We're happy to announce that we updated our site's design (which has been live since November 2008). We have added a top-menu that gives easy access to most of the content on our site, and also updated some inner pages (for example the companies page). We will add some more small graphic tweaks in the coming weeks.

We hope that the site will be easier to use now. Please comment and tell us if you like this new look, or whether you found some errors in the new site...

WAC lighting is showing a new Hybrid-OLED luminaire - which is the first lamp to sport color-tunable OLEDs. This lamp uses Verbatim's Velve panels. The Hybrid-OLED includes six OLED panels delivering 300-plus lumens at 12 watts. Beside the OLEDs, the lamp include 8 low power LEDs (that provide 550 lumens at 12 watts). Currently we only have this closeup photo:

This is WAC Lighting's second OLED lamp - the first one being a chandelier that uses OSRAM's ORBEOS OLED Panels.

Universal Display announced new warm-white OLED lighting panels that uses all-phosphorescent materials to achieve 58 lm/W and 30,000 lifetime (D70). This new panel is based on UDC's new light blue material system. This new panels offers a three times improvement in lifetime compared to just one year ago.

The company is actually showing two new panels, both 15x15cm in size. The first has a color temperature of 2,580K, 58 lm/W, 30,000 hours of lifetime (D70) at 1,000cd/m² and a CRI of 83. The second panel offers a color temperature of 2,950K and CRI of 82 - to achieve 62 lm/W. The second panel has 18,000 hours of lifetime (D70) at 1,000cd/m². Shown above is UDC's new OLED lighting design (called the Earthouse) which highlights the ability for energy-efficient white OLEDs to emit different white colors. It uses an energy-efficient 3,000K white OLED on the left and a 5,000K white OLED on the right.

Update: We have some info and a new photo of Toshiba's flexible OLED prototype. See below.

Toshiba is showing an ultra thin (0.1mm) 3" flexible OLED panel prototype (160x120) that weights just one gram. The OLED is built using an oxide semiconductor TFT (IGZO) unto a plastic substrate. Toshiba says that they will be able to start producing displays based on this production method by 2014 or 2015.

Toshiba's OLED uses white OLED material with color filters. The architecture is bottom-emission. Toshiba says that the managed to lower the process temperature to 200°C, and so were able to use the plastic substrate.

Philips announced that they are investing €40 million ($57 million) to expand their OLED lighting panel production capacity in their Aachen, Germany fab. The additional capacity will be available in 2012.

Philips say that the new capacity will support the "rapid growth" of their OLED business - used for high-end design lighting applications for decorative and ambiance creation purposes. Philips' OLED lighting panels (Lumiblade brand, here's our hands on review) come in several shapes and sizes. Philips developed their own panels and also collaborated with Konica Minolta on the Lumiblade Plus panels which are the world's most efficient OLED panels produced today (45 lm/W).

Update: We've got a video of this cool prototype... see below

Universal Display shows new flexible OLED lighting panels at SID 2011. The new panels use the company's solution-processable P2OLED materials and the new single-layer encapsulation technology. UDC says they are showing this prototype to demonstrate how flexible OLED lighting and display technologies are accelerating towards commercialization.

The new prototype is pretty small - but UDC applied a motion sensor so this serpentine like lamp can recoil and uncoil... see more in this video:

iSupply says that AMOLED shipments are soaring (due to high-end Android phone demand). According to iSupply, in 2010 49.4 million AMOLED displays shipped bringing in a total of $892 million. This will grow to 271 million units in 2015 - to reach $3.6 billion in revenue. Challenges still ahead for AMOLED expansion include high manufacturing cost, resolution challenges, limited lifetime, poor sunlight visibility and a time-consuming manufacturing process. According to iSupply, AMOLEDs are typically 30% to 60% more expensive to make than LTPS LCD displays (which seems like an exaggeration to us).

DisplaySearch are much more optimistic about OLEDs: in their own forecasts released last month, they predict that AMOLED shipments in 2011 will reach 128 million to bring $4 billion in revenue. In 2012, AMOLED shipments will reach 212 million - and $6.4 billion in revenue. And all of this only from the mobile phone market...

Update: we learned that RiTDisplay have started to mass produce those AMOLEDs and have already found some smartphone clients.

IGNIS Innovation, unveiled a new 3.47" 320x480 AMOLED made on an amorphous silicon backplane (a-Si). The new display uses INGIS' new AdMo compensation technology and is made by RiTdisplay.

Today all AMOLEDs are made on LTPS backplanes. Ignis' solution uses a-Si which is cheaper but has stability issues. Ignis says that their new AdMo technology eliminates those issues - and makes the a-Si made AMOLED equivalent in performance to LTPS AMOLEDs. Ignis says that "This opens the door for RiTdisplay and other manufacturers to make state-of-the-art AMOLED displays using existing amorphous silicon equipment" - but they haven't announced when and if RiTDisplay (or other companies) plan to start using the technology.

Universal Display and the Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University (ASU) have successfully fabricated full-color, flexible AMOLED display prototypes that use the FDC's bond/de-bond manufacturing process. The new display use UDC's PHOLED materials and the new single-layer encapsulation technology. The OLED are made on DuPont Teijin Films Teonex polyester film.

The displays made are 3.8" in size and offer QVGA (320x240) resolution. They produced several displays, some on LTPS and some on IGzO backplanes.

AGC developed the world's thinnest flexible glass sheet - at only 0.1mm. The new glass is made from alkali-free glass and is manufactured using the float process. AGC says that this glass can be used in next-generation OLED displays and lighting panels.