang, Malaysia, will cease production at the end of the year. The 270 employees there will be transferred to other activities within OSRAM Opto Semiconductors including the new LED chip production facility in Penang. Jobs are being sought in other parts of the company for the OLED product team in the USA. No employees in Germany are affected. OSRAM Opto Semiconductors will honor the existing obligations toward its customers.