OLED lighting bright prospects but need to solve a series of challenges

According to market research firm NanoMarkets data, OLED lighting market will reach $4 billion 500 million in 2013 scale. The analyst said that the data has made a huge leap thanks to advances in OLED performance and manufacturing in recent years.

They say that the price of OLED lights will not change much compared with the past, still more expensive than the old traditional lighting, but the subsequent costs will be balanced, because the life and efficiency of OLED has been improved. In recent years, the life expectancy of OLED increased from 24Khrs to 100Khrs.

The NanoMarkets report shows that the U.S. Department of energy hopes that the efficiency of OLED lighting will reach 150lm/W in 2012, rather than by 2014.

OLED's manufacturing process is said to have made considerable progress. GE and Fraunhofer Institute has begun to provide OLED lamp process - process (R2R) manufacturing process, the ultimate goal is to significantly improve the production cost of OLED assembly.

The use of low-cost molecular ink printing technology is expected to promote the OLED into the backlight market. NanoMarkets expects the OLED backlight market to reach $1 billion 100 million in size in the year of 2015.

And because OLED lighting panel size at first production is very small, the researchers hope, most recently in Asia large size OLED panel production scale increase, is expected to enhance the foundation of OLED lighting manufacturing system, and in the next few years to the development of large size.

They claim that the OLED's thin and flexible features can provide opportunities for high value added lighting, especially in the high-end consumer and construction markets. For example, they pointed out that the lighting design company IngoMaurer earlier this year to provide a kind of multi-functional desktop light OLED lighting equipment, and GE researchers also aimed at the lighting of the curtains and lighting wallpaper.

By 2015, NanoMarkets is expected to be used in construction and special industrial lighting OLED will reach $1 billion 900 million market size. The report also shows that the new application of OLED solid state lighting for those companies that provide OLED display to create a diversified market, these companies have been hit in the OLED display market.

However, the market research firm warned that although the application of printed OLED devices in the lighting market looks easy, but specific to each case, careful study will find the problem".

For example, OLED lighting may be used on the flexible panel lights, but no one knows how much this demand, and no one can prove that the price increases in the end how much added value.

Challenges and Solutions

Low cost printing technology and the R2R manufacturing process potential is regarded as the focus, to accelerate the application of LED lighting is very exciting but the report also pointed out that so far, no one in the real production environment to achieve the material and technological process. The challenge of OLED and other lighting technology seems to be the largest printing general illumination, the report questioned the consumer OLED lamps are relatively expensive (if you can buy it) what is the reason for it to pay higher fees, and the incandescent lamp and the fluorescent lamp is so cheap. The report stressed that there is no clear answer to this question. "

Part of the reason is that OLED display and lighting technology is still in the basic stage of development. Although the display technology has been listed for 10 years, generation LCD plant compared to factory to manufacture the product is much lower, and the maximum size of the OLED screen is only 11 inch (diagonal), the current commercial most is 2 to 3 inches of the small screen.

OLED lighting is the only topic recently, its brightness, efficiency and life just reached a good enough point, and OLED based lighting products are still in the development stage.

The researchers also said that the study of OLED lighting can learn from the basic research and development results of OLED - in terms of materials, manufacturing and other aspects - and can continue. For example, you can learn from the next few years OLED display challenges the large size of the research results of AMLCD and PDF small screen TV applications, display panel substrate manufacturers tend to use a larger size, to increase the number of panels of each substrate can be cut.

The researchers said the production of large scale display substrate manufacturing equipment can provide a good opportunity for OLED lighting, because large area OLED lighting will cover a larger market.

The report also pointed out that not only ILED, incandescent or fluorescent lamp is OLED's competitors, as well as other technologies (including some printing technology) will cause competition in some applications.

For example, in the keyboard or industrial panel backlighting, thick film field to EL is another technology, EL in the OLED do not need to consider the brightness and efficiency of the occasion is very suitable. The technology has been launched in the market and has proven to be useful in printing, flexible and variable shape applications such as OLED.

The report also referred to the threat of carbon nanotube (CNT) lighting technology. CNT provides more robust, less damaging structures. CNT lighting has also been shown to be implemented in print, so manufacturing costs can be reduced and CNT lighting can be transparent.

Source: China Lighting Network